Let us
begin and carry up this corpse,
Singing together.
Leave we
the common crofts, the vulgar thorpes
Each in its tether
Sleeping
safe on the bosom of the plain,
Cared-for till cock-crow:
Look out
if yonder be not day again
Rimming the rock-row!
That's
the appropriate country; there, man's thought,
Rarer, intenser,
Self-gathered for an outbreak, as it ought,
Chafes in the censer.
Leave we
the unlettered plain its herd and crop;
Seek we sepulture
On a tall
mountain, citied to the top,
Crowded with culture!
All the
peaks soar, but one the rest excels;
Clouds overcome it;
No!
yonder sparkle is the citadel's
Circling its summit.
Thither
our path lies; wind we up the heights:
Wait ye the warning?
Our low
life was the level's and the night's;
He's for the morning.
Step to a
tune, square chests, erect each head,
'Ware the beholders!
This is
our master, famous calm and dead,
Borne on our shoulders
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,
Lyric Apollo!
Long he
lived nameless: how should spring take note
Winter would follow?
Till lo,
the little touch, and youth was gone!
Cramped and diminished,
Moaned
he, "New measures, other feet anon!
"My dance is finished?"
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 hook 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! Prate not of most or least,
"Painful or easy!
"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!
Sooner, he spurned it.
Image the
whole, then execute the parts---
Fancy the fabric
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, "But time escapes:
"Live now or never!"
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,
Fierce as a dragon
He (soul-hydroptic
with a sacred thirst)
Sucked at the flagon.
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,
Paid by instalment.
He
ventured neck or nothing---heaven's success
Found, or earth's failure:
"Wilt
thou trust death or not?" He answered "Yes:
"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 nine 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
Seeking shall find him.
So, with
the throttling hands of death at strife,
Ground he at grammar;
Still,
thro' 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,
Dead from the waist down.
Well,
here's the platform, here's the proper place:
Hail to your purlieus,
All ye
highfliers of the feathered race,
Swallows and curlews!
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! Let joy break with the storm,
Peace let the dew send!
Lofty
designs must close in like effects
Loftily lying,
Leave
him---still loftier than the world suspects,
Living and
dying.
