Asserts supremacy: the motion 's all

That colors me my moment: seen as joy? I have escaped from sorrow, or that was

Or might have been: as sorrow?- thence shall be

Escape as certain: white preceded black, Black shall give way to white as duly, so, Deepest in black means white most imminent, Stand still, - have no before, no after!-life Proves death, existence grows impossible

To man like me. 'What else is blessed sleep But death, then?' Why, a rapture of release From toil, that's sleep's approach: as certainly,

The end of sleep means, toil is triumphed o'er: These round the blank inconsciousness between Brightness and brightness, either pushed to blaze

Just through that blank's interposition. Hence The use of things external: man— that's IPractise thereon my power of casting light, And calling substance, when the light I cast Breaks into color, by its proper name

A truth and yet a falsity: black, white, Names each bean taken from what lay so close And threw such tint pain might mean pain indeed

Seen in the passage past it, pleasure prove No mere delusion while I pause to look, Though what an idle fancy was that fear Which overhung and hindered pleasure's hue! While how, again, pain's shade enhanced the shine

Of pleasure, else no pleasure! Such effects Came of such causes. Passage at an end, Past, present, future pains and pleasures fused So that one glance may gather blacks and whites

Into a lifetime, like my bean-streak there, Why, white they whirl into, not black for me!"

Lives, breeds, and dies in that circumference,
An inch of green for cradle, pasture-ground,
Purlieu and grave: the palm's use, ask of him!
'To furnish these,' replies his wit: ask thine
Who see the heaven above, the earth below,
Creation everywhere, these, each and all
Claim certain recognition from the tree
For special service rendered branch and bole,
Top-tuft and tap-root: - for thyself, thus seen,
Palms furnish dates to eat, and leaves to shade,

Maybe, thatch huts with, - have another use
Than strikes the aphis. So with me, my Son!
I know my own appointed patch i' the world,
What pleasures me or pains there: all out-
side

How he, she, it, and even thou, Son, live,
Are pleased or pained, is past conjecture, once
I pry beneath the semblance, all that's fit,
To practise with, reach where the fact may
lie

Fathom-deep lower. There's the first and last
Of my philosophy. Blacks blur thy white?
Not mine! The aphis feeds, nor finds his leaf
Untenable, because a lance-thrust, nay,,
Lightning strikes sere a moss-patch close be-
side,

Where certain other aphids live and love.
Restriction to his single inch of white,
That's law for him, the aphis: but for me,
The man, the larger-souled, beside my stretch
Of blacks and whites, I see a world of woe
All round about me: one such burst of black
Intolerable o'er the life I count

White in the main, and, yea -white's faintest trace

Were clean abolished once and evermore.
Thus fare my fellows, swallowed up in gloom
So far as I discern: how far is that?
God's care be God's! 'T is mine-

joy

to boast no

Unsobered by such sorrows of my kind
As sully with their shade my life that shines."

From black experience? Why, if God be just,
Were sundry fellow-mortals singled out
To undergo experience for his sake,
Just that the gift of pain, bestowed on them,
In him might temper to the due degree
Joy's else-excessive largess? Why, indeed!
Back are we brought thus to the starting-
point-

Man's impotency, God's omnipotence,
These stop my answer. Aphis that I am,
How leave my inch-allotment, pass at will
Into my fellow's liberty of range,

Enter into his sense of black and white,
As either, seen by me from outside, seems
Predominatingly the color? Life,
Lived by my fellow, shall I
pass into

And myself live there? No - no more than

pass

From Persia, where in sun since birth I bask
Daily, to some ungracious land afar,

Told of by travellers, where the night of snow
Smothers up day, and fluids lose themselves
Frozen to marble. How I bear the sun,
Beat though he may unduly, that I know:
How blood once curdled ever creeps again,
Baffles conjecture: yet since people live
Somehow, resist a clime would conquer me,
Somehow provided for their sake must dawn
Compensative resource. 'No sun, no grapes,
Then, no subsistence ! were it wisely said?
Or this well-reasoned 'Do I dare feel warmth
And please my palate here with Persia's vine,
Though, over- mounts, -to trust the travel-
ler,

Snow, feather-thick, is falling while I feast?
What if the cruel winter force his way

Here also ? Son, the wise reply were this : When cold from over-mounts spikes through and through

God is all-good, all-wise, all-powerful: truth? Take it and rest there. What is man? Not None of these absolutes therefore, yet himself,

A creature with a creature's qualities.
Make them agree, these two conceptions!

