Change and Transformation

The greatest thing in this world is not so much where we are, but in which direction we are moving.

Man’s mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions.

The woods decay, the woods decay and fall,

 

Forward, forward let us range,

 

Out flew the web and floated wide;

 

She left the web, she left the loom,

 

That men may rise on stepping-stones

 

The old order changeth, yielding place to new,

 

When he falls, he falls like Lucifer,

 

Farewell! a long farewell, to all my greatness!

 

I shall fall

 

Consideration like an angel came,

 

Not I, not I, but the wind that blows through me! A fine wind is blowing the new direction of Time.

 

And slowly answer’d Arthur from the barge: The old order changeth, yielding place to new; And God fulfills himself in many ways, Lest one good custom should corrupt the world.

 

And ah for a man to arise in me, That the man I am may cease to be!

 

Let the great world spin forever down the ringing grooves of change.

 

How dull it is to pause, to make an end, To rust unburnished, not to shine in use, As though to breathe were life!

 

She left the web, she left the loom, She made three paces thro’ the room, She saw the water-lily bloom, She saw the helmet and the plume, Out flew the web and floated wide; The mirror crack’d from side to side. “The curse is come upon me,” cried

 

I know that age to age succeeds, Blowing a noise of tongues and deeds, A dust of systems and of creeds.

 

End of the wonderful one-hoss shay. Logic is logic. That’s all I say.

 

Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul, As the swift seasons roll! Leave thy low-vaulted past!

 

On or about December 1910 human characterchanged. . . . All human relations haveshifted—those between masters and servants, husbands and wives, parents and children.And when human relations change there is atthe same time a change in religion, conduct, politics, and literature.

How sad it is! I shall grow old, and horrible, and dreadful. But this picture will remain always young. It will never be older than this particular day of June. . . . If it were only the other way! If it were I who was to be always young, and the picture that was to grow old! For that—for that—I would give everything! Yes, there is nothing in the whole world I would not give! I would give my soul for that!

The ship is anchor’d safe and sound, its voyage closed and done,