Introduction to Robert Browning [126]
on aught found made: So, better, age, exempt From strife, should know, than tempt Further. Thou waitedst age: wait death, nor be afraid!
20.
Enough now, if the Right And Good and Infinite 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.
-- St. 20. knowledge absolute: soul knowledge, which is reached through direct assimilation by the soul of the hidden principles of things, as distinguished from intellectual knowledge, which is based on the phenominal, and must be more or less subject to dispute.
21.
Be there, for once and all, Severed great minds from small, Announced to each his station in the Past! Was I, the world arraigned, Were they, my soul disdained, Right? Let age speak the truth and give us peace at last!
-- St. 21, vv. 4, 5. The relatives are suppressed; -- Was I whom the world arraigned, or were they whom my soul disdained, right?
22.
Now, who shall arbitrate? Ten men love what I hate, Shun what I follow, slight what I receive; Ten, who in ears and eyes Match me: we all surmise, They, this thing, and I, that: whom shall my soul believe?
23.
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:
24.
But all, the world's coarse thumb And finger failed to plumb, So passed 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 God, whose wheel the pitcher shaped.
26.
Ay, note that Potter's wheel, That metaphor! and feel Why time spins fast, why passive 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 God 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 circumstance, 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, God, 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 cock-crow: Look out if yonder be not day again Rimming the rock-row! That's the appropriate country; there, man's thought,
20.
Enough now, if the Right And Good and Infinite 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.
-- St. 20. knowledge absolute: soul knowledge, which is reached through direct assimilation by the soul of the hidden principles of things, as distinguished from intellectual knowledge, which is based on the phenominal, and must be more or less subject to dispute.
21.
Be there, for once and all, Severed great minds from small, Announced to each his station in the Past! Was I, the world arraigned, Were they, my soul disdained, Right? Let age speak the truth and give us peace at last!
-- St. 21, vv. 4, 5. The relatives are suppressed; -- Was I whom the world arraigned, or were they whom my soul disdained, right?
22.
Now, who shall arbitrate? Ten men love what I hate, Shun what I follow, slight what I receive; Ten, who in ears and eyes Match me: we all surmise, They, this thing, and I, that: whom shall my soul believe?
23.
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:
24.
But all, the world's coarse thumb And finger failed to plumb, So passed 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 God, whose wheel the pitcher shaped.
26.
Ay, note that Potter's wheel, That metaphor! and feel Why time spins fast, why passive 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 God 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 circumstance, 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, God, 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 cock-crow: Look out if yonder be not day again Rimming the rock-row! That's the appropriate country; there, man's thought,