An Introduction to the Study of Robert Browning's Poetry Part 50

24.

But all, the world's coa.r.s.e thumb And finger failed to plumb, So pa.s.sed in making up the main account: All instincts immature, All purposes unsure, That weighed not as his work, yet swelled the man's amount:

25.

Thoughts hardly to be packed Into a narrow act, Fancies that broke through language and escaped: All I could never be, All, men ignored in me, This, I was worth to G.o.d, whose wheel the pitcher shaped.

26.

Ay, note that Potter's wheel, That metaphor! and feel Why time spins fast, why pa.s.sive lies our clay,-- Thou, to whom fools propound, When the wine makes its round, "Since life fleets, all is change; the Past gone, seize to-day!"

-- St. 26. Potter's wheel: "But now, O Lord, thou art our Father: we are the clay, and thou our Potter; and we are all the work of thy hand."--Is. 64:8; and see Jer. 18:2-6.

27.

Fool! All that is, at all, Lasts ever, past recall; Earth changes, but thy soul and G.o.d stand sure: What entered into thee, THAT was, is, and shall be: Time's wheel runs back or stops: Potter and clay endure.

28.

He fixed thee mid this dance Of plastic circ.u.mstance, This Present, thou, forsooth, wouldst fain arrest: Machinery just meant To give thy soul its bent, Try thee, and turn thee forth sufficiently impressed.

29.

What though the earlier grooves Which ran the laughing loves Around thy base, no longer pause and press?

What though, about thy rim, Skull-things in order grim Grow out, in graver mood, obey the sterner stress?

30.

Look not thou down but up!

To uses of a cup, The festal board, lamp's flash, and trumpet's peal, The new wine's foaming flow, The Master's lips aglow!

Thou, heaven's consummate cup, what needst thou with earth's wheel?

31.

But I need, now as then, Thee, G.o.d, who mouldest men!

And since, not even while the whirl was worst, Did I,--to the wheel of life With shapes and colors rife, Bound dizzily,--mistake my end, to slake Thy thirst:

32.

So, take and use Thy work, Amend what flaws may lurk, 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!

A Grammarian's Funeral.

Shortly after the Revival of Learning in Europe.

Let us begin and carry up this corpse, Singing together.

Leave we the common crofts, the vulgar thorpes, Each in its tether Sleeping safe in the bosom of the plain, Cared-for till c.o.c.k-crow: Look out if yonder be not day again r.i.m.m.i.n.g the rock-row!

That's the appropriate country; there, man's thought, Rarer, intenser, {10} Self-gathered for an outbreak, as it ought, Chafes in the censer.

Leave we the unlettered plain its herd and crop; Seek we sepulture On a tall mountain, citied to the top, Crowded with culture!

All the peaks soar, but one the rest excels; Clouds overcome it; No, yonder sparkle is the citadel's Circling its summit. {20} Thither our path lies; wind we up the heights!

Wait ye the warning?

Our low life was the level's and the night's: He's for the morning.

Step to a tune, square chests, erect each head, 'Ware the beholders!

This is our master, famous, calm, and dead, Borne on our shoulders.

Sleep, crop and herd! sleep, darkling thorpe and croft Safe from the weather! {30} He, whom we convoy to his grave aloft, Singing together, He was a man born with thy face and throat, Lyric Apollo!

Long he lived nameless: how should spring take note Winter would follow?

Till lo, the little touch, and youth was gone!

Cramped and diminished, Moaned he, "New measures, other feet anon!

"My dance is finished?" {40} No, that's the world's way; (keep the mountain-side, Make for the city!) He knew the signal, and stepped on with pride Over men's pity; Left play for work, and grappled with the world Bent on escaping: "What's in the scroll," quoth he, "thou keepest furled?

Show me their shaping, Theirs who most studied man, the bard and sage,-- Give!"--So, he gowned him, {50} Straight got by heart that book to its last page: Learned, we found him.

Yea, but we found him bald too, eyes like lead, Accents uncertain: "Time to taste life," another would have said, "Up with the curtain!"

This man said rather, "Actual life comes next?

Patience a moment!

Grant I have mastered learning's crabbed text, Still there's the comment. {60} Let me know all! Prate not of most or least, Painful or easy!

Even to the crumbs I'd fain eat up the feast, Ay, nor feel queasy."

Oh, such a life as he resolved to live, When he had learned it, When he had gathered all books had to give!

Sooner, he spurned it.

Image the whole, then execute the parts-- Fancy the fabric {70} Quite, ere you build, ere steel strike fire from quartz, Ere mortar dab brick!

(Here's the town-gate reached; there's the market-place Gaping before us.) Yea, this in him was the peculiar grace (Hearten our chorus!) That before living he'd learn how to live-- No end to learning: Earn the means first--G.o.d surely will contrive Use for our earning. {80} Others mistrust and say, "But time escapes!

Live now or never!"

He said, "What's time? Leave Now for dogs and apes!

Man has Forever."

Back to his book then: deeper drooped his head: CALCULUS racked him: Leaden before, his eyes grew dross of lead: TUSSIS attacked him.

"Now, master, take a little rest!"--not he!

(Caution redoubled! {90} Step two abreast, the way winds narrowly!) Not a whit troubled, Back to his studies, fresher than at first, Fierce as a dragon He (soul-hydroptic with a sacred thirst) Sucked at the flagon.

Oh, if we draw a circle premature, Heedless of far gain, Greedy for quick returns of profit, sure Bad is our bargain! {100} Was it not great? did not he throw on G.o.d (He loves the burthen)-- G.o.d's task to make the heavenly period Perfect the earthen?

Did not he magnify the mind, show clear Just what it all meant?

He would not discount life, as fools do here, Paid by instalment.

He ventured neck or nothing--heaven's success Found, or earth's failure: {110} "Wilt thou trust death or not?" He answered, "Yes!

Hence with life's pale lure!"