15 Youth ended, I shall try Leave the fire ashes, what survives is gold: And I shall weigh the same, Give life its praise or blame : 85 Young, all lay in dispute; I shall know, being old. 16 For note, when evening shuts, A certain moment cuts The deed off, calls the glory from the grey : Shoots Add this to the rest, Take it and try its worth: here dies another day.' 17 So, still within this life, Though lifted o’er its strife, Let me discern, compare, pronounce at last, 'This rage was right i' the main, That acquiescence vain : 91 95 100 The Future I may face now I have proved the Past.' 18 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 105 Hints of the proper craft, tricks of the tool's true play. 19 As it was better, youth Should strive, through acts uncouth, 110 Toward making, than repose 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 115 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. 21 Be there, for once and all, Announced to each his station in the Past! Were they, my soul disdained, 120 125 Right? Let age speak the truth and give us peace at last! 22 Now, who shall arbitrate ? Shun what I follow, slight what I receive; Ten, who in ears and eyes Match me we all surmise, 130 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; Ö'er which, from level stand, The low world laid its hand, 136 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, 110 That weighed not as his work, yet swelled the man's · amount: 25 Thoughts hardly to be packed Into a narrow act, 145 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 Aye, note that Potter's wheel, 150 Why time spins fast, why passive lies our clay,—Thou, to whom fools propound, When the wine makes its round, 155 Since life fleets, all is change; the Past gone, seize to-day!' 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 : 160 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, 166 Try thee and turn thee forth, sufficiently impressed. 29 What though the earlier grooves Around thy base, no longer pause and press ? What though, about thy rim, Skull-things in order grim 170 Grow out, in graver mood, obey the sterner stress? 30 Look not thou down but up! To uses of a cup, 175 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, With shapes and colours rife, 180 185 Bound dizzily,-mistake my end, to slake Thy thirst: 32 So, take and use Thy work! What strain o' the stuff, what warpings past the aim ! My times be in Thy hand! 190 Let age approve of youth, and death complete the same! R. BROWNING. 349 PROSPICE J Fear death? to feel the fog in my throat, The mist in my face, When the snows! begin, and the blasts denote I am nearing the place, The power of the night, the press of the storm, 5 The post of the foe; Where he stands) the Arch Fear) in a visible form, Yet the strong man must go : For the journey is done and the summit attained, And the barriers fall, 10 Though a battle 's to fight ere the guerdon be gained, The reward of it all. I was ever a fighter, so-one fight more, The best and the last! I would hate that death bandaged my eyes, and forbore, And bade me creep past. 15 No! let me taste the whole of it, fare like my peers The heroes of old, Bear the brunt, in a minute pay glad life's arrears Of pain, darkness and cold. 20 For sudden the worst turns the best to the brave, The black minute 's at end, And the elements' rage, the fiend-voices that rave, Shall dwindle, shall blend, Shall change, shall become first a peace out of pain, Then a light, then thy breast, 26 O thou soul of my soul ! I shall clasp thee again, And with God be the rest! R. BROWNING. 350 THE EXECUTION OF MONTROSE 1 Come hither, Evan Cameron ! Come, stand beside my knee— I hear the river roaring down There's shouting on the mountain-side, Old faces look upon me, Old forms go trooping past: I hear the pibroch wailing Amidst the din of fight, And my dim spirit wakes again |