No More Learning

[Footnote 4: 1833. The. ]

[Footnote 5: The little isle, 'i. e. ', Ithaca. ]

[Footnote 6: 1863 By. ]

[Footnote 7: Added in 1842. ]

[Footnote 8: 1833. Or, propt on lavish beds. ]

[Footnote 9: 1833 to 1850 inclusive. Hear. ]

[Footnote 10: 1833 to 1850 inclusive. Flowery peak. ]

[Footnote 11: In 1833 we have the following, which in 1842 was excised
and the present text substituted:--

We have had enough of motion,
Weariness and wild alarm,
Tossing on the tossing ocean,
Where the tusked sea-horse walloweth
In a stripe of grass-green calm,
At noontide beneath the lee;
And the monstrous narwhale swalloweth
His foam-fountains in the sea.
Long enough the wine-dark wave our weary bark did carry.
This is lovelier and sweeter,
Men of Ithaca, this is meeter,
In the hollow rosy vale to tarry,
Like a dreamy Lotos-eater, a delirious Lotos-eater!
We will eat the Lotos, sweet
As the yellow honeycomb,
In the valley some, and some
On the ancient heights divine;
And no more roam,
On the loud hoar foam,
To the melancholy home
At the limit of the brine,
The little isle of Ithaca, beneath the day's decline.
We'll lift no more the shattered oar,
No more unfurl the straining sail;
With the blissful Lotos-eaters pale
We will abide in the golden vale
Of the Lotos-land till the Lotos fail;
We will not wander more.
Hark! how sweet the horned ewes bleat
On the solitary steeps,
And the merry lizard leaps,
And the foam-white waters pour;
And the dark pine weeps,
And the lithe vine creeps,
And the heavy melon sleeps
On the level of the shore:
Oh! islanders of Ithaca, we will not wander more,
Surely, surely slumber is more sweet than toil, the shore
Than labour in the ocean, and rowing with the oar,
Oh! islanders of Ithaca, we will return no more.

The fine picture in the text of the gods of Epicurus was no doubt
immediately suggested by 'Lucretius', iii. , 15 'seq. ', while the
'Icaromenippus' of Lucian furnishes an excellent commentary on
Tennyson's picture of those gods and what they see. 'Cf. ' too the Song
of the Parcae in Goethe's 'Iphigenie auf Tauris', iv. , 5. ]






A DREAM OF FAIR WOMEN

First published in 1833 but very extensively altered on its
republication in 1842. It had been written by June, 1832, and appears to
have been originally entitled 'Legend of Fair Women' (see Spedding's
letter dated 21st June, 1832, 'Life', i. , 116).