The Norton Anthology of English literature. Volume 2

For note, when evening shuts, A certain moment cuts The deed off, calls the glory from the gray: A whisper from the west 95 Shoots�"Add this to the rest, Take it and try its worth: here dies another day."

17

So, still within this life, Though lifted o'er its strife, Let me discern, compare, pronounce at last, 100 "This rage was right i' the main, That acquiescence vain: The Future I may face now I have proved the Past."

18

For more is not reserved

To man, with soul just nerved 105 To act tomorrow what he learns today:

Here, work enough to watch

The Master work, and catch

Hints of the proper craft, tricks of the tool's true play.

19 As it was better, youth 110 Should strive, through acts uncouth,

Toward making, than repose on aught found made:

So, better, age, exempt

From strife, should know, than tempt0 attempt

Further. Thou waitedst age: wait death nor� be afraid! and do not

20

115 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 120 From fools that crowded youth, nor let thee feel alone.

5. If the fire leaves ashes.

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RABB I BE N EZRA / 1 30 9 Re there, for once and all, Severed great minds from small, Announced to each his station in the Past! 125Was I, the world arraigned,6 Were they, my soul disdained, Right? Let age speak the truth and give us peace at last!7 22 isoNow, 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? 1352 3 Not on the vulgar0 massCalled "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: common i4oM Rut all, the world's coarse thumb And finger failed to plumb,8 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.9 26 155Aye, note that Potter's wheel, That metaphor! and feel Why time spins fast, why passive lies our clay� Thou, to whom fools propound,1 When the wine makes its round, "Since life fleets, all is change; the Past gone, seize today!"

6. I.e., was I, whom the world arraigned. 7. Stanzas 20 and 21 affirm that in age we can more readily think independently than in youth. Maturity enables us to ignore the pressure of having to conform to the thinking of the crowd of small-minded people. 8. Allusion to a merchant or buyer feeling fabric to determine its price or value. 9. The speaker's highest qualities of soul were shaped on a potting wheel into an enduring "pitcher" or vessel by God. Cf. Isaiah 64.8. 1. Perhaps addressed to Omar Khayyam, whose poem. The Rubaiydt, urged men to eat, drink, and be merry. See FitzGerald's 1859 translation (p. 1213).

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131 0 / ROBERT BROWNING

27

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.

28

He fixed thee 'mid this dance Of plastic0 circumstance, molded

165 This Present, thou, forsooth, wouldst fain arrest:2 Machinery just meant To give thy soul its bent,

Try thee and turn thee forth, sufficiently impressed.

29

What though the earlier grooves 170 Which ran the laughing loves

Around thy base,3 no longer pause and press? What though, about thy rim, Skull-things in order grim

Grow out, in graver mood, obey the sterner stress?

3� 175 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! 180 Thou, heaven's consummate cup, what need'st thou with earth's wheel?

31 But I need, now as then, Thee, God, who moldest men;

And since, not even while the whirl was worst, Did I�to the wheel of life 185 With shapes and colors rife, Bound dizzily�mistake my end, to slake Thy thirst:

32 So, take and use Thy work: Amend what flaws may lurk,

What strain o' the stuff, what warpings past the aim! 190 My times be in Thy hand! Perfect the cup as planned! Let age approve of youth, and death complete the same!

ca.1862 1864

2. I.e., you would be glad to stop ("arrest") time at to figures of cherublike boys, often featured in this present point of your life. Renaissance art. 3. Of the clay pitcher. "Laughing loves" may refer

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1311

EMILY BRONTE 1818-1848