No More Learning

I will not look on it
Again, and scarce dare think on't. Hideous wretch
That I am! The very waters mock me with 50
My horrid shadow--like a demon placed
Deep in the fountain to scare back the cattle
From drinking therein. [_He pauses_.
And shall I live on,
A burden to the earth, myself, and shame
Unto what brought me into life? Thou blood,
Which flowest so freely from a scratch, let me
Try if thou wilt not, in a fuller stream,
Pour forth my woes for ever with thyself
On earth, to which I will restore, at once,
This hateful compound of her atoms, and 60
Resolve back to her elements, and take
The shape of any reptile save myself,
And make a world for myriads of new worms!
This knife! now let me prove if it will sever
This withered slip of Nature's nightshade--my
Vile form--from the creation, as it hath
The green bough from the forest.

[ARNOLD _places the knife in the ground, with
the point upwards_.

Now 'tis set,
And I can fall upon it. Yet one glance
On the fair day, which sees no foul thing like
Myself, and the sweet sun which warmed me, but 70
In vain. The birds--how joyously they sing!
So let them, for I would not be lamented:
But let their merriest notes be Arnold's knell;
The fallen leaves my monument; the murmur
Of the near fountain my sole elegy.
Now, knife, stand firmly, as I fain would fall!

[_As he rushes to throw himself upon the knife,
his eye is suddenly caught by the fountain,
which seems in motion_.
The fountain moves without a wind: but shall
The ripple of a spring change my resolve?
No. Yet it moves again! The waters stir,
Not as with air, but by some subterrane 80
And rocking Power of the internal world.
What's here? A mist! No more? --

[_A cloud comes from the fountain. He stands gazing
upon it: it is dispelled, and a tall black
man comes towards him_. [207]

_Arn. _ What would you? Speak!
Spirit or man?

_Stran. _ As man is both, why not
Say both in one?

_Arn.