Not once beat "Praise be Thine! "I, who saw power, see now love perfect too: "Perfect I call Thy plan: "Thanks that I was a man! "Maker, remake, complete,-I trust what Thou shalt do!" For pleasant is this flesh; Pulled ever to the earth, still yearns for rest; To match those manifold Possessions of the brute,-gain most, as we did best! Let us not always say "Spite of this flesh to-day "I strove, made head, gained ground upon the whole!" As the bird wings and sings, "Are ours, nor soul helps flesh more, now, Therefore I summon age Life's struggle having so far reached its term: A man, for aye removed From the developed brute; a god though in the germ. And I shall thereupon Take rest, ere I be gone Once more on my adventure brave and new: When I wage battle next, What weapons to select, what armour to indue. Youth ended, I shall try Leave the fire ashes, what survives is gold: Give life its praise or blame: Young, all lay in dispute; I shall know, being For note, when evening shuts, The deed off, calls the glory from the grey: Shoots "Add this to the rest, "Take it and try its worth: here dies another So, still within this life, Let me discern, compare, pronounce at last, "That acquiescence vain: "The Future I may face now I have proved the Past.' For more is not reserved To man, with soul just nerved To act to-morrow what he learns to-day: The Master work, and catch Hints of the proper craft, tricks of the tool's true play. As it was better, youth Should strive, through acts uncouth, Toward making, than repose on aught found made: So, better, age, exempt From strife, should know, than tempt Further. Thou waitedest age: wait death nor be afraid! Enough now, if the Right Be named here, as thou callest thy hand thine own, With knowledge absolute, Subject to no dispute From fools that crowded youth, nor let thee feel alone. Be there, for once and all, Were they, my soul disdained, Right? Let age speak the truth and give us peace at last! Now, who shall arbitrate? Ten men love what I hate, Match me: we all surmise, They this thing, and I that: whom shall my soul believe? Not on the vulgar mass Called "work," must sentence pass, Things done, that took the eye and had the price; O'er which, from level stand, The low world laid its hand, Found straightway to its mind, could value in a trice: But all, the world's coarse thumb So passed in making up the main account; All purposes unsure, That weighed not as his work, yet swelled the man's amount: Thoughts hardly to be packed Fancies that broke through language and escaped: All, men ignored in me, This, I was worth to God, whose wheel the Ay, note that Potter's wheel, Why time spins fast, why passive lies our clay,- When the wine makes its round, "Since life fleets, all is change; the Past gone, seize to-day!" Fool! All that is, at all, Earth changes, but thy soul and God stand sure: What entered into thee, That was, is, and shall be: Time's wheel runs back or stops: Potter and clay endure. He fixed thee mid this dance This Present, thou, forsooth, would fain arrest: To give thy soul its bent, Try thee and turn thee forth, sufficiently impressed. What though the earlier grooves Around thy base, no longer pause and press? Scull-things in order grim Grow out, in graver mood, obey the sterner stress? Look not thou down but up! The festal board, lamp's flash and trumpet's peal, Thou, heaven's consummate cup, what need'st thou with earth's wheel? But I need, now as then, Thee, God, who mouldest men; And since, not even while the whirl was worst, Did I,-to the wheel of life With shapes and colours rife, Bound dizzily,-mistake my end, to slake Thy thirst: So, take and use Thy work: What strain o' the stuff, what warpings past the aim! My times be in Thy hand! Perfect the cup as planned! Let age approve of youth, and death complete the same! SUPE A DEATH IN THE DESERT UPPOSED of Pamphylax the Antiochene: Lies second in the surnamed Chosen Chest, |