No More Learning

And Freedom rear'd in that august sunrise
Her beautiful bold brow,
When rites and forms before his burning eyes
Melted like snow.

There was no blood upon her maiden robes
Sunn'd by those orient skies;
But round about the circles of the globes
Of her keen eyes

And in her raiment's hem was traced in flame
WISDOM, a name to shake
All evil dreams of power--a sacred name. [5]
And when she spake,

Her words did gather thunder as they ran,
And as the lightning to the thunder
Which follows it, riving the spirit of man,
Making earth wonder,

So was their meaning to her words.
No sword
Of wrath her right arm whirl'd, [6]
But one poor poet's scroll, and with 'his' word
She shook the world.


[Footnote 1: The expression, as is not uncommon with Tennyson, is
extremely ambiguous; it may mean that he hated hatred, scorned scorn,
and loved love, or that he had hatred, scorn and love as it were in
quintessence, like Dante, and that is no doubt the meaning. ]

[Footnotes 2: 1830. Through. ]

[Footnote 3: 1830 till 1851. Though. ]

[Footnote 4: 2 1830. A. ]

[Footnote 5: 1830.

And in the bordure of her robe was writ
Wisdom, a name to shake
Hoar anarchies, as with a thunderfit. ]

[Footnote 6: 1830. Hurled.
]






THE POET'S MIND

First published in 1830.

A companion poem to the preceding. After line 7
in 1830 appears this stanza, afterwards omitted:--

Clear as summer mountain streams,
Bright as the inwoven beams,
Which beneath their crisping sapphire
In the midday, floating o'er
The golden sands, make evermore
To a blossom-starred shore.
Hence away, unhallowed laughter!




1

Vex not thou the poet's mind
With thy shallow wit:
Vex not thou the poet's mind;
For thou canst not fathom it.
Clear and bright it should be ever,
Flowing like a crystal river;
Bright as light, and clear as wind.


2

Dark-brow'd sophist, come not anear;
All the place [1] is holy ground;
Hollow smile and frozen sneer
Come not here.
Holy water will I pour
Into every spicy flower
Of the laurel-shrubs that hedge it around.
The flowers would faint at your cruel cheer.
In your eye there is death,
There is frost in your breath
Which would blight the plants.
Where you stand you cannot hear
From the groves within
The wild-bird's din.
In the heart of the garden the merry bird chants,
It would fall to the ground if you came in.
In the middle leaps a fountain
Like sheet lightning,
Ever brightening
With a low melodious thunder;
All day and all night it is ever drawn
From the brain of the purple mountain
Which stands in the distance yonder:
It springs on a level of bowery lawn,
And the mountain draws it from Heaven above,
And it sings a song of undying love;
And yet, tho' [2] its voice be so clear and full,
You never would hear it; your ears are so dull;
So keep where you are: you are foul with sin;
It would shrink to the earth if you came in.


[Footnote 1: 1830. The poet's mind. With this may be compared the
opening stanza of Gray's 'Installation Ode': "Hence!