No More Learning

Or have smelt o' the bud o' the brier?
Or the nard in the fire?
Or have tasted the bag of the bee?
O so white! O so soft! O so sweet is she!



IN THE PERSON OF WOMANKIND.
A SONG APOLOGETIC.


MEN, if you love us, play no more
The fools or tyrants with your friends,
To make us still sing o'er and o'er
Our own false praises, for your ends:
We have both wits and fancies too,
And, if we must, let's sing of you.

Nor do we doubt but that we can,
If we would search with care and pain,
Find some one good in some one man;
So going thorough all your strain,
We shall, at last, of parcels make
One good enough for a song's sake.

And as a cunning painter takes,
In any curious piece you see,
More pleasure while the thing he makes,
Than when 'tis made--why so will we.
And having pleased our art, we'll try
To make a new, and hang that by.



ODE


_To the Immortal Memory and Friendship of that Noble Pair_, _Sir Lucius
Cary and Sir Henry Morison_.


I.

THE TURN.
BRAVE infant of Saguntum, clear
Thy coming forth in that great year,
When the prodigious Hannibal did crown
His cage, with razing your immortal town.
Thou, looking then about,
Ere thou wert half got out,
Wise child, didst hastily return,
And mad'st thy mother's womb thine urn.
How summed a circle didst thou leave mankind
Of deepest lore, could we the centre find!


THE COUNTER-TURN.


Did wiser nature draw thee back,
From out the horror of that sack,
Where shame, faith, honour, and regard of right,
Lay trampled on? the deeds of death and night,
Urged, hurried forth, and hurled
Upon th' affrighted world;
Sword, fire, and famine, with fell fury met,
And all on utmost ruin set;
As, could they but life's miseries foresee,
No doubt all infants would return like thee.


THE STAND.


For what is life, if measured by the space
Not by the act?
Or masked man, if valued by his face,
Above his fact?
Here's one outlived his peers,
And told forth fourscore years;
He vexed time, and busied the whole state;
Troubled both foes and friends;
But ever to no ends:
What did this stirrer but die late?
How well at twenty had he fallen or stood!
For three of his fourscore he did no good.


II.

THE TURN


He entered well, by virtuous parts,
Got up, and thrived with honest arts;
He purchased friends, and fame, and honours then,
And had his noble name advanced with men:
But weary of that flight,
He stooped in all men's sight
To sordid flatteries, acts of strife,
And sunk in that dead sea of life,
So deep, as he did then death's waters sup,
But that the cork of title buoyed him up.


THE COUNTER-TURN


Alas! but Morison fell young:
He never fell,--thou fall'st, my tongue.