You
can not weigh diamonds on hay scales: the indicator would show
precisely nothing. And yet one diamond, too fine for these huge
scales, might be of more value than thousands of tons of hay.
From the twenty-sixth stanza to the end, Browning takes up the
figure of the Potter, the Wheel, and the Clay. I think that he was
drawn to use this metaphor, not from Scripture, but as a protest
against the use of it in Fitzgerald's _Omar Khayyam_. Fitzgerald
published his translation in 1859; and although it attracted no
public attention, it is certainly possible that Browning saw it. He
would have enjoyed its melodious beauty, but the philosophy of the
poem would have been to him detestable and abhorrent. Much is made
there of the Potter, meaning blind destiny: and the moral is,
"Drink! the Past gone, seize To-day!" Browning explicitly rejects
and scorns this teaching: it is propounded by fools for the benefit
of other fools.
Fool! all that is, at all,
Lasts ever, past recall;
Earth changes, but thy soul and God stand sure:
What entered into thee,
_That_ was, is, and shall be:
Time's wheel runs back or stops: Potter and clay endure.
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