Thence feeling, therefore stronger: still by stress Of Strength, work Knowledge! Full three hundred years Have men to wear away in smiles and tears Between the two that nearly seemed to touch, [Sidenote: In composite work they end and name.] Observe you! quit one workman and you clutch Another, letting both their trains go by-- The actors-out of either's policy, Heinrich, on this hand, Otho, Barbaross, Carry the three Imperial crowns across, Aix' Iron, Milan's Silver, and Rome's Gold-- While Alexander, Innocent uphold On that, each Papal key--but, link on link, Why is it neither chain betrays a chink? How coalesce the small and great? Alack, For one thrust forward, fifty such fall back! Do the popes coupled there help Gregory Alone? Hark--from the hermit Peter's cry At Claremont, down to the first serf that says Friedrich 's no liege of his while he delays Getting the Pope's curse off him! The Crusade-- Or trick of breeding Strength by other aid Than Strength, is safe. Hark--from the wild harangue Of Vimmercato, to the carroch's clang Yonder! The League--or trick of turning Strength Against Pernicious Strength, is safe at length. Yet hark--from Mantuan Albert making cease The fierce ones, to Saint Francis preaching peace Yonder! God's Truce--or trick to supersede The very Use of Strength, is safe. Indeed We trench upon the future. Who is found To take next step, next age--trail o'er the ground-- Shall I say, gourd-like?--not the flower's display Nor the root's prowess, but the plenteous way O' the plant--produced by joy and sorrow, whence Unfeeling and yet feeling, strongest thence? Knowledge by stress of merely Knowledge? No-- E'en were Sordello ready to forego His life for this, 't were overleaping work Some one has first to do, howe'er it irk, Nor stray a foot's breadth from the beaten road. Who means to help must still support the load Hildebrand lifted--'why hast Thou,' he groaned, 'Imposed on me a burden, Paul had moaned, And Moses dropped beneath?' Much done--and yet Doubtless that grandest task God ever set On man, left much to do: at his arm's wrench, Charlemagne's scaffold fell; but pillars blench Merely, start back again--perchance have been Taken for buttresses: crash every screen, Hammer the tenons better, and engage A gang about your work, for the next age Or two, of Knowledge, part by Strength and part By Knowledge! Then, indeed, perchance may start Sordello on his race--would time divulge Such secrets! If one step's awry, one bulge Calls for correction by a step we thought Got over long since, why, till that is wrought, No progress! And the scaffold in its turn Becomes, its service o'er, a thing to spurn. Meanwhile, if your half-dozen years of life