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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 :
Machinery just meant

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,
Did I,-to the wheel of life

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,
The Dedication Day,

When the Levites joined the Priests
At the Altar in robed array,
Gave signal to sound and say,-

II

When the thousands, rear and van,
Swarming with one accord,
Became as a single man,

(Look, gesture, thought and word

In praising and thanking the Lord,

III

When the singers lift up their voice,
And the trumpets made endeavour,
Sounding, "In God rejoice!”
Saying, "In Him rejoice

"Whose mercy endureth for ever!"

IV

Then the Temple filled with a cloud,
Even the House of the Lord:
Porch bent and pillar bowed:

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,
Sharpening fast, shuddering ever, shutting still,
Dwindling into the distance, dies that star

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?
Why did it end? Who failed to beat the breast,
And shriek, and throw the arms protesting wide,
When a first shadow showed the star addressed
Itself to motion, and on either side

The rims contracted as the rays retired;
The music, like a fountain's sickening pulse,

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