Where the apple reddens Lest we lose our Edens, Be a god and hold me Be a man and fold me With thine arm! Teach me, only teach, Love! As I ought I will speak thy speech, Love, Meet, if thou require it, Both demands, Laying flesh and spirit In thy hands. That shall be to-morrow Not to-night : I must bury sorrow Out of sight: -Must a little weep, Love, (Foolish me!) And so fall asleep, Love, 20 25 30 35 While I am I, and you are you, So long as the world contains us both, Me the loving and you the loath, While the one eludes, must the other pursue. It seems too much like a fate, indeed! Though I do my best I shall scarce succeed. 10 But what if I fail of my purpose here? It is but to keep the nerves at strain, To dry one's eyes and laugh at a fall, And baffled, get up and begin again, So the chace takes up one's life, that's all. While, look but once from your farthest bound At me so deep in the dust and dark, No sooner the old hope goes to ground 15 Than a new one, straight to the selfsame mark, I shape me Ever Removed! 20 R. BROWNING. 346 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 on the bosom of the plain, Cared-for till cock-crow: Look out if yonder be not day again Rimming the rock-row ! 5 That's the appropriate country; there, man's thought, Rarer, intenser, Self-gathered for an outbreak, as it ought, Chafes in the censer. 10 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; 15 No, yonder sparkle is the citadel's Circling its summit. Thither our path lies; wind we up the heights : Our low life was the level's and the night's ; 20 Step to a tune, square chests, erect each head, 25 '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! He, whom we convoy to his grave aloft, Singing together, He was a man born with thy face and throat, 30 Long he lived nameless: how should spring take note Till lo, the little touch, and youth was gone! Moaned he, 'New measures, other feet anon! 36 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 : 16 'What's in the scroll,' quoth he, 'thou keepest furled? Show me their shaping, Theirs, who most studied man, the bard and sage,- Yea, but we found him bald too, eyes like lead, 50 Time to taste life,' another would have said, 55 '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. Let me know all! Prate not of most or least, Even to the crumbs I'd fain eat up the feast, Oh, such a life as he resolved to live, When he had learned it, When he had gathered all books had to give ! Image the whole, then execute the parts Fancy the fabric 60 65 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— Earn the means first-God surely will contrive Others mistrust and say, 'But time escapes : Live now or never!' 75 80 He said, 'What's time? leave Now for dogs and apes! Back to his book then: deeper drooped his head : Man has Forever." Calculus racked him : 86 Leaden before, his eyes grew dross of lead : Tussis attacked him. 'Now, master, take a little rest!'-not he ! (Caution redoubled, 90 Step two a-breast, the way winds narrowly !) Back to his studies, fresher than at first, Fierce as a dragon He (soul-hydroptic with a sacred thirst) Sucked at the flagon. 95 Oh, if we draw a circle premature, Heedless of far gain, Greedy for quick returns of profit, sure, Bad is our bargain! Was it not great? did not he throw on God, (He loves the burthen)— God's task to make the heavenly period Did not he magnify the mind, show clear 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: 100 105 110 'Wilt thou trust death or not?' He answered 'Yes! Hence with life's pale lure! That low man seeks a little thing to do, Sees it and does it : This high man, with a great thing to pursue, 115 Dies ere he knows it. That low man goes on adding one to one, His hundred 's soon hit: This high man, aiming at a million, Misses an unit. 120 That, has the world here-should he need the next, This, throws himself on God, and unperplexed So, with the throttling hands of death at strife, Still, thro' the rattle, parts of speech were rife : While he could stammer He settled Hoti's business-let it be ! Properly based Oun Gave us the doctrine of the enclitic De, Dead from the waist down. 126 130 Well, here's the platform, here's the proper place: Hail to your purlieus, All ye highfliers of the feathered race, Swallows and curlews! 135 |