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There’s a fancy some lean to and others hate— That, when this life is ended, begins New work for the soul in another state, Where it strives and gets weary, loses and wins: Where the strong and the weak, this world’s congeries, Repeat in large what they practised in small, Through life after life in unlimited series; Only the scale’s to be changed, that’s all. Yet I hardly know. When a soul has seen By the means of Evil that Good is best, And, through earth and its noise, what is heaven’s serene,— When our faith in the same has stood the test— Why, the child grown man, you burn the rod, The uses of labour are surely done; There remaineth a rest for the people of God: And I have had troubles enough, for one.

There’s a fancy some lean to and others hate— That, when this life is ended, begins New work for the soul in another state, Where it strives and gets weary, loses and wins: Where the strong and the weak, this world’s congeries, Repeat in large what they practised in small, Through life after life in unlimited series; Only the scale’s to be changed, that’s all. Yet I hardly know. When a soul has seen By the means of Evil that Good is best, And, through earth and its noise, what is heaven’s serene,— When our faith in the same has stood the test— Why, the child grown man, you burn the rod, The uses of labour are surely done; There remaineth a rest for the people of God: And I have had troubles enough, for one.

Approximate author period: c. 1850 AD · industrial

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Attribution & collection notes
Author or tradition
Robert Browning
Attribution: attributed
Country attributed
Not established
A country attribution does not establish the earliest origin.
Historical period
Approximate author period: c. 1850 AD · industrial
author lifetime midpoint (1812–1889)
An author lifetime, approximate period or collection date is not necessarily the date when these words were first written or spoken.
Recorded source
My Commonplace Book (third English edition,1921) (1921 AD)

Page 204 · printed citation: R. Browning (Old Pictures in Florence). · compiler notes excluded

A collection's publication date can be later than the words it records.