No More Learning

B; thou? 1820.

PROMETHEUS:
There are two woes:
To speak, and to behold; thou spare me one.
Names are there, Nature's sacred watchwords, they
Were borne aloft in bright emblazonry;
The nations thronged around, and cried aloud, _650
As with one voice, Truth, liberty, and love!
Suddenly fierce confusion fell from heaven
Among them: there was strife, deceit, and fear:
Tyrants rushed in, and did divide the spoil.
This was the shadow of the truth I saw. _655

THE EARTH:
I felt thy torture, son; with such mixed joy
As pain and virtue give. To cheer thy state
I bid ascend those subtle and fair spirits,
Whose homes are the dim caves of human thought,
And who inhabit, as birds wing the wind, _660
Its world-surrounding aether: they behold
Beyond that twilight realm, as in a glass,
The future: may they speak comfort to thee!

PANTHEA:
Look, sister, where a troop of spirits gather,
Like flocks of clouds in spring's delightful weather, _665
Thronging in the blue air!

IONE:
And see! more come,
Like fountain-vapours when the winds are dumb,
That climb up the ravine in scattered lines.
And, hark! is it the music of the pines?
Is it the lake? Is it the waterfall?
_670

PANTHEA:
'Tis something sadder, sweeter far than all.

CHORUS OF SPIRITS:
From unremembered ages we
Gentle guides and guardians be
Of heaven-oppressed mortality;
And we breathe, and sicken not, _675
The atmosphere of human thought:
Be it dim, and dank, and gray,
Like a storm-extinguished day,
Travelled o'er by dying gleams;
Be it bright as all between _680
Cloudless skies and windless streams,
Silent, liquid, and serene;
As the birds within the wind,
As the fish within the wave,
As the thoughts of man's own mind _685
Float through all above the grave;
We make there our liquid lair,
Voyaging cloudlike and unpent
Through the boundless element:
Thence we bear the prophecy _690
Which begins and ends in thee!

NOTE:
_687 there B, edition 1839; these 1820.

IONE:
More yet come, one by one: the air around them
Looks radiant as the air around a star.

FIRST SPIRIT:
On a battle-trumpet's blast
I fled hither, fast, fast, fast, _695
'Mid the darkness upward cast.
From the dust of creeds outworn,
From the tyrant's banner torn,
Gathering 'round me, onward borne,
There was mingled many a cry-- _700
Freedom! Hope! Death! Victory!
Till they faded through the sky;
And one sound, above, around,
One sound beneath, around, above,
Was moving; 'twas the soul of Love; _705
'Twas the hope, the prophecy,
Which begins and ends in thee.

SECOND SPIRIT:
A rainbow's arch stood on the sea,
Which rocked beneath, immovably;
And the triumphant storm did flee, _710
Like a conqueror, swift and proud,
Between, with many a captive cloud,
A shapeless, dark and rapid crowd,
Each by lightning riven in half:
I heard the thunder hoarsely laugh: _715
Mighty fleets were strewn like chaff
And spread beneath a hell of death
O'er the white waters. I alit
On a great ship lightning-split,
And speeded hither on the sigh _720
Of one who gave an enemy
His plank, then plunged aside to die.

THIRD SPIRIT:
I sate beside a sage's bed,
And the lamp was burning red
Near the book where he had fed, _725
When a Dream with plumes of flame,
To his pillow hovering came,
And I knew it was the same
Which had kindled long ago
Pity, eloquence, and woe; _730
And the world awhile below
Wore the shade, its lustre made.
It has borne me here as fleet
As Desire's lightning feet:
I must ride it back ere morrow, _735
Or the sage will wake in sorrow.

FOURTH SPIRIT:
On a poet's lips I slept
Dreaming like a love-adept
In the sound his breathing kept;
Nor seeks nor finds he mortal blisses, _740
But feeds on the aereal kisses
Of shapes that haunt thought's wildernesses.
He will watch from dawn to gloom
The lake-reflected sun illume
The yellow bees in the ivy-bloom, _745
Nor heed nor see, what things they be;
But from these create he can
Forms more real than living man,
Nurslings of immortality!