| |
| GROW old along with me! | |
| The best is yet to be, | |
| The last of life, for which the first was made: | |
| Our times are in his hand | |
| Who saith, “A whole I planned, | 5 |
| Youth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor be afraid!” | |
| |
| Not that, amassing flowers, | |
| Youth sighed, “Which rose make ours, | |
| Which lily leave and then as best recall?” | |
| Not that, admiring stars, | 10 |
| It yearned, “Nor Jove, nor Mars; | |
| Mine be some figured flame which blends, transcends them all!” | |
| |
| Not for such hopes and fears | |
| Annulling youth’s brief years, | |
| Do I remonstrate: folly wide the mark! | 15 |
| Rather I prize the doubt | |
| Low kinds exist without, | |
| Finished and finite clods, untroubled by a spark. | |
| |
| Poor vaunt of life indeed, | |
| Were man but formed to feed | 20 |
| On joy, to solely seek and find a feast: | |
| Such feasting ended, then | |
| As sure an end to men; | |
| Irks care the crop-full bird? Frets doubt the maw-crammed beast? | |
| |
| Rejoice we are allied | 25 |
| To that which doth provide | |
| 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. | 30 |
| |
| 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; | 35 |
| 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, | 40 |
| 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? | 45 |
| 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 | 50 |
| 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! | 55 |
| 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!” | 60 |
| |
| 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 | 65 |
| 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, | 70 |
| 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: | 75 |
| 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 | 80 |
| 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 | 85 |
| 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. | 90 |
| |
| 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, | 95 |
| 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, | 100 |
| 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: | 105 |
| 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, | 110 |
| 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! | |
| |
| Enough now, if the Right | 115 |
| 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. | 120 |
| |
| 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, | 125 |
| 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 | 130 |
| 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; | 135 |
| 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, | 140 |
| 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 | 145 |
| 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. | 150 |
| |
| 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, | 155 |
| “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, | 160 |
| 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: | 165 |
| 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 | 170 |
| Around thy base, no longer pause and press? | |
| What though, about thy rim, | |
| Skull-things in order grim | |
| Grow out, in graver mood, obey the sterner stress? | |
| |
| Look not thou down but up! | 175 |
| 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 aglow! | |
| Thou, heaven’s consummate cup, what needst thou with earth’s wheel? | 180 |
| |
| 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, | 185 |
| 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! | 190 |
| Perfect the cup as planned! | |
| Let age approve of youth, and death complete the same! | |
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