‘And yet, take heed,’ I answered, ‘lest we lean Too dangerously on the other side, And so fail twice. Be sure, no earnest work Of any honest creature, howbeit weak, Imperfect, ill-adapted, fails so much, It is not gathered as a grain of sand To enlarge the sum of human action used For carrying out God’s end. No creature works So ill, observe, that therefore he’s cashiered. The honest earnest man must stand and work; The woman also; otherwise she drops At once below the dignity of man, Accepting serfdom. Free men freely work: Whoever fears God, fears to sit at ease.’ He cried, ‘True. After Adam, work was curse; The natural creature labours, sweats and frets. But, after Christ, work turns to privilege; And henceforth one with our humanity, The Six-day Worker, working still in us, Has called us freely to work on with Him In high companionship. So, happiest! I count that Heaven itself is only work To a surer issue. Let us work, indeed,— But, no more, work as Adam ... nor as Leigh Erewhile, as if the only man on earth, Responsible for all the thistles blown And tigers couchant,—struggling in amaze Against disease and winter,—snarling on For ever, that the world’s not paradise. Oh cousin, let us be content, in work, To do the thing we can, and not presume To fret because it’s little. ’Twill employ Seven men, they say, to make a perfect pin: Who makes the head, content to miss the point,— Who makes the point, agreed to leave the join: And if a man should cry, ‘I want a pin, And I must make it straightway, head and point,’— His wisdom is not worth the pin he wants. Seven men to a pin,—and not a man too much! Seven generations, haply, to this world, To right it visibly, a finger’s breadth, And mend its rents a little. Oh, to storm And say,—‘This world here is intolerable; I will not eat this corn, nor drink this wine, Nor love this woman, flinging her my soul Without a bond for’t, as a lover should, Nor use the generous leave of happiness As not too good for using generously’— (Since virtue kindles at the touch of joy, Like a man’s cheek laid on a woman’s hand; And God, who knows it, looks for quick returns From joys)!—to stand and claim to have a life Beyond the bounds of the individual man, And raze all personal cloisters of the soul To build up public stores and magazines, As if God’s creatures otherwise were lost, The builder surely saved by any means! To think,—I have a pattern on my nail, And I will carve the world new after it, And solve so, these hard social questions,—nay, Impossible social questions,—since their roots Strike deep in Evil’s own existence here, Which God permits because the question’s hard To abolish evil nor attaint free-will. Ay, hard to God, but not to Romney Leigh!