What though the earlier grooves
Which ran the laughing loves
Around thy base, no longer pause and press? 
What though, about thy rim,
Scull-things in order grim
Grow out, in graver mood, obey the sterner stress?

Look not thou down but up! 
To uses of a cup,
The festal board, lamp’s flash and trumpet’s peal,
The new wine’s foaming flow,
The master’s lips aglow! 
Thou, heaven’s consummate cup, what need’st thou with earth’s wheel?

But I need, now as then,
Thee, God, who mouldest men;
And since, not even while the whirl was worst
Did I,—­to the wheel of life
With shapes and colours rife,
Bound dizzily,—­mistake my end, to slake Thy thirst: 

So, take and use Thy work: 
Amend what flaws may lurk,
What strain o’ the stuff, what warpings past the aim! 
My times be in Thy hand! 
Perfect the cup as plann’d! 
Lest age approve of youth, and death complete the same!

ROBERT BROWNING.

PROSPICE.

“Prospice,” by Robert Browning (1812-89), is the greatest death song ever written.  It is a battle-song and a paean of victory.

“The journey is done, the summit attained,
And the strong man must go.” 
“I would hate that Death bandaged my eyes and forebore,
And bade me creep past.” 
“No! let me taste the whole of it”
“The reward of all.”

This poem is included in this book because these lines are enough to
reconcile any one to any fate.

Fear death?—­to feel the fog in my throat,
The mist in my face,
When the snows begin, and the blasts denote
I am nearing the place,
The power of the night, the press of the storm,
The post of the foe;
Where he stands, the Arch Fear in a visible form,
Yet the strong man must go: 
For the journey is done and the summit attained,
And the barriers fall,
Though a battle’s to fight ere a guerdon be gained,
The reward of it all. 
I was ever a fighter, so—­one fight more. 
The best and the last! 
I would hate that death bandaged my eyes, and forebore,
And bade me creep past. 
No! let me taste the whole of it, fare like my peers
The heroes of old,
Bear the brunt, in a minute pay glad life’s arrears
Of pain, darkness, and cold. 
For sudden the worst turns the best to the brave,
The black minute’s at end. 
And the elements’ rage, the fiend-voices that rave
Shall dwindle, shall blend,
Shall change, shall become first a peace out of pain,
Then a light, then thy breast,
O thou soul of my soul!  I shall clasp thee again,
And with God be the rest!

ROBERT BROWNING.

RECESSIONAL.

The “Recessional” (by Rudyard Kipling, 1865-) is one of the most popular poems of this century.  It is a warning to an age and a nation drunk with power, a rebuke to materialistic tendencies and boastfulness, a protest against pride.

“Reverence is the master-key of knowledge.”