Step to a tune, square chests, erect each head, This is our master, famous, calm and dead, Sleep, crop and herd! sleep, darkling thorpe and croft, Safe from the weather! He, whom we convoy to his grave aloft, Singing together, He was a man born with thy face and throat, Long he lived nameless: how should Spring take note Winter would follow? Till lo, the little touch, and youth was gone! Moaned he, "New measures, other feet anon! No, that's the world's way: (keep the mountain side, Make for the city!) He knew the signal, and stepped on with pride Over men's pity; Left play for work, and grappled with the world. Bent on escaping: "What's in the scroll," quoth he, "thou keepest furled? Show me their shaping, Theirs who most studied man, the bard and sage, Give!"-So, he gowned him, Straight got by heart that book to its last page: Learned, we found him. Yea, but we found him bald too, eyes like lead, Accents uncertain: "Time to taste life," another would have said, "Up with the curtain!" This man said rather, "Actual life comes next? Patience a moment! Grant I have mastered learning's crabbed text, Still there's the comment. Let me know all ! Painful or easy! Prate not of most or least, Even to the crumbs I'd fain eat up the feast, Ay, nor feel queasy." Oh, such a life as he resolved to live, When he had learned it, When he had gathered all books had to give! Image the whole, then execute the parts- Quite, ere you build, ere steel strike fire from quartz, Ere mortar dab brick! (Here's the town-gate reached: there's the market-place Gaping before us.) Yea, this in him was the peculiar grace (Hearten our chorus!) That before living he'd learn how to live No end to learning: Earn the means first-God surely will contrive Use for our earning. Others mistrust and say, Live now or never!" "But time escapes: He said, "What's time? Leave Now for dogs and apes! Man has Forever." Back to his book then: deeper drooped his head: Calculus racked him: Leaden before, his eyes grew dross of lead: Tussis attacked him. "Now, master, take a little rest!"-not he! (Caution redoubled, Step two abreast, the way winds narrowly!) Not a whit troubled, Back to his studies, fresher than at first, He (soul-hydroptic with a sacred thirst) Oh, if we draw a circle premature, Heedless of far gain, Greedy for quick returns of profit, sure Bad is our bargain! Was it not great? did not he throw on God, (He loves the burthen) God's task to make the heavenly period Perfect the earthen? Did not he magnify the mind, show clear Just what it all meant? He would not discount life, as fools do here, He ventured neck or nothing-heaven's success "Wilt thou trust death or not?" He answered Hence with life's pale lure!" That low man seeks a little thing to do, Sees it and does it: This high man, with a great thing to pursue, Dies ere he knows it. That low man goes on adding one to one, His hundred's soon hit: This high man, aiming at a million, Misses an unit. That, has the world here-should he need the next, Let the world mind him! This, throws himself on God, and unperplexed So, with the throttling hands of death at strife, Still, through the rattle, parts of speech were rife: While he could stammer He settled Hoti's business-let it be!— Properly based Oun Gave us the doctrine of the enclitic De, (J) HC XLII 675 Dead from the waist down. Well, here's the platform, here's the proper place: All ye highfliers of the feathered race, Here's the top-peak; the multitude below Live, for they can, there: This man decided not to Live but Know Bury this man there? Here-here's his place, where meteors shoot, clouds form, Lightnings are loosened, Stars come and go! storm, Let joy break with the Peace let the dew send! Lofty designs must close in like effects: Loftily lying, Leave him still loftier than the world suspects, ANDREA DEL SARTO " BUT do not let us quarrel any more, |