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, thro' acts uncouth, 110 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 deg. here, as thou callest thy hand thine own, deg.117 With knowledge absolute, Subject to no dispute From fools that crowded youth, nor let thee feel alone. 120 Be there, for once and all, Severed great minds from small, Announced to each his station in the Past! Was I, deg. the world arraigned, deg.124 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 130 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 straight way to its mind, could value in a trice: But all, the world's coarse thumb And finger failed to plumb, 140 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 deg.: deg.144 Thoughts hardly to be packed Into a narrow act, Fancies that broke thro' language and escaped: All I could never be, All, men ignored in me, This, I was worth to God, whose wheel the pitcher shaped. 150 Ay, note that Potter's wheel, deg. deg.151 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, 160 _That_ was, is, and shall be: Time's wheel runs back or stops: Potter and clay endure. He fixed thee mid this dance Of plastic circumstance, This Present, thou forsooth, wouldst fain arrest: Machinery just meant To give thy soul its bent, Try thee and turn thee forth, sufficiently impressed.