No More Learning

See 'The Haunted Cellar' in p. 81 of the edition of
1862, and as Tennyson has elsewhere in 'Guinevere' borrowed a passage
from the same story (see 'Illustrations of Tennyson', p. 152) it is
probable that that was the source of the story here, though there the
Cluricaune uses the expression, "Here we go altogether". ]

[Footnote 6: 1842 and 1843. I that am. Now, I that am. ]

[Footnote 7: 1842.

scored upon the part
Which cherubs want. ]







THE EARLY POEMS OF

EDWIN MORRIS;

OR, THE LAKE

This poem first appeared in the seventh edition of the Poems, 1851. It
was written at Llanberis. Several alterations were made in the eighth
edition of 1853, since then none, with the exception of "breath" for
"breaths" in line 66.


O Me, my pleasant rambles by the lake,
My sweet, wild, fresh three-quarters of a year,
My one Oasis in the dust and drouth
Of city life! I was a sketcher then:
See here, my doing: curves of mountain, bridge,
Boat, island, ruins of a castle, built
When men knew how to build, upon a rock,
With turrets lichen-gilded like a rock:
And here, new-comers in an ancient hold,
New-comers from the Mersey, millionaires,
Here lived the Hills--a Tudor-chimnied bulk
Of mellow brickwork on an isle of bowers.
O me, my pleasant rambles by the lake
With Edwin Morris and with Edward Bull
The curate; he was fatter than his cure.

But Edwin Morris, he that knew the names,
Long-learned names of agaric, moss and fern, [1]
Who forged a thousand theories of the rocks,
Who taught me how to skate, to row, to swim,
Who read me rhymes elaborately good,
His own--I call'd him Crichton, for he seem'd
All-perfect, finish'd to the finger nail.
[2]
And once I ask'd him of his early life,
And his first passion; and he answer'd me;
And well his words became him: was he not
A full-cell'd honeycomb of eloquence
Stored from all flowers? Poet-like he spoke.

"My love for Nature is as old as I;
But thirty moons, one honeymoon to that,
And three rich sennights more, my love for her.
My love for Nature and my love for her,
Of different ages, like twin-sisters grew, [3]
Twin-sisters differently beautiful.
To some full music rose and sank the sun,
And some full music seem'd to move and change
With all the varied changes of the dark,
And either twilight and the day between;
For daily hope fulfill'd, to rise again
Revolving toward fulfilment, made it sweet
To walk, to sit, to sleep, to wake, to breathe. " [4]

Or this or something like to this he spoke.
Then said the fat-faced curate Edward Bull,
"I take it, God made the woman for the man,
And for the good and increase of the world,
A pretty face is well, and this is well,
To have a dame indoors, that trims us up,
And keeps us tight; but these unreal ways
Seem but the theme of writers, and indeed
Worn threadbare. Man is made of solid stuff.
I say, God made the woman for the man,
And for the good and increase of the world. "

"Parson," said I, "you pitch the pipe too low:
But I have sudden touches, and can run
My faith beyond my practice into his:
Tho' if, in dancing after Letty Hill,
I do not hear the bells upon my cap,
I scarce hear [5] other music: yet say on.
What should one give to light on such a dream? "
I ask'd him half-sardonically.
"Give? Give all thou art," he answer'd, and a light
Of laughter dimpled in his swarthy cheek;
"I would have hid her needle in my heart,
To save her little finger from a scratch
No deeper than the skin: my ears could hear
Her lightest breaths: her least remark was worth
The experience of the wise. I went and came;
Her voice fled always thro' the summer land;
I spoke her name alone. Thrice-happy days!