brave, serviceable men of every nation tread down the nettle danger, and [400 pass flyingly over all the stumbling-blocks of prudence. Think of the heroism of Johnson, think of that superb indifference to mortal limitation that set him upon his dictionary, and carried him through triumphantly until the end! Who, if he were wisely considerate of things at large, would ever embark upon any work much more considerable than a halfpenny post-card? Who would project [410 a serial novel, after Thackeray and Dickens had each fallen in mid-course? Who would find heart enough to begin to live, if he dallied with the consideration of death? And, after all, what sorry and pitiful quibbling all this is! To forego all the issues of living in a parlor with a regulated temperature as if that were not to die a hundred times over, and for [420 ten years at a stretch! As if it were not to die in one's own lifetime, and without even the sad immunities of death! As if it were not to die, and yet be the patient spectators of our own pitiable change! The Permanent Possibility is preserved, but the sensations carefully held at arm's length, as if one kept a photographic plate in a dark chamber. It is better to lose health like a spendthrift than to [430 waste it like a miser. It is better to live and be done with it, than to die daily in the sick-room. By all means begin your folio; even if the doctor does not give you a year, even if he hesitates about a month, make one brave push and see what can be accomplished in a week. It is not only in finished undertakings that we ought to honor useful labor. A spirit goes out of the man who means [440 execution, which outlives the most untimely ending. All who have meant good work with their whole hearts, have done good work, although they may die before they have the time to sign it. Every heart that has beat strong and cheerfully has left a hopeful impulse behind it in the world, and bettered the tradition of mankind. And even if death catch people, like an open pitfall, and in [450 mid-career, laying out vast projects, and planning monstrous foundations, flushed with hope, and their mouths full of boastful language, they should be at once tripped up and silenced: is there not something brave and spirited in such a termination? and does not life go down with a better grace, foaming in full body over a precipice, than miserably straggling to an end in sandy deltas? [460 When the Greeks made their fine saying that those whom the gods love die young, I cannot help believing they had this sort of death also in their eye. For surely, at whatever age it overtake the man, this is to die young. Death has not been suffered to take so much as an illusion from his heart. In the hot-fit of life, a-tiptoe on the highest point of being, he passes at a bound on to the other [470 side. The noise of the mallet and chisel is scarcely quenched, the trumpets are hardly done blowing, when, trailing with him clouds of glory, this happy-starred, full-blooded spirit shoots into the spiritual land. Where shall we find her, how shall we sing to her, Fold our hands round her knees, and cling? BEFORE THE BEGINNING OF YEARS O that man's heart were as fire and could Before the beginning of years spring to her, There came to the making of man Fire, or the strength of the streams that Time, with a gift of tears; spring! 20 For the stars and the winds are unto her to her, Grief, with a glass that ran; And the southwest-wind, and the west- Strength without hands to smite; 5 ΙΟ 15 20 In the houses of death and of birth; And wrought with weeping and laughter, And fashioned with loathing and love, With life before and after And death beneath and above, For a day and a night and a morrow, 25 That his strength might endure for a span With travail and heavy sorrow, The holy spirit of man. From the winds of the north and the south They gathered as unto strife; They filled his body with life; And love, and a space for delight, 30 35 Ere March made sweet the weather 20 With daffodil and starling And hours of fruitful breath; If you were thrall to sorrow, And laughs of maid and boy; If you were thrall to sorrow, If you were April's lady, And I were lord in May, We'd throw with leaves for hours 25 30 35 Round your people and over them Light like raiment is drawn, God is buried and dead to us, 90 100 105 Some with mocking and mirth, Some with heartbreak and tears; And a God without eyes, without ears, Who shall sing of him, dead in the birth? |