Each

Abolishes the other. Is man weak,

Foolish and bad? He must be Ahriman,
Co-equal with an Ormuzd, Bad with Good,
Or else a thing made at the Prime Sole Will,
Doing a maker's pleasure with results
Which call, the wide world over, 'what must
be'

But, from man's point of view, and only point Possible to his powers, call evidence

Of goodness, wisdom, strength? we mock our selves

In all that's best of us, -man's blind but

sure

Craving for these in very deed not word,
Reality and not illusions. Well,

Since these nowhere exist -nor there where

cause

Must have effect, nor here where craving means Craving unfollowed by fit consequence

And full supply, aye sought for, never foundThese what are they but man's own rule of right?

A scheme of goodness recognized by man,
Although by man unrealizable,-

Not God's with whom to will were to perform:

Will with performance, were deservedly Hailed the supreme-provided . . . here's the touch

That breaks the bubble. . . this concept of man's

Were man's own work, his birth of heart and brain,

His native grace, no alien gift at all.

The bubble breaks here. Will of man create ? No more than this my hand which strewed the beans

Produced them also from its finger-tips.

Back goes creation to its source, source prime
And ultimate, the single and the sole."

"How reconcile discordancy, -unite
Notion and notion - God that only can
Yet does not, - man that would indeed
But just as surely cannot, both in one?
What help occurs to thy intelligence?"

"Ah, the beans, or, example better yet, A carpet-web I saw once leave the loom And lie at gorgeous length in Ispahan! The weaver plied his work with lengths of silk Dyed each to match some jewel as it might, And wove them, this by that. How comes it, friend,'

(Quoth I)that while, apart, this fiery hue,
That watery dimness, either shocks the eye,
S blinding bright, or else offends again,
By dulness, yet the two, set each by each,
Somehow produce a color born of both,
A medium profitable to the sight??
'Such medium is the end whereat I aim,'
Answered my craftsman: there's no single
tinct

Would satisfy the eye's desire to taste
The secret of the diamond: join extremes
Results a serviceable medium-ghost,
The diamond's simulation. Even so
I needs must blend the quality of man
With quality of God, and so assist

Mere human sight to understand my Life,
What is, what should be, understand thereby
Wherefore I hate the first and love the last,
Jnderstand why things so present themselves
To me, placed here to prove I understand.
Thus, from beginning runs the chain to end,
And binds me plain enough. By consequence,
I bade thee tolerate, -not kick and cuff
The man who held that natures did in fact
Blend so, since so thyself must have them blend
In fancy, if it take a flight so far."

"A power, confessed past knowledge, nay, past thought,

-Thus thought thus known!"

"To know of, think about Is all man's sum of faculty effects When exercised on earth's least atom, Son! What was, what is, what may such atom be?

No answer! Still, what seems it to man's sense?

An atom with some certain properties
Known about, thought of as occasion needs,
- Man's S- but occasions of the universe?
Unthinkable, unknowable to man.

Yet, since to think and know fire through and through

Exceeds man, is the warmth of fire unknown, Its uses are they so unthinkable?

Pass from such obvious power to powers un

seen,

Undreamed of save in their sure consequence: Take that, we spoke of late, which draws to ground

The staff my hand lets fall: it draws, at least Thus much man thinks and knows, if nothing

more.

"Ay, but man puts no mind into such power! He neither thanks it, when an apple drops,

Nor prays it spare his pate while underneath. Does he thank Summer though it plumped the rind?

Why thank the other force - whate'er its

name

Which gave him teeth to bite and tongue to taste

And throat to let the pulp pass? Force and force,

No end of forces! Have they mind like man?"

66

Suppose thou visit our lord Shalim-Shah, Bringing thy tribute as appointed. Here Come I to pay my due!' Whereat one slave Obsequious spreads a carpet for thy foot,

His fellow offers sweetmeats, while a third Prepares a pipe: what thanks or praise have they?

Such as befit prompt service. Gratitude
Goes past them to the Shah whose gracious nod
Set all the sweet civility at work;

But for his ordinance, I much suspect,

My scholar had been left to cool his heels
Uncarpeted, or warm them-likelier still –

With bastinado for intrusion. Slaves

Needs must obey their master: 'force and

force,

No end of forces,' act as bids some force Supreme o'er all and each: where find that one?

Heroic man stands forth as Shahan-Shah.
Rustem and Gew, Gudarz and all the rest,
How come they short of lordship that's to
seek?

Dead worthies! but men live undoubtedly
Gifted as Sindokht, sage Sulayman's match,
Valiant like Kawah: ay, and while earth lasts
Such heroes shall abound there all for thee
Who profitest by all the present, past,
And future operation of thy race.

