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And not partake; effect and not receive!

A spark disturbs our clod;

Nearer we hold of God

Who gives; than of his tribes that take; I must believe。



Then; welcome each rebuff

That turns earth's smoothness rough;

Each sting that bids nor sit nor stand but go!

Be our joys three…parts pain!

Strive; and hold cheap the strain;

Learn; nor account the pang; dare; never grudge the throe!



For thence; … a paradox

Which comforts while it mocks; …

Shall life succeed in that it seems to fail:

What I aspired to be;

And was not; comforts me:

A brute I might have been; but would not sink i' the scale。



What is he but a brute

Whose flesh has soul to suit;

Whose spirit works lest arms and legs want play?

To man; propose this test …

Thy body at its best;

How far can that project thy soul on its lone way?



Yet gifts should prove their use:

I own the Past profuse

Of power each side; perfection every turn:

Eyes; ears took in their dole;

Brain treasured up the whole:

Should not the heart beat once 〃How good to live and learn〃?



Not once beat 〃Praise be thine!

I see the whole design;

I; who saw power; see now Love perfect too:

Perfect I call thy plan:

Thanks that I was a man!

Maker; remake; complete; … I trust what thou shalt do!〃



For pleasant is this flesh;

Our soul; in its rose…mesh

Pulled ever to the earth; still yearns for rest:

Would we some prize might hold

To match those manifold

Possessions of the brute; … gain most; as we did best!



Let us not always say;

〃Spite of this flesh to…day

I strove; made head; gained ground upon the whole!〃

As the bird wings and sings;

Let us cry; 〃All good things

Are ours; nor soul helps flesh more; now; than flesh helps soul!〃



Therefore I summon age

To grant youth's heritage;

Life's struggle having so far reached its term:

Thence shall I pass; approved

A man; for aye removed

From the developed brute; a God though in the germ。



And I shall thereupon

Take rest; ere I be gone

Once more on my adventure brave and new:

Fearless and unperplexed;

When I wage battle next;

What weapons to select; what armor to indue。



Youth ended; I shall try

My gain or loss thereby;

Leave the fire ashes; what survives is gold:

And I shall weigh the same;

Give life its praise or blame:

Young; all lay in dispute; I shall know; being old。



For note; when evening shuts;

A certain moment cuts

The deed off; calls the glory from the gray:

A whisper from the west

Shoots … 〃Add this to the rest;

Take it and try its worth: here dies another day。〃



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。〃



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

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 waitedest age: wait death nor be afraid!



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。



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!



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?



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:



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:



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。



Ay; note that Potter's wheel;

That metaphor! and feel

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?〃



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。



He fixed thee 'mid this dance

Of plastic circumstance;

This Present; thou; forsooth; would fain arrest:

Machinery just meant

To give thy soul its bent;

Try thee and turn thee forth; sufficiently impressed。



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?



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 needest thou with earth's wheel?



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 colors rife;

Bound dizzily; … mistake my end; to slake thy thirst:



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!



Robert Browning '1812…1889'





HUMAN LIFE



Sad is our youth; for it is ever going;

Crumbling away beneath our very feet;

Sad is our life; for onward it is flowing;

In current unperceived because so fleet;

Sad are our hopes for they were sweet in sowing;

But tares; self…sown; have overtopped the wheat;

Sad are our joys; for they were sweet in blowing;

And still; O still; their dying breath is sweet:

And sweet is youth; although it hath bereft us

Of that which made our childhood sweeter still;

And sweet our life's decline; for it hath left us

A nearer Good to cure an older Ill:

And sweet are all things; when we learn to prize them

Not for their sake; but His who grants them or denies them。



Aubrey Thomas de Vere '1814…1902'





YOUNG AND OLD

From 〃The Water Babies〃



When all the world is young; lad;

And all the trees are green;

And every goose a swan; lad;

And every lass a queen;

Then hey for boot and horse; lad;

And round the world away;

Young blood must have its course; lad;

And every dog his day。



When all the world is old; lad;

And all the trees are brown;

And all the sport is stale; lad;

And all the wheels run down:

Creep home; and take your place there;

The spent and maimed among:

God grant you find one face there

You loved when all was young。



Charles Kingsley '1819…1875'





THE ISLE OF THE LONG AGO



Oh; a wonderful stream is the River Time;

As it flows through the realm of Tears;

With a faultless rhythm and a musical rhyme;

And a broader sweep and a surge sublime

As it blends with the ocean of Years。



How the winters are drifting like flakes of snow!

And the summers like buds between;

And the year in the sheaf … so they come and they go

On the River's breast with its ebb and flow;

As they glide in the shadow and sheen。



There's a magical Isle up the River Time

Where the softest of airs are playing;

There's a cloudless sky and a tropical clime;

And a voice as sweet as a vesper chime;

And the Junes with the roses are staying。



And the name of this Isle is the Long Ago;

And we bury our treasures there;

There are brows of beauty and bosoms of snow …

They are heaps of dust; but we loved them so!

There are trinkets and tresses of hair。



There are fragments of song that nobody sings;

And a part of an infant's prayer;

There's a harp unswept and a lute without strings;

There are broken vows and pieces of rings;

And the garments that she used to wear。



There are hands that are waved when the fairy shore

By the mirage is lifted in air;

And we sometimes hear through the turbulent roar

Sweet voices we heard in the days gone before;

When the wind down t

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