No More Learning

"Or, O ye gifted givers! ye
Who give your liberal hearts to me
To make the world this harmony,

"Are ye resigned that they be spent
To such world's help? "
The Spirits bent
Their awful brows and said "Content. "

Content! it sounded like _Amen_
Said by a choir of mourning men;
An affirmation full of pain

And patience,--ay, of glorying
And adoration, as a king
Might seal an oath for governing.

Then said the angel--and his face
Lightened abroad until the place
Grew larger for a moment's space,--

The long aisles flashing out in light,
And nave and transept, columns white
And arches crossed, being clear to sight

As if the roof were off and all
Stood in the noon-sun,--"Lo, I call
To other hearts as liberal.

"This pedal strikes out in the air:
My instrument has room to bear
Still fuller strains and perfecter.

"Herein is room, and shall be room
While Time lasts, for new hearts to come
Consummating while they consume.

"What living man will bring a gift
Of his own heart and help to lift
The tune? --The race is to the swift. "

So asked the angel. Straight the while,
A company came up the aisle
With measured step and sorted smile;

Cleaving the incense-clouds that rise,
With winking unaccustomed eyes
And love-locks smelling sweet of spice.

One bore his head above the rest
As if the world were dispossessed,
And one did pillow chin on breast,

Right languid, an as he should faint;
One shook his curls across his paint
And moralized on worldly taint;

One, slanting up his face, did wink
The salt rheum to the eyelid's brink,
To think--O gods! or--not to think.

Some trod out stealthily and slow,
As if the sun would fall in snow
If they walked to instead of fro;

And some, with conscious ambling free,
Did shake their bells right daintily
On hand and foot, for harmony;

And some, composing sudden sighs
In attitudes of point-device,
Rehearsed impromptu agonies.
And when this company drew near
The spirits crowned, it might appear
Submitted to a ghastly fear;

As a sane eye in master-passion
Constrains a maniac to the fashion
Of hideous maniac imitation

In the least geste--the dropping low
O' the lid, the wrinkling of the brow,
Exaggerate with mock and mow,--

So mastered was that company
By the crowned vision utterly,
Swayed to a maniac mockery.

One dulled his eyeballs, as they ached
With Homer's forehead, though he lacked
An inch of any; and one racked

His lower lip with restless tooth,
As Pindar's rushing words forsooth
Were pent behind it; one his smooth

Pink cheeks did rumple passionate
Like AEschylus, and tried to prate
On trolling tongue of fate and fate;

One set her eyes like Sappho's--or
Any light woman's; one forbore
Like Dante, or any man as poor

In mirth, to let a smile undo
His hard-shut lips; and one that drew
Sour humours from his mother, blew

His sunken cheeks out to the size
Of most unnatural jollities,
Because Anacreon looked jest-wise;

So with the rest: it was a sight
A great world-laughter would requite,
Or great world-wrath, with equal right

Out came a speaker from that crowd
To speak for all, in sleek and proud
Exordial periods, while he bowed

His knee before the angel--"Thus,
O angel who hast called for us,
We bring thee service emulous,

"Fit service from sufficient soul,
Hand-service to receive world's dole,
Lip-service in world's ear to roll

"Adjusted concords soft enow
To hear the wine-cups passing, through,
And not too grave to spoil the show:

"Thou, certes, when thou askest more,
O sapient angel, leanest o'er
The window-sill of metaphor.

"To give our hearts up? fie! that rage
Barbaric antedates the age;
It is not done on any stage.

"Because your scald or gleeman went
With seven or nine-stringed instrument
Upon his back,--must ours be bent?

"We are not pilgrims, by your leave;
No, nor yet martyrs; if we grieve,
It is to rhyme to--summer eve:

"And if we labour, it shall be
As suiteth best with our degree,
In after-dinner reverie. "

More yet that speaker would have said,
Poising between his smiles fair-fed
Each separate phrase till finished;

But all the foreheads of those born
And dead true poets flashed with scorn
Betwixt the bay leaves round them worn,

Ay, jetted such brave fire that they,
The new-come, shrank and paled away
Like leaden ashes when the day

Strikes on the hearth. A spirit-blast,
A presence known by power, at last
Took them up mutely: they had passed.

And he our pilgrim-poet saw
Only their places, in deep awe,
What time the angel's smile did draw

His gazing upward. Smiling on,
The angel in the angel shone,
Revealing glory in benison;

Till, ripened in the light which shut
The poet in, his spirit mute
Dropped sudden as a perfect fruit;

He fell before the angel's feet,
Saying, "If what is true is sweet,
In something I may compass it:

"For, where my worthiness is poor,
My will stands richly at the door
To pay shortcomings evermore.

"Accept me therefore: not for price
And not for pride my sacrifice
Is tendered, for my soul is nice

"And will beat down those dusty seeds
Of bearded corn if she succeeds
In soaring while the covey feeds.

"I soar, I am drawn up like the lark
To its white cloud--so high my mark,
Albeit my wing is small and dark.

"I ask no wages, seek no fame:
Sew me, for shroud round face and name,
God's banner of the oriflamme.

"I only would have leave to loose
(In tears and blood if so He choose)
Mine inward music out to use:

"I only would be spent--in pain
And loss, perchance, but not in vain--
Upon the sweetness of that strain;

"Only project beyond the bound
Of mine own life, so lost and found,
My voice, and live on in its sound;

"Only embrace and be embraced
By fiery ends, whereby to waste,
And light God's future with my past. "

The angel's smile grew more divine,
The mortal speaking; ay, its shine
Swelled fuller, like a choir-note fine,

Till the broad glory round his brow
Did vibrate with the light below;
But what he said I do not know.