the home book of verse-1-第70节
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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