Master and Scholar

LET me retrace the record of the yearsThat made me what I am. A man most wise,But overworn with toil and bent with age,Sought me to be his scholar,-me, run wildFrom books and teachers,-kindled in my soulThe love of knowledge; led me to his tower,Showed me the wonders of the midnight realmHis hollow sceptre ruled, or seemed to rule,Taught me the mighty secrets of the spheres,Trained me to find the glimmering specks of lightBeyond the unaided sense, and on my chartTo string them one by one, in order due,As on a rosary a saint his beads.I was his only scholar; I becameThe echo to his thought; whate'er he knewWas mine for asking; so from year to yearW e wrought together, till there came a timeWhen I, the learner, was the master halfOf the twinned being in the dome-crowned tower.

Minds roll in paths like planets; they revolve,This in a larger, that a narrower ring,But round they come at last to that same phase,That selfsame light and shade they showed before.I learned his annual and his monthly tale,His weekly axiom and his daily phrase,I felt them coming in the laden air,And watched them laboring up to vocal breath,Even as the first-born at his father's boardKnows ere he speaks the too familiar jestIs on its way, by some mysterious signForewarned, the click before the striking bell.

He shrivelled as I spread my growing leaves,Till trust and reverence changed to pitying care;He lived for me in what he once had been,But I for him, a shadow, a defence,The guardian of his fame, his guide, his staff,Leaned on so long he fell if left alone.I was his eye, his ear, his cunning hand,Love was my spur and longing after fame,But his the goading thorn of sleepless ageThat sees its shortening span, its lengthening shades,That clutches what it may with eager grasp,And drops at last with empty, outstretched hands.All this he dreamed not. He would sit him downThinking to work his problems as of old,And find the star he thought so plain a blur,The columned figures labyrinthine wildsWithout my comment, blind and senseless scrawlsThat vexed him with their riddles; he would striveAnd struggle for a while, and then his eyeWould lose its light, and over all his mindThe cold gray mist would settle; and erelongThe darkness fell, and I was left alone.