No More Learning

[98]

One I behold who, 'cross the foaming flood, 380
Leaps with a bound of graceful hardihood;
Another high on that green ledge;--he gained
The tempting spot with every sinew strained; [99]
And downward thence a knot of grass he throws,
Food for his beasts in time of winter snows. [100] 385
--Far different life from what Tradition hoar
Transmits of happier lot in times of yore! [101]
Then Summer lingered long; and honey flowed
From out the rocks, the wild bees' safe abode: [102]
Continual waters [103] welling cheered the waste, 390
And plants were wholesome, now of deadly taste:
Nor Winter yet his frozen stores had piled,
Usurping where the fairest herbage smiled:
Nor Hunger driven the herds from pastures bare,
To climb the treacherous cliffs for scanty fare. [104] 395
Then the milk-thistle flourished through the land,
And forced the full-swoln udder to demand,
Thrice every day, the pail and welcome hand. [105]
Thus does the father to his children tell
Of banished bliss, by fancy loved too well. [106] 400
Alas! that human guilt provoked the rod [107]
Of angry Nature to avenge her God.
Still, Nature, ever just, to him imparts
Joys only given to uncorrupted hearts.

'Tis morn: with gold the verdant mountain glows; 405
More high, the snowy peaks with hues of rose.
Far-stretched beneath the many-tinted hills,
A mighty waste of mist the valley fills,
A solemn sea! whose billows wide around [108]
Stand motionless, to awful silence bound: 410
Pines, on the coast, through mist their tops uprear,
That like to leaning masts of stranded ships appear.
A single chasm, a gulf of gloomy blue,
Gapes in the centre of the sea--and through
That dark mysterious gulf ascending, sound 415
Innumerable streams with roar profound. [109]
Mount through the nearer vapours notes of birds,
And merry flageolet; the low of herds,
The bark of dogs, the heifer's tinkling bell,
Talk, laughter, and perchance a church-tower knell: [110] 420
Think not, the peasant from aloft has gazed
And heard with heart unmoved, with soul unraised: [111]
Nor is his spirit less enrapt, nor less
Alive to independent happiness, [112]
Then, when he lies, out-stretched, at even-tide 425
Upon the fragrant mountain's purple side: [113]
For as the pleasures of his simple day
Beyond his native valley seldom stray,
Nought round its darling precincts can he find
But brings some past enjoyment to his mind; 430
While Hope, reclining upon Pleasure's urn, [114]
Binds her wild wreaths, and whispers his return.

Once, Man entirely free, alone and wild,
Was blest as free--for he was Nature's child.
He, all superior but his God disdained, 435
Walked none restraining, and by none restrained:
Confessed no law but what his reason taught,
Did all he wished, and wished but what he ought.
As man in his primeval dower arrayed
The image of his glorious Sire displayed, 440
Even so, by faithful [115] Nature guarded, here
The traces of primeval Man appear;
The simple [116] dignity no forms debase;
The eye sublime, and surly lion-grace:
The slave of none, of beasts alone the lord, 445
His book he prizes, nor neglects his sword; [117]
--Well taught by that to feel his rights, prepared
With this "the blessings he enjoys to guard. " [X]

And, as his native hills encircle ground
For many a marvellous [118] victory renowned, 450
The work of Freedom daring to oppose,
With few in arms, [Y] innumerable foes,
When to those famous [119] fields his steps are led,
An unknown power connects him with the dead:
For images of other worlds are there; 455
Awful the light, and holy is the air.
Fitfully, and in flashes, through his soul,
Like sun-lit tempests, troubled transports roll;
His bosom heaves, his Spirit towers amain, [120]
Beyond the senses and their little reign. 460

And oft, when that dread vision hath past by, [121]
He holds with God himself communion high,
There where the peal [122] of swelling torrents fills
The sky-roofed temple of the eternal hills;
Or, when upon the mountain's silent brow 465
Reclined, he sees, above him and below,
Bright stars of ice and azure fields of snow;
While needle peaks of granite shooting bare
Tremble in ever-varying tints of air.
And when a gathering weight of shadows brown 470
Falls on the valleys as the sun goes down;
And Pikes, of darkness named and fear and storms, [Z]
Uplift in quiet their illumined forms, [123]
In sea-like reach of prospect round him spread,
Tinged like an angel's smile all rosy red-- 475
Awe in his breast with holiest love unites,
And the near heavens impart their own delights. [124]

When downward to his winter hut he goes,
Dear and more dear the lessening circle grows;
That hut which on the hills so oft employs 480
His thoughts, the central point of all his joys. [125]
And as a swallow, at the hour of rest,
Peeps often ere she darts into her nest,
So to the homestead, where the grandsire tends
A little prattling child, he oft descends, 485
To glance a look upon the well-matched pair; [126]
Till storm and driving ice blockade him there.
There, [127] safely guarded by the woods behind,
He hears the chiding of the baffled wind,
Hears Winter calling all his terrors round, 490
And, blest within himself, he shrinks not from the sound. [128]

Through Nature's vale his homely pleasures glide,
Unstained by envy, discontent, and pride;
The bound of all his vanity, to deck,
With one bright bell, a favourite heifer's neck; 495
Well pleased [129] upon some simple annual feast,
Remembered half the year and hoped the rest,
If dairy-produce, from his inner hoard,
Of thrice ten summers dignify [130] the board.
--Alas! in every clime a flying ray 500
Is all we have to cheer our wintry way;
[131]
And here the unwilling mind [132] may more than trace
The general sorrows of the human race:
The churlish gales of penury, that blow
Cold as the north-wind o'er a waste of snow, [133] 505
To them [134] the gentle groups of bliss deny
That on the noon-day bank of leisure lie.
Yet more;--compelled by Powers which only deign
That _solitary_ man disturb their reign,
Powers that support an unremitting [135] strife 510
With all the tender charities of life,
Full oft the father, when his sons have grown
To manhood, seems their title to disown; [136]
And from his nest [137] amid the storms of heaven
Drives, eagle-like, those sons as he was driven; 515
With stern composure [138] watches to the plain--
And never, eagle-like, beholds again!

When long familiar joys are all resigned,
Why does their sad remembrance haunt the mind? [139]
Lo! where through flat Batavia's willowy groves, 520
Or by the lazy Seine, the exile roves;
O'er the curled waters Alpine measures swell,
And search the affections to their inmost cell;
Sweet poison spreads along the listener's veins,
Turning past pleasures into mortal pains; [140] 525
Poison, which not a frame of steel can brave,
Bows his young head with sorrow to the grave. [Aa]

Gay lark of hope, thy silent song resume!