Why, then, o'erburdened with a debt of thanks,
Look wistful for some hand from out the clouds
To take it, when, all round, a multitude
Would ease thee in a trice?"

Stars which, unconscious of thy gaze beneath, Go glorifying, and glorify thee too

- Those Seven Thrones, Zurah's beauty, weird Parwin!

Whether shall love and praise to stars be paid
Or say some Mubid who, for good to thee
Blind at thy birth, by magic all his own
Opened thine eyes, and gave the sightless sight,
Let the stars' glory enter? Say his charm
Worked while thyself lay sleeping: as he went
Thou wakedst: "What a novel sense have I!
Whom shall I love and praise?' The stars,
each orb

Thou standest rapt beneath,' proposes one :
'Do not they live their life, and please them-
selves,

And so please thee? What more is requisite ?'
Make thou this answer: If indeed no mage
Opened my eyes and worked a miracle,
Then let the stars thank me who apprehend
That such an one is white, such other blue !
But for my apprehension both were blank.
Cannot I close my eyes and bid my brain
Make whites and blues, conceive without stars'
help,

New qualities of color? were my sight
Lost or misleading, would yon red — I judge
A ruby's benefaction - stand for aught
But green from vulgar glass? Myself appraise
Lustre and lustre: should I overlook
Fomalhaut and declare some fen-fire king,
Who shall correct me, lend me eyes he trusts
No more than I trust mine? My mage for me!
I never saw him: if he never was,

I am the arbitrator! No, my Son!
Let us sink down to thy similitude:
I eat my apple, relish what is ripe -
The sunny side, admire its rarity

Since half the tribe is wrinkled, and the rest
Hide commonly a maggot in the core,

And down Zerdusht goes with due smack of lips:

But thank an apple? He who made my mouth

To masticate, my palate to approve,
My maw to further the concoction - Him
I thank, but for whose work, the orchard's

wealth

Might prove so many gall-nuts -stocks er

stones

For aught that I should think, or know, or care."

"Why from the world," Ferishtah smiled, "should thanks

Go to this work of mine? If worthy praise, Praised let it be and welcome: as verse ranks, So rate my verse: if good therein outweighs Aught faulty judged, judge justly! Justice says: Be just to fact, or blaming or approving: But-generous? No, nor loving!

"Loving! what claim to love has work of mine? Concede my life were emptied of its gains

To furnish forth and fill work's strict confine,

Who works so for the world's sake- he complains With cause when hate, not love, rewards his pains I looked beyond the world for truth and beauty: Sought, found, and did my duty."

"Was it for mere fool's-play, make-believe and mumming,

So we battled it like men, not boylike sulked or whined?

Each of us heard clang God's Come!' and each was coming:

Soldiers all, to forward-face, not sneaks to lag behind!

"How of the field's fortune? That concerned our Leader!

Led, we struck our stroke nor cared for doings left and right:

Each as on his sole head, failer or succeeder, Lay the blame or lit the praise: no care for cowards: fight!"

Mr. Rawdon Brown was an Englishman who went to Venice on some temporary errand, and lived there for forty years, dying in that city in the summer of 1883. He had an enthusiastic love for Venice, and is mentioned in books of travel as one who knew the city thoroughly. The Venetian saying means that "everybody follows his taste as I follow mine." Toni was

the gondolier and attendant of Brown. The inscription on Brown's tomb is given in the third and fourth lines. G. W. COOK.

SIGHED Rawdon Brown: "Yes, I'm departing, Toni!

I needs must, just this once before I die, Revisit England: Anglus Brown am I, Although my heart 's Venetian. Yes, old

Nor tampers with its magic more than needs. Two names there are: That which the Hebrew reads

With his soul only if from lips it fell,

Echo, back thundered by earth, heaven and hell,

Would own "Thou didst create us!" Naught impedes

:

We voice the other name, man's most of might,
Awesomely, lovingly let awe and love
Mutely await their working, leave to sight
All of the issue as- below-above-
Shakespeare's creation rises: one remove,
Though dread - this finite from that infinite.
March 12, 1884.

THE FOUNDER OF THE FEAST Inscribed in an Album presented to Mr. Arthur Chappell, of the Saint James Hall Saturday and Monday popular concerts.

EPITAPH

ON LEVI LINCOLN THAXTER

Born in Watertown, Massachusetts, February 1, 1824. Died May 31, 1884.

Mr. Thaxter was early a student of Browning's genius and in his later years gave readings from his poems, which were singularly interpretative. The boulder over his grave bears these lines.