Fearless and unperplexed, When I wage battle next, What weapons to select, what armour to indue. 15 Youth ended, I shall try My gain or loss thereby; Leave the fire ashes, what survives is gold: Give life its praise or blame : 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: A whisper from the west 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 : 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: Here, work enough to watch The Master work, and catch Hints of the proper craft, tricks of the tool's true play. 19 As it was better, youth Should strive, through acts uncouth, 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 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, 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! 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 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 Aye, note that Potter's wheel, 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!' 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? 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 colours 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! R. Browning CCCLXXVI TUBAL CAIN Old Tubal Cain was a man of might By the fierce red light of his furnace bright Till the sparks rushed out in scarlet showers, Hurra for the hand that shall wield them well, To Tubal Cain came many a one, As he wrought by his roaring fire, And each one prayed for a strong steel blade And he made them weapons sharp and strong, And gave him gifts of pearl and gold, And spoils of the forest free. And they sang 'Hurra for Tubal Cain, But a sudden change came o'er his heart, And Tubal Cain was filled with pain He saw that men, with rage and hate, Made war upon their kind, That the land was red with the blood they shed In their lust for carnage, blind. And he said-'Alas! that ever I made, Or that skill of mine should plan, The spear and the sword for men whose joy Is to slay their fellow-man.' And for many a day old Tubal Cain |