document.write("Grow old along with me!<br />   The best is yet to be,<br />The last of life, for which the first was made:<br />   Our times are in His hand<br />   Who saith, \\\'A whole I planned,<br />Youth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor be <br />       afraid!\\\'<br /><br />   Not that, amassing flowers,<br />   Youth sighed, \\\'Which rose make ours, <br />Which lily leave and then as best recall?\\\'<br />   Not that, admiring stars,<br />   It yearned, \\\'Nor Jove, nor Mars;<br />Mine be some figured flame which blends, transcends<br />       them all!\\\'<br />	   <br />   Not for such hopes and fears <br />   Annulling youth\\\'s brief years,<br />Do I remonstrate: folly wide the mark! <br />   Rather I prize the doubt<br />   Low kinds exist without,<br />Finished and finite clods, untroubled by a spark.<br /><br />   Poor vaunt of life indeed,<br />   Were man but formed to feed<br />On joy, to solely seek and find and feast; <br />   Such feasting ended, then<br />   As sure an end to men;<br />Irks care the crop-full bird? Frets doubt the <br />       maw-crammed beast?<br /><br />   Rejoice we are allied<br />   To That which doth provide<br />And not partake, effect and not receive! <br />   A spark disturbs our clod;<br />   Nearer we hold of God<br />Who gives, than of His tribes that take, I must believe.<br /><br />   Then, welcome each rebuff<br />   That turns earth\\\'s smoothness rough,<br />Each sting that bids nor sit nor stand but go! <br />   Be our joys three-parts pain!<br />   Strive, and hold cheap the strain;<br />Learn, nor account the pang; dare, never grudge <br />       the throe!<br /><br />   For thence,—a paradox<br />   Which comforts while it mocks,—<br />Shall life succeed in that it seems to fail:<br />   What I aspired to be,<br />   And was not, comforts me:<br />A brute I might have been, but would not sink <br />    i\\\' the scale.<br />	<br />   What is he but a brute <br />   Whose flesh has soul to suit,<br />Whose spirit works lest arms and legs want play? <br />   To man, propose this test—<br />   Thy body at its best,<br />How far can that project thy soul on its lone way?<br /><br />   Yet gifts should prove their use:<br />   I own the Past profuse<br />Of power each side, perfection every turn:<br />   Eyes, ears took in their dole,<br />   Brain treasured up the whole;<br />Should not the heart beat once \\\'How good to <br />       live and learn\\\'?<br /><br />   Not once beat \\\'Praise be thine!<br />   I see the whole design,<br />I, who saw power, see now love perfect too: <br />   Perfect I call thy plan:<br />   Thanks that I was a man!<br />Maker, remake, complete,—I trust what Thou <br />       shalt do!\\\'<br /><br />   For pleasant is this flesh;<br />   Our soul, in its rose-mesh<br />Pulled ever to the earth, still yearns for rest:<br />   Would we some prize might hold<br />   To match those manifold<br />Possessions of the brute,—gain most, as we did best!<br /><br />   Let us not always say,<br />   \\\'Spite of this flesh to-day<br />I strove, made head, gained ground upon the whole!\\\' <br />   As the bird wings and sings,<br />   Let us cry, \\\'All good things<br />Are ours, nor soul helps flesh more, now, than <br />       flesh helps soul!\\\'<br />	   <br />   Therefore I summon age <br />   To grant youth\\\'s heritage,<br />Life\\\'s struggle having so far reached its term:<br />   Thence shall I pass, approved<br />   A man, for aye removed<br />From the developed brute; a god though in the <br />       germ.<br /><br />   And I shall thereupon<br />   Take rest, ere I be gone<br />Once more on my adventure brave and new:<br />   Fearless and unperplexed,<br />   When I wage battle next,<br />What weapons to select, what armour to indue.<br /><br />   Youth ended, I shall try<br />   My gain or loss thereby;<br />Leave the fire ashes, what survives is gold:<br />   And I shall weigh the same,<br />   Give life its praise or blame:<br />Young, all lay in dispute; I shall know, being old.<br /><br />   For, note when evening shuts,<br />   A certain moment cuts<br />The deed off, calls the glory from the grey:<br />   A whisper from the west <br />   Shoots—\\\'Add this to the rest, <br />   Take it and try its worth: here dies another day.