Book 8 — MEISTER’S TRAVELS;

OR,

THE RENUNCIANTS.

A NOVEL.

To travel now the Apprentice does essay,

And every step is girt with doubt and danger:

In truth, he uses not to sing or pray;

But, is his path perplexed, this toilsome ranger

Does turn an earnest eye, when mist’s above him,

To his own heart, and to the hearts that love him.

100Scarce could tell you rightly

Whether I’m the same or not,

If you task me very tightly:

Yes, this is my sense you’ve got,—

Sense that vexes, then assuages,

Now too light, and now too dark,

But in some few hundred pages

May again come to the mark.

101Does Fortune try thee? She had cause to do’t:

She wished thee temperate; obey, be mute!

What, shap’st thou here at the world! ’tis shapen long ago;

The Maker shaped it, he thought it best even so:

Thy lot is appointed, go follow its hest;

Thy way is begun, thou must walk, and not rest;

For sorrow and care cannot alter thy case;

And running, not raging, will win thee the race.

Enweri tells us, a most royal man,

The deepest heart and highest head to scan:

“In every place, at every time, thy surest chance

Lies in decision, justice, tolerance.”

My inheritance, how wide and fair!

Time is my estate: to time I’m heir.

Now it is day: be doing, every one;

For the night cometh, wherein work can none.

102And so I, in Tale adjoining,

Lift old treasures into day;

If not gold or perfect coining,

They are metals any way:

Thou canst sort them, thou canst sunder,

Thou canst melt and make them one;

Then take that with smiling wonder,

Stamp it like thyself, my son.

103

MEISTER’S TRAVELS.