135 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: XXIV. But all, the world's coarse thumb 140 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. 145 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, 150 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, why passive lies our clay,- 155 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: 160 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, 165 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, 170 Which ran the laughing loves, Around thy base, no longer pause and press? Skull-things in order grim Grow out, in graver mood, obey the sterner stress? XXX. 175 Look not thou down but up! To uses of a cup, The festal board, lamp's flash and trumpet's peal, The Master's lips aglow! 180 Thou, heaven's consummate cup, what needst thou with earth's wheel? XXXI. But I need, now as then, Thee, God, who moldest men; And since, not even while the whirl was worst, 185 With shapes and colors rife, Bound dizzily-mistake my end, to slake Thy thirst: XXXII. So, take and use Thy work: What strain o' the stuff, what warpings past the 190 My times be in Thy hand! Perfect the cup as planned! Let age approve of youth, and death complete the same! 5 10 EPILOGUE (From Asolando, 1890) At the midnight in the silence of the sleep-time, Will they pass to where-by death, fools think, Low he lies who once so loved you, whom you Oh to love so, be so loved, yet so mistaken! What had I on earth to do With the slothful, with the mawkish, the un manly? Like the aimless, helpless, hopeless did I drivel 15 20 One who never turned his back but marched breast forward, Never doubted clouds would break, Never dreamed, though right were worsted, wrong Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better, No, at noonday in the bustle of man's work-time Bid him forward, breast and back as either should "Strive and thrive!" cry "Speed,-fight on, fare ever There as here!" Elizabeth Barrett Browning 1809-1861 A MUSICAL INSTRUMENT (From Poems, 1844) I. What was he doing, the great god Pan, Spreading ruin and scattering ban, Splashing and paddling with hoofs of a goat, 5 And breaking the golden lilies afloat With the dragon-fly on the river. II. He tore out a reed, the great god Pan, The limpid water turbidly ran, III. High on the shore sat the great god Pan, 15 And hacked and hewed as a great god can, 20 IV. He cut it short, did the great god Pan (How tall it stood in the river!), Then drew the pith, like the heart of a man, And notched the poor dry empty thing V. 25 "This is the way," laughed the great god Pan (Laughed while he sat by the river), 30 "The only way, since gods began To make sweet music, they could succeed." VI. Sweet, sweet, sweet, O Pan! Piercing sweet by the river! Blinding sweet, O great god Pan! |