No More Learning

Shutting with careful fingers and benign,
Our gloom-pleased eyes, embowered from the light,
Enshaded in forgetfulness divine;
O soothest Sleep! if so it please thee, close,
In midst of this thine hymn, my willing eyes,
Or wait the amen, ere thy poppy throws
Around my bed its lulling charities;
Then save me, or the passèd day will shine
Upon my pillow, breeding many woes;
Save me from curious conscience, that still lords
Its strength for darkness, burrowing like a mole;
Turn the key deftly in the oiled wards,
And seal the hushèd casket of my soul.

KEATS.

THE crackling embers on the hearth are dead;
The indoor note of industry is still;
The latch is fast; upon the window-sill
The small birds wait not for their daily bread;
The voiceless flowers--how quietly they shed
Their nightly odours; and the household ill
Murmurs continuous dulcet sounds that fill
The vacant expectation, and the dread
Of listening night. And haply now She sleeps;
For all the garrulous noises of the air
Are hushed in peace; the soft dew silent weeps,
Like hopeless lovers for a maid so fair:--
Oh! that I were the happy dream that creeps
To her soft heart, to find my image there.

HARTLEY COLERIDGE.

Side by side with these sonnets may be placed Thomas Warton's _Ode_--a
fine poem, too little known:--

ON this my pensive pillow, gentle Sleep,
Descend in all thy downy plumage drest,
Wipe with thy wings these eyes that wake to weep,
And place thy crown of poppies on my breast.
O steep my senses in Oblivion's balm,
And soothe my throbbing pulse with lenient hand,
This tempest of my boiling blood becalm--
Despair grows mild, Sleep, in thy mild command.

Yet ah! in vain, familiar with the gloom,
And sadly toiling through the tedious night,
I seek sweet slumber while that virgin bloom
For ever hovering haunts my unhappy sight.
Nor would the dawning day my sorrows charm:
Black midnight and the blaze of noon alike
To me appear, while with uplifted arm
Death stands prepared, but still delays, to strike.

T. WARTON.


_287_

AH!
gentle, fleeting, wav'ring sprite,
Friend and associate of this clay!
To what unknown region borne
Wilt thou now wing thy distant flight?
No more with wonted humour gay,
But pallid, cheerless, and forlorn.

BYRON.

Byron's version is a weak piece of youthful work. I add here Pope's
_Dying Christian to his Soul_, a noble poem suggested by that of
Hadrian, and emphasizing powerfully the contrast between pagan and
Christian sentiment:--

VITAL spark of heavenly flame!
Quit, oh quit this mortal frame!
Trembling, hoping, lingering, flying,
Oh the pain, the bliss of dying!
Cease, fond nature, cease thy strife,
And let me languish into life!

Hark, they whisper; angels say,
'Sister spirit, come away! '
What is this absorbs me quite?
Steals my senses, shuts my sight,
Drowns my spirit, draws my breath?
Tell me, my soul, can this be death?

The world recedes; it disappears!
Heaven opens on my eyes! my ears
With sounds seraphic ring:
Lend, lend your wings!