No More Learning

***


THE BOAT ON THE SERCHIO.

[Published in part (lines 1-61, 88-118) by Mrs. Shelley, "Posthumous
Poems", 1824; revised and enlarged by Rossetti, "Complete Poetical
Works of P. B. S. ", 1870. ]

Our boat is asleep on Serchio's stream,
Its sails are folded like thoughts in a dream,
The helm sways idly, hither and thither;
Dominic, the boatman, has brought the mast,
And the oars, and the sails; but 'tis sleeping fast, _5
Like a beast, unconscious of its tether.

The stars burnt out in the pale blue air,
And the thin white moon lay withering there;
To tower, and cavern, and rift, and tree,
The owl and the bat fled drowsily. _10
Day had kindled the dewy woods,
And the rocks above and the stream below,
And the vapours in their multitudes,
And the Apennine's shroud of summer snow,
And clothed with light of aery gold _15
The mists in their eastern caves uprolled.

Day had awakened all things that be,
The lark and the thrush and the swallow free,
And the milkmaid's song and the mower's scythe
And the matin-bell and the mountain bee: _20
Fireflies were quenched on the dewy corn,
Glow-worms went out on the river's brim,
Like lamps which a student forgets to trim:
The beetle forgot to wind his horn,
The crickets were still in the meadow and hill: _25
Like a flock of rooks at a farmer's gun
Night's dreams and terrors, every one,
Fled from the brains which are their prey
From the lamp's death to the morning ray.

All rose to do the task He set to each, _30
Who shaped us to His ends and not our own;
The million rose to learn, and one to teach
What none yet ever knew or can be known.
And many rose
Whose woe was such that fear became desire;-- _35
Melchior and Lionel were not among those;
They from the throng of men had stepped aside,
And made their home under the green hill-side.
It was that hill, whose intervening brow
Screens Lucca from the Pisan's envious eye, _40
Which the circumfluous plain waving below,
Like a wide lake of green fertility,
With streams and fields and marshes bare,
Divides from the far Apennines--which lie
Islanded in the immeasurable air. _45

'What think you, as she lies in her green cove,
Our little sleeping boat is dreaming of? '
'If morning dreams are true, why I should guess
That she was dreaming of our idleness,
And of the miles of watery way _50
We should have led her by this time of day.
'-

'Never mind,' said Lionel,
'Give care to the winds, they can bear it well
About yon poplar-tops; and see
The white clouds are driving merrily, _55
And the stars we miss this morn will light
More willingly our return to-night. --
How it whistles, Dominic's long black hair!
List, my dear fellow; the breeze blows fair:
Hear how it sings into the air--' _60

--'Of us and of our lazy motions,'
Impatiently said Melchior,
'If I can guess a boat's emotions;
And how we ought, two hours before,
To have been the devil knows where. ' _65
And then, in such transalpine Tuscan
As would have killed a Della-Cruscan,

. . .

So, Lionel according to his art
Weaving his idle words, Melchior said:
'She dreams that we are not yet out of bed; _70
We'll put a soul into her, and a heart
Which like a dove chased by a dove shall beat. '

. . .

'Ay, heave the ballast overboard,
And stow the eatables in the aft locker. '
'Would not this keg be best a little lowered? ' _75
'No, now all's right. ' 'Those bottles of warm tea--
(Give me some straw)--must be stowed tenderly;
Such as we used, in summer after six,
To cram in greatcoat pockets, and to mix
Hard eggs and radishes and rolls at Eton, _80
And, couched on stolen hay in those green harbours
Farmers called gaps, and we schoolboys called arbours,
Would feast till eight. '

. .