Use all His hands, and exercise much craft, By no means for the love of what is worked. "Tasteth, himself, no finer good i' the world When all goes right, in this safe summertime,

And he wants little, hungers, aches not much,

190

Than trying what to do with wit and strength.

'Falls to make something: 'piled yon pile of turfs,

And squared and stuck there squares of soft white chalk,

And, with a fish-tooth, scratched a moon on each,

And set up endwise certain spikes of tree, 195 And crowned the whole with a sloth's skull a-top,

Found dead i' the woods, too hard for one to kill.

No use at all i' the work, for work's sole sake; 'Shall some day knock it down again: so He.

'Saith He is terrible: watch His feats in proof! 200

One hurricane will spoil six good months' hope.

He hath a spite against me, that I know, Just as He favours Prosper, who knows why? So it is, all the same, as well I find.

'Wove wattles half the winter, fenced them firm

205

When.. when . . well, never try the same way twice!

Repeat what act has pleased, He may grow wroth.

You must not know His ways, and play Him off,

Sure of the issue. 'Doth the like himself: 225 'Spareth a squirrel that it nothing fears But steals the nut from underneath my thumb,

And when I threat, bites stoutly in defence: 'Spareth an urchin that, contrariwise, Curls up into a ball, pretending death For fright at my approach: the two ways please.

230

But what would move my choler more than this,

That either creature counted on its life
To-morrow and next day and all days to

come,

Saying forsooth in the inmost of its heart, 235 'Because he did so yesterday with me, And otherwise with such another brute, So must he do henceforth and always.' - Ay?

'Would teach the reasoning couple what 'must' means!

240

'Doth as he likes, or wherefore Lord? So He. 'Conceiveth all things will continue thus, And we shall have to live in fear of Him So long as He lives, keeps His strength: no change,

If He have done His best, make no new world

To please Him more, so leave off watching this,

245

If He surprise not even the Quiet's self Some strange day, or, suppose, grow into it

As grubs grow butterflies: else, here are we, And there is He, and nowhere help at all. 'Believeth with the life, the pain shall stop.

250

'Would, to appease Him, cut a finger off,
Or of my three kid yearlings burn the best,
Or let the toothsome apples rot on tree,
Or push my tame beast for the orc to taste:
While myself lit a fire, and made a song 275
And sung it, 'What I hate, be consecrate
To celebrate Thee and Thy state, no mate
For Thee; what see for envy in poor me?'
Hoping the while, since evils sometimes
mend,

Warts rub away, and sores are cured with slime,

280

That some strange day, will either the Quiet catch

And conquer Setebos, or likelier He Decrepit may doze, doze, as good as die. [What, what? A curtain o'er the world at once!

Crickets stop hissing; not a bird or,

Poor men, God made, and all for that! The reverence struck me; o'er each head Religiously was hung his hat,

Each coat dripped by the owner's bed, Sacred from touch: each had his berth, His bounds, his proper place of rest, Who last night tenanted on earth

25

30

Some arch, where twelve such slept abreast,

Unless the plain asphalte seemed best.

How did it happen, my poor boy?

You wanted to be Buonaparte

And have the Tuileries for toy,

35

And could not, so it broke your heart? 40

You, old one by his side, I judge,
Were, red as blood, a socialist,
A leveller! Does the Empire grudge
You've gained what no Republic missed?
Be quiet, and unclench your fist!

And this why, he was red in vain,
Or black,
poor fellow that is blue!
What fancy was it, turned your brain?
Oh, women were the prize for you!
Money gets women, cards and dice
Get money, and ill-luck gets just
The copper couch and one clear nice
Cool squirt of water o'er your bust,
The right thing to extinguish lust!
It's wiser being good than bad;

It's safer being meek than fierce:
It's fitter being sane than mad.
My own hope is, a sun will pierce
The thickest cloud earth ever stretched;
That, after Last, returns the First,
Though a wide compass round be fetched;
That what began best, can't end worst,
Nor what God blessed once, prove accurst.
1864

EPILOGUE

45

There as here!'

50

55

60

Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861)

20

1889

And she treads the crimson carpet, and she breathes the perfumed air,

And a kingly blood sends glances up her princely eye to trouble,

And the shadow of a monarch's crown is softened in her hair.

She has halls among the woodlands, she has castles by the breakers,

She has farms and she has manors, she can

threaten and command,

10

And the palpitating engines snort in steam across her acres,

As they mark upon the blasted heaven the measure of the land.

There are none of England's daughters who can show a prouder presence; Upon princely suitors praying, she has looked in her disdain.

She was sprung of English nobles, I was born of English peasants;

15

What was I that I should love her save

for competence to pain?

I was only a poor poet, made for singing at her casement,

As the finches or the thrushes, while she thought of other things.

Oh, she walked so high above me, she appeared to my abasement,

In her lovely silken murmur, like an angel

clad in wings!

20