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15

Youth ended, I shall try
My gain or loss thereby ;

Leave the fire ashes, what survives is gold:

And I shall weigh the same,

Give life its praise or blame :

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Young, all lay in dispute; I shall know, being old.

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For note, when evening shuts,

A certain moment cuts

The deed off, calls the glory from the grey :
A whisper from the west

Shoots Add this to the rest,

Take it and try its worth: here dies another day.'

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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 :

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The Future I may face now I have proved the Past.'

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For more is not reserved

To man, with soul just nerved

To act to-morrow what he learns to-day:
Here, work enough to watch

The Master work, and catch

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Hints of the proper craft, tricks of the tool's true play.

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As it was better, youth

Should strive, through acts uncouth,

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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!

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Enough now, if the Right

And Good and Infinite

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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.

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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,

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Right? Let age speak the truth and give us peace

at last!

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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,

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They, this thing, and I, that: whom shall my soul

believe?

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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,

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Found straightway to its mind, could value in a trice :

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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,

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That weighed not as his work, yet swelled the man's

· amount:

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Thoughts hardly to be packed

Into a narrow act,

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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.

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Aye, note that Potter's wheel,
That metaphor! and feel

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Why time spins fast, why passive lies our clay,—Thou, to whom fools propound,

When the wine makes its round,

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Since life fleets, all is change; the Past gone, seize

to-day!'

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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 :

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Time's wheel runs back or stops; Potter and clay

endure.

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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,

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Try thee and turn thee forth, sufficiently impressed.

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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

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Grow out, in graver mood, obey the sterner stress?

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Look not thou down but up!

To uses of a cup,

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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?

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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,

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Bound dizzily,-mistake my end, to slake Thy

thirst:

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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!

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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.

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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.

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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,

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O thou soul of my soul ! I shall clasp thee again, And with God be the rest!

R. BROWNING.

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THE EXECUTION OF MONTROSE

1

Come hither, Evan Cameron !

Come, stand beside my knee—

I hear the river roaring down
Towards the wintry sea.

There's shouting on the mountain-side,
There's war within the blast-

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
Upon the verge of night.

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