No More Learning

'Twere as if man's own works should feel, and show
The hopes, and fears, and thoughts from which they flow,
And he be like to them! Lo! Plague is free _3240
To waste, Blight, Poison, Earthquake, Hail, and Snow,
Disease, and Want, and worse Necessity
Of hate and ill, and Pride, and Fear, and Tyranny!

6.
'"What is that Power? Some moon-struck sophist stood
Watching the shade from his own soul upthrown _3245
Fill Heaven and darken Earth, and in such mood
The Form he saw and worshipped was his own,
His likeness in the world's vast mirror shown;
And 'twere an innocent dream, but that a faith
Nursed by fear's dew of poison, grows thereon, _3250
And that men say, that Power has chosen Death
On all who scorn its laws, to wreak immortal wrath.

7.
'"Men say that they themselves have heard and seen,
Or known from others who have known such things,
A Shade, a Form, which Earth and Heaven between _3255
Wields an invisible rod--that Priests and Kings,
Custom, domestic sway, ay, all that brings
Man's freeborn soul beneath the oppressor's heel,
Are his strong ministers, and that the stings
Of death will make the wise his vengeance feel, _3260
Though truth and virtue arm their hearts with tenfold steel.

8.
'"And it is said, this Power will punish wrong;
Yes, add despair to crime, and pain to pain!
And deepest hell, and deathless snakes among,
Will bind the wretch on whom is fixed a stain, _3265
Which, like a plague, a burden, and a bane,
Clung to him while he lived; for love and hate,
Virtue and vice, they say are difference vain--
The will of strength is right--this human state
Tyrants, that they may rule, with lies thus desolate. _3270

9.
'"Alas, what strength? Opinion is more frail
Than yon dim cloud now fading on the moon
Even while we gaze, though it awhile avail
To hide the orb of truth--and every throne
Of Earth or Heaven, though shadow, rests thereon, _3275
One shape of many names:--for this ye plough
The barren waves of ocean, hence each one
Is slave or tyrant; all betray and bow,
Command, or kill, or fear, or wreak, or suffer woe.

10.
'"Its names are each a sign which maketh holy _3280
All power--ay, the ghost, the dream, the shade
Of power--lust, falsehood, hate, and pride, and folly;
The pattern whence all fraud and wrong is made,
A law to which mankind has been betrayed;
And human love, is as the name well known _3285
Of a dear mother, whom the murderer laid
In bloody grave, and into darkness thrown,
Gathered her wildered babes around him as his own.

11.
'"O Love, who to the hearts of wandering men
Art as the calm to Ocean's weary waves! _3290
Justice, or Truth, or Joy! those only can
From slavery and religion's labyrinth caves
Guide us, as one clear star the seaman saves.
To give to all an equal share of good,
To track the steps of Freedom, though through graves _3295
She pass, to suffer all in patient mood,
To weep for crime, though stained with thy friend's dearest blood,--

12.
'"To feel the peace of self-contentment's lot,
To own all sympathies, and outrage none,
And in the inmost bowers of sense and thought, _3300
Until life's sunny day is quite gone down,
To sit and smile with Joy, or, not alone,
To kiss salt tears from the worn cheek of Woe;
To live, as if to love and live were one,--
This is not faith or law, nor those who bow _3305
To thrones on Heaven or Earth, such destiny may know.

13.
'"But children near their parents tremble now,
Because they must obey--one rules another,
And as one Power rules both high and low,
So man is made the captive of his brother, _3310
And Hate is throned on high with Fear her mother,
Above the Highest--and those fountain-cells,
Whence love yet flowed when faith had choked all other,
Are darkened--Woman as the bond-slave dwells
Of man, a slave; and life is poisoned in its wells. _3315

14.
'"Man seeks for gold in mines, that he may weave
A lasting chain for his own slavery;--
In fear and restless care that he may live
He toils for others, who must ever be
The joyless thralls of like captivity; _3320
He murders, for his chiefs delight in ruin;
He builds the altar, that its idol's fee
May be his very blood; he is pursuing--
O, blind and willing wretch! --his own obscure undoing.

15.
'"Woman! --she is his slave, she has become _3325
A thing I weep to speak--the child of scorn,
The outcast of a desolated home;
Falsehood, and fear, and toil, like waves have worn
Channels upon her cheek, which smiles adorn,
As calm decks the false Ocean:--well ye know _3330
What Woman is, for none of Woman born
Can choose but drain the bitter dregs of woe,
Which ever from the oppressed to the oppressors flow.

16.