No More Learning

If thou partake the animating faith 300
That Poets, even as Prophets, each with each
Connected in a mighty scheme of truth,
Have each his own peculiar faculty,
Heaven's gift, a sense that fits him to perceive
Objects unseen before, thou wilt not blame 305
The humblest of this band who dares to hope
That unto him hath also been vouchsafed
An insight that in some sort he possesses,
A privilege whereby a work of his,
Proceeding from a source of untaught things, 310
Creative and enduring, may become
A power like one of Nature's. To a hope
Not less ambitious once among the wilds
Of Sarum's Plain, [E] my youthful spirit was raised;
There, as I ranged at will the pastoral downs 315
Trackless and smooth, or paced the bare white roads
Lengthening in solitude their dreary line,
Time with his retinue of ages fled
Backwards, nor checked his flight until I saw
Our dim ancestral Past in vision clear; 320
Saw multitudes of men, and, here and there,
A single Briton clothed in wolf-skin vest,
With shield and stone-axe, stride across the wold;
The voice of spears was heard, the rattling spear
Shaken by arms of mighty bone, in strength, 325
Long mouldered, of barbaric majesty.
I called on Darkness--but before the word
Was uttered, midnight darkness seemed to take
All objects from my sight; and lo! again
The Desert visible by dismal flames; 330
It is the sacrificial altar, fed
With living men--how deep the groans! the voice
Of those that crowd the giant wicker thrills
The monumental hillocks, and the pomp
Is for both worlds, the living and the dead. 335
At other moments (for through that wide waste
Three summer days I roamed) where'er the Plain
Was figured o'er with circles, lines, or mounds, [F]
That yet survive, a work, as some divine,
Shaped by the Druids, so to represent 340
Their knowledge of the heavens, and image forth
The constellations; gently was I charmed
Into a waking dream, a reverie
That, with believing eyes, where'er I turned,
Beheld long-bearded teachers, with white wands 345
Uplifted, pointing to the starry sky,
Alternately, and plain below, while breath
Of music swayed their motions, and the waste
Rejoiced with them and me in those sweet sounds.

This for the past, and things that may be viewed 350
Or fancied in the obscurity of years
From monumental hints: and thou, O Friend!
Pleased with some unpremeditated strains
That served those wanderings to beguile, [G] hast said
That then and there my mind had exercised 355
Upon the vulgar forms of present things,
The actual world of our familiar days,
Yet higher power; had caught from them a tone,
An image, and a character, by books
Not hitherto reflected. [H] Call we this 360
A partial judgment--and yet why? for _then_
We were as strangers; and I may not speak
Thus wrongfully of verse, however rude,
Which on thy young imagination, trained
In the great City, broke like light from far. 365
Moreover, each man's Mind is to herself
Witness and judge; and I remember well
That in life's every-day appearances
I seemed about this time to gain clear sight
Of a new world--a world, too, that was fit 370
To be transmitted, and to other eyes
Made visible; as ruled by those fixed laws
Whence spiritual dignity originates,
Which do both give it being and maintain
A balance, an ennobling interchange 375
Of action from without and from within;
The excellence, pure function, and best power
Both of the object seen, and eye that sees.


* * * * *

FOOTNOTES ON THE TEXT

[Footnote A: Compare 'Expostulation and Reply', vol. i. p. 273:

'Nor less I deem that there are Powers
Which of themselves our minds impress;
That we can feed this mind of ours
In a wise passiveness.
Think you, 'mid all this mighty sum
Of things for ever speaking,
That nothing of itself will come,
But we must still be seeking? '

Mr. William Davies writes:

"Is he absolutely right in attributing these powers to the objects of
Nature, which are only symbols after all? Is there not a more
penetrative and ethereal perceptive power in the human mind, which is
able to transfer itself immediately to the spiritual plane,
transcending that of visible Nature? Plato saw it; the old Vedantist
still more clearly--and what is more--reached it. He arrived at the
knowledge and perception of essential Being: though he could neither
define nor limit, in a human formula, because it is undefinable and
illimitable, but positive and abstract, universally diffused, 'smaller
than small, greater than great,' the internal Light, Monitor, Guide,
Rest, waiting to be seen, recognised, and known in every heart; not
depending on the powers of Nature for enlightenment and instruction,
but itself enlightening and instructing: not merely a receptive, but
the motive power of Nature; which bestows _itself_ upon Nature, and
only receives from it that which it bestows. Is it not, as he says
farther on, better 'to see great truths,' even if not so strictly in
line and form, 'touch and handle little ones,' to take the highest
point of view we can reach, not a lower one? And surely it is a higher
thing to rule over and subdue Nature, than to lie ruled and subdued by
it? The highest form of Religion has always done this. "

Ed. ]


[Footnote B: Compare 'The Old Cumberland Beggar', l. 49 (vol. i. p.
301). --Ed.