The Voice of Science in Nineteenth-Century Literature Part 15

XV

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.

XVI

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."

XVII

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

XVIII

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.

XIX

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!

XX

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.

XXI

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!

XXII

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?

XXIII

Not on the vulgar ma.s.s Called "work," must sentence pa.s.s, 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 coa.r.s.e thumb And finger failed to plumb, So pa.s.sed 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

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 G.o.d, whose wheel the pitcher shaped.

XXVI

Ay, note that Potter's wheel, That metaphor! and feel Why time spins fast, why pa.s.sive 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!"

XXVII

Fool! All that is, at all, Lasts ever, past recall; Earth changes, but thy soul and G.o.d stand sure: 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 circ.u.mstance, 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 Which ran the laughing loves 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?

x.x.x

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 need'st thou with earth's wheel?

x.x.xI

But I need, now as then, Thee, G.o.d, 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:

x.x.xII

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!

AN EPISTLE

CONTAINING THE STRANGE MEDICAL EXPERIENCE OF KARSHISH, THE ARAB PHYSICIAN

Karshish, the picker-up of learning's crumbs, The not-incurious in G.o.d's handiwork (This man's-flesh He hath admirably made, Blown like a bubble, kneaded like a paste, To coop up and keep down on earth a s.p.a.ce That puff of vapor from his mouth, man's soul) --To Abib, all-sagacious in our art, Breeder in me of what poor skill I boast, Like me inquisitive how p.r.i.c.ks and cracks Befall the flesh through too much stress and strain, Whereby the wily vapor fain would slip Back and rejoin its source before the term,-- And aptest in contrivance, under G.o.d, To baffle it by deftly stopping such:-- The vagrant Scholar to his Sage at home Sends greeting (health and knowledge, fame with peace), Three samples of true snake-stone--rarer still, One of the other sort, the melon-shaped (But fitter, pounded fine, for charms than drugs), And writeth now the twenty-second time.

My journeyings were brought to Jericho; Thus I resume. Who studious in our art Shall count a little labor unrepaid?

I have shed sweat enough, left flesh and bone On many a flinty furlong of this land.

Also the country-side is all on fire With rumors of a marching hitherward-- Some say Vespasian cometh, some, his son.

A black lynx snarled and p.r.i.c.ked a tufted ear; l.u.s.t of my blood inflamed his yellow b.a.l.l.s: I cried and threw my staff and he was gone.

Twice have the robbers stripped and beaten me, And once a town declared me for a spy; But at the end, I reach Jerusalem, Since this poor covert where I pa.s.s the night, This Bethany, lies scarce the distance thence A man with plague-sores at the third degree Runs till he drops down dead. Thou laughest here!

'Sooth, it elates me, thus reposed and safe, To void the stuffing of my travel-scrip And share with thee whatever Jewry yields.

A viscid choler is observable In tertians, I was nearly bold to say, And falling-sickness hath a happier cure Than our school wots of: there's a spider here Weaves no web, watches on the ledge of tombs, Sprinkled with mottles on an ash-gray back; Take five and drop them ... but who knows his mind, The Syrian runagate I trust this to?

His service payeth me a sublimate Blown up his nose to help the ailing eye.

Best wait: I reach Jerusalem at morn There set in order my experiences, Gather what most deserves and give thee all-- Or I might add, Judea's gum-tragacanth Scales off in purer flakes, shines clearer-grained, Cracks 'twixt the pestle and the porphyry, In fine exceeds our produce. Scalp disease Confounds me, crossing so with leprosy-- Thou hadst admired one sort I gained at Zoar-- But zeal outruns discretion. Here I end.

Yet stay: my Syrian blinketh gratefully, Protesteth his devotion is my price-- Suppose I write what harms not, though he steal?

I half resolve to tell thee, yet I blush, What set me off a-writing first of all.