In Browning's metaphor, the Potter is God: the Wheel is the whirling
course of life's experiences: the Clay is man. God holds us on the
wheel to turn us into the proper shape. Owing to our flaws, the
strain is sometimes too great, and some of us are warped and twisted
by this stern discipline: other characters, made of better material,
constantly grow more beautiful and more serviceable under the
treatment. Browning had suffered the greatest sorrow of his life
when he wrote this poem, and yet he had faith enough to say in the
thirty-first stanza, that _not even while the whirl was worst_, did
he, bound dizzily to the terrible wheel of life, once lose his belief
that he was in God's hands and that the deep cuttings were for his
ultimate benefit.
In the making of a cup, the Potter engraved around the base lovely
images of youth and pleasure, and near the rim skulls and signs of
death: but what is a cup for? It is meant for the Master's lips. The
nearer therefore we approach to death, the nearer we are to God's
presence, who is making us fit to slake His thirst.
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