XXXI. 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 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 aim! My times be in Thy hand! Let age approve of youth, and death complete the same! EPILOGUE (From Asolando, 1890) At the midnight in the silence of the sleep-time, When you set your fancies free, Will they pass to where-by death, fools think, imprisoned Low he lies who once so loved you, whom you Oh to love so, be so loved, yet so mistaken! With the slothful, with the mawkish, the unmanly? Like the aimless, helpless, hopeless did I drivel -Being-who? One who never turned his back but marched breast forward, Never doubted clouds would break, Never dreamed, though right were worsted, wrong would triumph, Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better, No, at noonday in the bustle of man's work-time Greet the unseen with a cheer! Bid him forward, breast and back as either should be, "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, Splashing and paddling with hoofs of a goat, 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, And hacked and hewed as a great god can, IV. He cut it short, did the great god Pan And notched the poor dry empty thing V. "This is the way," laughed the great god Pan (Laughed while he sat by the river), "The only way, since gods began To make sweet music, they could succeed." Then, dropping his mouth to a hole in the reed, He blew in power by the river. VI. Sweet, sweet, sweet, O Pan! Piercing sweet by the river! VII. Yet half a beast is the great god Pan, The true gods sigh for the cost and pain,- SONNETS CHEERFULNESS TAUGHT BY REASON I think we are too ready with complaint Of yon grey blank of sky, we might grow faint Round our aspirant souls; but since the scope THE PROSPECT Methinks we do as fretful children do, Leaning their faces on the window-pane To sigh the glass dim with their own breath's stain, And shut the sky and landscape from their view: We miss the prospect which we are called unto By grief we are fools to use. Be still and strong, O man, my brother! hold thy sobbing breath, And keep thy soul's large window pure from wrong That so, as life's appointment issueth, Thy vision may be clear to watch along WORK What are we set on earth for? Say, to toil; (From Sonnets from the Portuguese, 1850) I. I thought once how Theocritus had sung |