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. 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." So, still within this life, though lifted o'er its strife, Let me discern, compare, pronounce at last, "This rage was right i' the main, that acquiescence vain: The Future I may face now I have proved the Past." 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. 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 waitedst age; wait death nor be afraid! 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. 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! 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? Not on the vulgar mass called "work" must sentence pass, 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: But all, the world's coarse thumb and finger failed to plumb, So passed in making up the main account; All instincts immature, all purposes unsure, That weighed not as his work, yet swelled the man's amount; 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 God, whose wheel the pitcher shaped. Ay, note that Potter's wheel, that metaphor! and feel Why time spins fast, why passive 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!" Fool! All that is at all lasts ever, past recall; Earth changes, but thy soul and God stand sure: What entered into thee, _that_ was, is, and shall be: Time's wheel runs back or stops; potter and clay endure.