\\\'<br /><br />   So, still within this life,<br />   Though lifted o\\\'er its strife,<br />Let me discern, compare, pronounce at last, <br />   \\\'This rage was right i\\\' the main,<br />   That acquiescence vain:<br />The Future I may face now I have proved the <br />       Past.\\\'<br />	   <br />   For more is not reserved <br />   To man, with soul just nerved<br />To act to-morrow what he learns to-day:<br />   Here, work enough to watch<br />   The Master work, and catch<br />Hints of the proper craft, tricks of the tool\\\'s true play.<br /><br />   As it was better, youth<br />   Should strive, through acts uncouth, <br />Toward making, than repose on aught found made:<br />   So, better, age, exempt<br />   From strife, should know, than tempt <br />Further. Thou waitedst age: wait death nor be afraid!<br /><br />   Enough now, if the Right<br />   And Good and Infinite<br />Be named here, as thou callest thy hand thine own, <br />   With knowledge absolute,<br />   Subject to no dispute<br />From fools that crowded youth, nor let thee feel <br />       alone.<br /><br />   Be there, for once and all,<br />   Severed great minds from small,<br />Announced to each his station in the Past! <br />   Was I, the world arraigned,<br />   Were they, my soul disdained,<br />Right? Let age speak the truth and give us peace <br />       at last!<br /><br />   Now, who shall arbitrate?<br />   Ten men love what I hate,<br />Shun what I follow, slight what I receive; <br />   Ten, who in ears and eyes<br />   Match me: we all surmise,<br />They, this thing, and I, that: whom shall my <br />       soul believe?<br /><br />   Not on the vulgar mass<br />   Called \\\'work\\\', must sentence pass,<br />Things done, that took the eye and had the price; <br />   O\\\'er which, from level stand,<br />   The low world laid its hand,<br />Found straightway to its mind, could value in a trice:<br /><br />   But all, the world\\\'s coarse thumb<br />   And finger failed to plumb,<br />So passed in making up the main account; <br />   All instinct immature,<br />   All purposes unsure,<br />That weighed not as his work, yet swelled <br />   the man\\\'s amount:<br /><br />   Thoughts hardly to be packed<br />   Into a narrow act,<br />Fancies that broke through language and escaped; <br />   All I could never be,<br />   All, men ignored in me,<br />This, I was worth to God, whose wheel the pitcher <br />       shaped.<br /><br />   Ay, note that Potter\\\'s wheel,<br />   That metaphor! and feel<br />Why time spins fast, why passive lies our clay,—<br />   Thou, to whom fools propound,<br />   When the wine makes its round,<br />\\\'Since life fleets, all is change; the Past gone, seize <br />       to-day!\\\'<br /><br />   Fool! All that is, at all,<br />   Lasts ever, past recall;<br />Earth changes, but thy soul and God stand sure:<br />   What entered into thee,<br />   That was, is, and shall be:<br />Time\\\'s wheel runs back or stops: Potter and clay <br />       endure.<br />	   <br />   He fixed thee mid this dance <br />   Of plastic circumstance,<br />This Present, thou, forsooth, wouldst fain arrest:<br />   Machinery just meant<br />   To give thy souls its bent,<br />Try thee and turn thee forth, sufficiently impressed.<br /><br />   What though the earlier grooves <br />   Which ran the laughing loves<br />Around thy base, no longer pause and press? <br />   What though about thy rim,<br />   Skull-things in order grim<br />Grow out, in graver mood, obey the sterner stress?<br /><br />   Look not thou down but up!<br />   To uses of a cup,<br />The festal board, lamp\\\'s flash, and trumpet\\\'s peal, <br />   The new wine\\\'s foaming flow,<br />   The Master\\\'s lips a-glow!<br />Thou, heaven\\\'s consummate cup, what need\\\'st <br />   thou with earth\\\'s wheel?<br /><br />   But I need, now as then,<br />   Thee, God, who mouldest men;<br />And since, not even while the whirl was worst, <br />   Did I—to the wheel of life<br />   With shapes and colours rife,<br />Bound dizzily,—mistake my end, to slake Thy thirst:<br /><br />   So, take and use Thy work,<br />   Amend what flaws may lurk,<br />What strain o\\\' the stuff, what warpings past the   <br />       aim!<br />   My times be in Thy hand!<br />   Perfect the cup as planned!<br />Let age approve of youth, and death complete <br />        the same!");