XVIII 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. As it was better, youth XIX 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! XX Enough now, if the Right And Good and Infinite Be named here, as thou call'st thy hand thine own, With knowledge absolute, Subject to no dispute From fools that crowded youth, nor let thee feel alone. XXI 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! XXII 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? XXIII 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 tricè : XXIV 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, That weighed not as his work, yet swelled the man's amount: XXV 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. XXVI Ay, note that Potter's wheel, That metaphor! and feel Why time spins fast, wny 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!" XXVII 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. XXVIII He fixed thee 'mid this dance Of plastic circumstance, This Present, thou, forsooth, wouldst fain arrest : To give thy soul its bent, Try thee and turn thee forth, sufficiently impressed. XXIX What though the earlier grooves Which ran the laughing loves Around thy base, no longer pause and press? What though, about thy rim, Scull-things in order grim Grow out, in graver mood, obey the sterner stress? XXX 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 a-glow ! Thou, heaven's consummate cup, what needst thou with earth's wheel? XXXI 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, Bound dizzily,-mistake my end, to slake Thy thirst: XXXII 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 ! EPILOGUE. FIRST SPEAKER, as David. I ON the first of the Feast of Feasts, When the Levites joined the Priests II When the thousands, rear and van, (Look, gesture, thought and word In praising and thanking the Lord, III When the singers lift up their voice, "Whose mercy endureth for ever!" IV Then the Temple filled with a cloud, For the presence of the Lord, In the glory of His cloud, Had filled the House of the Lord. SECOND SPEAKER, as Renan. Gone now! All gone across the dark so far, Which came, stood, opened once! We gazed our fill With upturned faces on as real a Face That, stooping from grave music and mild fire, Took in our homage, made a visible place Through many a depth of glory, gyre on gyre, For the dim human tribute. Was this true? Could man indeed avail, mere praise of his, To help by rapture God's own rapture too, Thrill with a heart's red tinge that pure pale bliss? The rims contracted as the rays retired; |