Page:Some soldier poets.djvu/141

Rh

Undoubtedly that is a true thought, and expressed with more cogency and clearness than—

It is obviously more often than not impossible to obey the command to grow old along with any genial old gentleman; it is often, also, untrue that the best is yet to be. No doubt it would be very consoling if experience bore out the old Rabbi; but it does not.

Now listen to Shelley, for the desired, the enchanting, the ever-acceptable accent which creates beauty and joy even out of depression:

True. To a Skylark treats continually of lovely and agreeable things, but so does Rabbi Ben Ezra; he compares passionate youth with serene old age, and, refurbishing the hackneyed image of the potter and the clay, substitutes for the nondescript "vessel" a Grecian urn. Yet with all these opportunities he never turns a single stanza so beautiful as the most abstract of Shelley's.

The fact is, Browning represents Rabbi Ben Ezra as a prosperous old man enjoying a stately decline, who allows Rh