XXXI. But I need, now as then, Thee, God, who moldest men; And since, not even while the whirl was worst, 185 With shapes and colors rife, Bound dizzily-mistake my end, to slake Thy thirst: XXXII. So, take and use Thy work: What strain o' the stuff, what warpings past the aim! 190 My times be in Thy hand! Perfect the cup as planned! Let age approve of youth, and death complete the same! 5 10 EPILOGUE (From Asolando, 1890) At the midnight in the silence of the sleep-time, Will they pass to where-by death, fools think, Low he lies who once so loved you, whom you Oh to love so, be so loved, yet so mistaken! With the slothful, with the mawkish, the un- Like the aimless, helpless, hopeless did I drivel i 15 20 One who never turned his back but marched breast forward, Never doubted clouds would break, Never dreamed, though right were worsted, wrong Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better, No, at noonday in the bustle of man's work-time Bid him forward, breast and back as either should "Strive and thrive!" cry "Speed,-fight on, fare ever There as here!" Elizabeth Barrett Browning 1809-1861 A MUSICAL INSTRUMENT (From Poems, 1844) I. What was he doing, the great god Pan, II. He tore out a reed, the great god Pan, The limpid water turbidly ran, III. High on the shore sat the great god Pan, 15 And hacked and hewed as a great god can, 20 IV. He cut it short, did the great god Pan (How tall it stood in the river!), Then drew the pith, like the heart of a man, And notched the poor dry empty thing V. 25"This is the way," laughed the great god Pan (Laughed while he sat by the river), 30 "The only way, since gods began To make sweet music, they could succeed.” VI. Sweet, sweet, sweet, O Pan! Piercing sweet by the river! VII. Yet half a beast is the great god Pan, To laugh as he sits by the river, 40 The true gods sigh for the cost and pain,- SONNETS CHEERFULNESS TAUGHT BY REASON I think we are too ready with complaint Of yon grey blank of sky, we might grow faint 5 To muse upon eternity's constraint Round our aspirant souls; but since the scope For a few days consumed in loss and taint? 10 And, like a cheerful traveller, take the road, THE PROSPECT Methinks we do as fretful children do, To sigh the glass dim with their own breath's And shut the sky and landscape from their view: 5 And thus, alas, since God the maker drew A mystic separation 'twixt those twain, The life beyond us, and our souls in pain, We miss the prospect which we are called unto By grief we are fools to use. Be still and strong, 10 O man, my brother! hold thy sobbing breath, And keep thy soul's large window pure from wrong That so, as life's appointment issueth, Thy vision may be clear to watch along WORK What are we set on earth for? Say, to toil; Nor seek to leave thy tending of the vines For all the heat o' the day, till it declines, And Death's mild curfew shall from work assoil. 5 God did anoint thee with His odorous oil, To wrestle, not to reign; and He assigns All thy tears over, like pure crystallines, For younger fellow-workers of the soil To wear for amulets. So others shall 10 Take patience, labour, to their heart and hand, From thy hand and thy heart and thy brave cheer, And God's grace fructify through thee to all. The least flower, with a brimming cup may stand, And share its dew-drop with another near. (From Sonnets from the Portuguese, 1850) I. I thought once how Theocritus had sung Of the sweet years, the dear and wished-for years, Who each one in a gracious hand appears To bear a gift for mortals, old or young: 5 And, as I mused it in his antique tongue, I saw, in gradual vision through my tears, The sweet, sad years, the melancholy years, |