No More Learning

--Meanwhile his wife and child with cruel hope
All night the door at every moment ope;
Haply that child in fearful doubt may gaze, 410
Passing his father's bones in future days,
Start at the reliques of that very thigh,
On which so oft he prattled when a boy.

Hence shall we turn where, heard with fear afar,
Thunders thro' echoing pines the headlong Aar? 415
Or rather stay to taste the mild delights
Of pensive [S] Underwalden's pastoral heights?

--Is there who mid these awful wilds has seen
The native Genii walk the mountain green?
Or heard, while other worlds their charms reveal, 420
Soft music from th' aereal summit steal?
While o'er the desert, answering every close,
Rich steam of sweetest perfume comes and goes.
--And sure there is a secret Power that reigns
Here, where no trace of man the spot profanes, 425
Nought but the herds that pasturing upward creep,
Hung dim-discover'd from the dangerous steep,
[T] Or summer hamlet, flat and bare, on high
Suspended, mid the quiet of the sky.

How still! no irreligious sound or sight 430
Rouzes the soul from her severe delight.
An idle voice the sabbath region fills
Of Deep that calls to Deep across the hills,
Broke only by the melancholy sound
Of drowsy bells for ever tinkling round; 435
Faint wail of eagle melting into blue
Beneath the cliffs, and pine-woods steady sugh; [U]
The solitary heifer's deepen'd low;
Or rumbling heard remote of falling snow.
Save that, the stranger seen below, the boy 440
Shouts from the echoing hills with savage joy.

When warm from myrtle bays and tranquil seas,
Comes on, to whisper hope, the [V] vernal breeze,
When hums the mountain bee in May's glad ear,
And emerald isles to spot the heights appear, 445
When shouts and lowing herds the valley fill,
And louder torrents stun the noon-tide hill,
When fragrant scents beneath th' enchanted tread
Spring up, his little all around him spread,
The pastoral Swiss begins the cliffs to scale 450
To silence leaving the deserted vale,
Up the green mountain tracking Summer's feet,
Each twilight earlier call'd the Sun to meet,
With earlier smile the ray of morn to view
Fall on his shifting hut that gleams mid smoking dew; 455
Bless'd with his herds, as in the patriarch's age,
The summer long to feed from stage to stage;
O'er azure pikes serene and still, they go,
And hear the rattling thunder far below;
Or lost at eve in sudden mist the day 460
Attend, or dare with minute-steps their way;
Hang from the rocks that tremble o'er the steep,
And tempt the icy valley yawning deep,
O'er-walk the chasmy torrent's foam-lit bed,
Rock'd on the dizzy larch's narrow tread, 465
Whence Danger leans, and pointing ghastly, joys
To mock the mind with "desperation's toys";
Or steal beneath loose mountains, half deterr'd,
That sigh and shudder to the lowing herd.
--I see him, up the midway cliff he creeps 470
To where a scanty knot of verdure peeps,
Thence down the steep a pile of grass he throws
The fodder of his herds in winter snows.
Far different life to what tradition hoar
Transmits of days more bless'd in times of yore. [W] 475
Then Summer lengthen'd out his season bland,
And with rock-honey flow'd the happy land.
Continual fountains welling chear'd the waste,
And plants were wholesome, now of deadly taste.
Nor Winter yet his frozen stores had pil'd 480
Usurping where the fairest herbage smil'd;
Nor Hunger forc'd the herds from pastures bare
For scanty food the treacherous cliffs to dare.
Then the milk-thistle bad those herds demand
Three times a day the pail and welcome hand. 485
But human vices have provok'd the rod
Of angry Nature to avenge her God.
Thus does the father to his sons relate,
On the lone mountain top, their chang'd estate.
Still, Nature, ever just, to him imparts 490
Joys only given to uncorrupted hearts.
--'Tis morn: with gold the verdant mountain glows,
More high, the snowy peaks with hues of rose.
Far stretch'd beneath the many-tinted hills
A mighty waste of mist the valley fills, 495
A solemn sea! whose vales and mountains round
Stand motionless, to awful silence bound.
A gulf of gloomy blue, that opens wide
And bottomless, divides the midway tide.
Like leaning masts of stranded ships appear 500
The pines that near the coast their summits rear;
Of cabins, woods, and lawns a pleasant shore
Bounds calm and clear the chaos still and hoar;
Loud thro' that midway gulf ascending, sound
Unnumber'd streams with hollow roar profound. 505
Mounts thro' the nearer mist the chaunt of birds,
And talking voices, and the low of herds,
The bark of dogs, the drowsy tinkling bell,
And wild-wood mountain lutes of saddest swell.
Think not, suspended from the cliff on high 510
He looks below with undelighted eye.
--No vulgar joy is his, at even tide
Stretch'd on the scented mountain's purple side.
For as the pleasures of his simple day
Beyond his native valley hardly stray, 515
Nought round it's darling precincts can he find
But brings some past enjoyment to his mind,
While Hope that ceaseless leans on Pleasure's urn
Binds her wild wreathes, and whispers his return.

Once Man entirely free, alone and wild, 520
Was bless'd as free--for he was Nature's child.