No More Learning

Swinburne's tragedy. ]

[Footnote 4: 1833.

And more aerially blue,
And ever trembling thro' the dew. ]


[Footnote 5: 1833. Jasmin-leaves. ]







THE BLACKBIRD.

Not in 1833.

This is another poem placed among the poems of 1833, but not printed
till 1842.

O blackbird! sing me something well:
While all the neighbours shoot thee round,
I keep smooth plats of fruitful ground,
Where thou may'st warble, eat and dwell.

The espaliers and the standards all
Are thine; the range of lawn and park:
The unnetted black-hearts ripen dark,
All thine, against the garden wall.

Yet, tho' I spared thee all the spring, [1]
Thy sole delight is, sitting still,
With that gold dagger of thy bill
To fret the summer jenneting. [2]

A golden bill! the silver tongue,
Cold February loved, is dry:
Plenty corrupts the melody
That made thee famous once, when young:

And in the sultry garden-squares, [3]
Now thy flute-notes are changed to coarse,
I hear thee not at all, [4] or hoarse
As when a hawker hawks his wares.

Take warning!
he that will not sing
While yon sun prospers in the blue,
Shall sing for want, ere leaves are new,
Caught in the frozen palms of Spring.


[Footnote 1: 1842. Yet, though I spared thee kith and kin. And so till
1853, when it was altered to the present reading. ]

[Footnote 2: 1842 to 1851. Jennetin, altered in 1853 to present
reading. ]

[Footnote 3: 1842. I better brook the drawling stares. Altered, 1843. ]

[Footnote 4: 1842. Not hearing thee at all. Altered, 1843. ]




THE DEATH OF THE OLD YEAR

First printed in 1833.

Only one alteration has been made in this poem, in line 41, where in
1842 "one' was altered to" twelve ".

Full knee-deep lies the winter snow,
And the winter winds are wearily sighing:
Toll ye the church-bell sad and slow,
And tread softly and speak low,
For the old year lies a-dying.
Old year, you must not die;
You came to us so readily,
You lived with us so steadily,
Old year, you shall not die.