<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=116320" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>Rabbi Ben Ezra</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">"Grow old along with me!<br> The best is yet to be,<br> The last of life for which the first was made."</div><div style="margin:10px 0">"Rabbi Ben Ezra" is a plea for each period in life. Aspiration is the keynote.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> " ... Trust God; see all, nor be afraid!"</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> 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 plann'd,<br> Youth shows but half; trust God: see all nor be afraid!"</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> Not that, amassing flowers,<br> Youth sigh'd, "Which rose make ours,<br> Which lily leave and then as best recall?"<br> Not that, admiring stars,<br> It yearn'd, "Nor Jove, nor Mars;<br> Mine be some figured flame which blends, transcends them all!"</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> 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> Finish'd and finite clods, untroubled by a spark.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> 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 maw-cramm'd beast?</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> 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.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> 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 the throe!</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> 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 i' the scale.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> 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?</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> 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 live and learn?"</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> 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 shalt do!"</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> For pleasant is this flesh,<br> Our soul, in its rose-mesh<br> Pull'd 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!</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> 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 flesh helps soul!"</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> 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 germ.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> And I shall thereupon<br> Take rest, ere I be gone<br> Once more on my adventure brave and new:<br> Fearless and unperplex'd,<br> When I wage battle next,<br> What weapons to select, what armour to indue.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> 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.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> For note, when evening shuts,<br> A certain moment cuts<br> The deed off, calls the glory from the gray:<br> A whisper from the west<br> Shoots--"Add this to the rest,<br> Take it and try its worth: here dies another day."</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> 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 Past"</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> 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.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> 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 waitedest age: wait death nor be afraid!</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> 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 alone.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> Be there, for once and all,<br> Sever'd great minds from small,<br> Announced to each his station in the Past!<br> Was I, the world arraigned,<br> Were they, my soul disdain'd,<br> Right? Let age speak the truth and give us peace at last!</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> 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 soul believe?</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> Not on the vulgar mass<br> Call'd "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:</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> But all, the world's coarse thumb<br> And finger fail'd to plumb,<br> So pass'd in making up the main account;<br> All instincts immature,<br> All purposes unsure,<br> That weigh'd not as his work, yet swell'd the man's amount:</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> Thoughts hardly to be pack'd<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 shaped.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> 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 to-day!"</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> Fool! All that is, at all,<br> Lasts ever, past recall;<br> Earth changes, but thy soul and God stand sure;<br> What enter'd into thee,<br> _That_ was, is, and shall be:<br> Time's wheel runs back or stops: Potter and clay endure.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> He fix'd thee 'mid this dance<br> Of plastic circumstance,<br> This Present, thou, forsooth, wouldst fain arrest<br> Machinery just meant<br> To give thy soul its bent,<br> Try thee and turn thee forth, sufficiently impress'd.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> 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> Scull-things in order grim<br> Grow out, in graver mood, obey the sterner stress?</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> 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 aglow!<br> Thou, heaven's consummate cup, what need'st thou with earth's wheel?</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> 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:</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> So, take and use Thy work:<br> Amend what flaws may lurk,<br> What strain o' the stuff, what warpings past the aim!<br> My times be in Thy hand!<br> Perfect the cup as plann'd!<br> Lest age approve of youth, and death complete the same!</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Robert+Browning">Robert Browning</a> from <i>Dramatis Personae</i><div class=q> <img src="https://www.citatepedia.ro/g/32share.png" style="float:left" alt="Share"> <script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=116320" data-title="Rabbi Ben Ezra de Robert Browning" data-description=""Grow old along with me!/ The best is yet to be,/ The last of life for which the first was made."/"Rabbi Ben Ezra" is a plea for each period in life. Aspiration is the keynote./ " ... Trust God; see all, nor be afraid!"/ Grow old along with me..."></div> </div> </div>

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