How it swells! How it dwells ROBERT BROWNING. 203 At the melancholy menace of their tone! For every sound that floats From the rust within their throats Is a groan. And the people, -ah, the people, - And who, tolling, tolling, tolling, On the human heart a stone, And their king it is who tolls; A pæan from the bells! With the pean of the bells! To the pean of the bells, - Keeping time, time, time, To the sobbing of the bells; As he knells, knells, knells, To the tolling of the bells, To the moaning and the groaning of the bells. ROBERT BROWNING. EVELYN HOPE. BEAUTIFUL Evelyn Hope is dead! Sit and watch by her side an hour. That is her book-shelf, this her bed; She plucked that piece of geraniumflower, Beginning to die, too, in the glass. Little has yet been changed, I think, The shutters are shut, no light may pass | I loved you, Evelyn, all the while; Save two long rays through the hinge's chink. My heart seemed full as it could hold, — There was place and to spare for the frank young smile And the red young mouth and the hair's young gold. So, hush, I will give you this leaf to keep, See, I shut it inside the sweet cold hand. There, that is our secret! go to sleep; You will wake, and remember, and understand. RABBI BEN EZRA. GROW old along with me! The last of life, for which the first was made: Who saith, "A whole I planned, Youth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor be afraid!" Our times are in His hand Not that, amassing flowers, It yearned, "Nor Jove, nor Mars; Then, welcome each rebuff ROBERT BROWNING. That turns earth's smoothness rough, Each sting that bids nor sit nor stand, but go! Be our joys three parts pain! 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: 205 Thence shall I pass, approved From the developed brute; a God though in the germ. And I shall thereupon A brute I might have been, but would Take rest, ere I be gone not sink i' the scale. What is he but a brute Whose flesh hath soul to suit, Once more on my adventure brave and new: Fearless and unperplexed, When I wage battle next, Whose spirit works lest arms and legs What weapons to select, what armor to want play? To man, propose this test, Thy body at its best, indue. Youth ended, I shall try How far can that project thy soul on its My gain or loss thereby; 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; Be 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. Should not the heart beat once, "How A certain moment cuts Maker, remake, complete, — I trust what Let me discern, compare, pronounce at For more is not reserved To man, with soul just nerved gain most, as To act to-morrow what he learns to-day: I strove, made head, gained ground upon the whole!" As the bird wings and sings, 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 All men ignored in me, 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 And Good and Infinite This I was worth to God, whose wheel Ay, note that Potter's wheel, Why time spins fast, why passive lies our Thou, to whom fools propound, Be named here, as thou callest thy hand When the wine makes its round, thine own, With knowledge absolute, Subject to no dispute "Since life fleets, all is change; the Past gone, seize to-day!" From fools that crowded youth, nor let Fool! All that is, at all, thee feel alone. Be there, for once and all, Severed great minds from small, Lasts ever, past recall; Earth changes, but thy soul and God stand sure: What entered into thee, Announced to each his station in the That was, is, and shall be: Past! Was I, the world arraigned, Were they, my soul disdained, Time's wheel runs back or stops: Potter and clay endure. Right? Let age speak the truth and He fixed thee mid this dance give us peace at last! Now, who shall arbitrate? Ten men love what I hate, Of plastic circumstance, This Present, thou, forsooth, wouldst fain arrest: Machinery just meant To give thy soul its bent, Shun what I follow, slight what I re- Try thee and turn thee forth, sufficiently ceive; Ten, who in ears and eyes Match me we all surmise, impressed. What though the earlier grooves They, this thing, and I, that: whom shall Which ran the laughing loves Look not thou down, but up! Found straightway to its mind, could To uses of a cup, value in a trice: But all, the world's coarse thumb And finger failed to plumb, The festal board, lamp's flash, and trumpet's peal, The new wine's foaming flow, The Master's lips aglow! So passed in making up the main account; Thou, heaven's consummate cup, what All instincts immature, All purposes unsure, needst thou with earth's wheel? That weighed not as his work, yet swelled But I need, now as then, the man's amount: Thoughts hardly to be packed Into a narrow act, Thee, God, who mouldest men; And since, not even while the whirl was worst, Did I to the wheel of life Fancies that broke through language and With shapes and colors rife, escaped; All I could never be, mistake my end, to Bound dizzily slake Thy thirst: |