No More Learning

_105

And here like some weird Archimage sit I,
Plotting dark spells, and devilish enginery,
The self-impelling steam-wheels of the mind
Which pump up oaths from clergymen, and grind
The gentle spirit of our meek reviews _110
Into a powdery foam of salt abuse,
Ruffling the ocean of their self-content;--
I sit--and smile or sigh as is my bent,
But not for them--Libeccio rushes round
With an inconstant and an idle sound, _115
I heed him more than them--the thunder-smoke
Is gathering on the mountains, like a cloak
Folded athwart their shoulders broad and bare;
The ripe corn under the undulating air
Undulates like an ocean;--and the vines _120
Are trembling wide in all their trellised lines--
The murmur of the awakening sea doth fill
The empty pauses of the blast;--the hill
Looks hoary through the white electric rain,
And from the glens beyond, in sullen strain, _125
The interrupted thunder howls; above
One chasm of Heaven smiles, like the eye of Love
On the unquiet world;--while such things are,
How could one worth your friendship heed the war
Of worms? the shriek of the world's carrion jays, _130
Their censure, or their wonder, or their praise?

You are not here! the quaint witch Memory sees,
In vacant chairs, your absent images,
And points where once you sat, and now should be
But are not. --I demand if ever we _135
Shall meet as then we met;--and she replies.
Veiling in awe her second-sighted eyes;
'I know the past alone--but summon home
My sister Hope,--she speaks of all to come. '
But I, an old diviner, who knew well _140
Every false verse of that sweet oracle,
Turned to the sad enchantress once again,
And sought a respite from my gentle pain,
In citing every passage o'er and o'er
Of our communion--how on the sea-shore _145
We watched the ocean and the sky together,
Under the roof of blue Italian weather;
How I ran home through last year's thunder-storm,
And felt the transverse lightning linger warm
Upon my cheek--and how we often made _150
Feasts for each other, where good will outweighed
The frugal luxury of our country cheer,
As well it might, were it less firm and clear
Than ours must ever be;--and how we spun
A shroud of talk to hide us from the sun _155
Of this familiar life, which seems to be
But is not:--or is but quaint mockery
Of all we would believe, and sadly blame
The jarring and inexplicable frame
Of this wrong world:--and then anatomize _160
The purposes and thoughts of men whose eyes
Were closed in distant years;--or widely guess
The issue of the earth's great business,
When we shall be as we no longer are--
Like babbling gossips safe, who hear the war _165
Of winds, and sigh, but tremble not;--or how
You listened to some interrupted flow
Of visionary rhyme,--in joy and pain
Struck from the inmost fountains of my brain,
With little skill perhaps;--or how we sought _170
Those deepest wells of passion or of thought
Wrought by wise poets in the waste of years,
Staining their sacred waters with our tears;
Quenching a thirst ever to be renewed!
Or how I, wisest lady! then endued _175
The language of a land which now is free,
And, winged with thoughts of truth and majesty,
Flits round the tyrant's sceptre like a cloud,
And bursts the peopled prisons, and cries aloud,
'My name is Legion! '--that majestic tongue _180
Which Calderon over the desert flung
Of ages and of nations; and which found
An echo in our hearts, and with the sound
Startled oblivion;--thou wert then to me
As is a nurse--when inarticulately _185
A child would talk as its grown parents do.
If living winds the rapid clouds pursue,
If hawks chase doves through the aethereal way,
Huntsmen the innocent deer, and beasts their prey,
Why should not we rouse with the spirit's blast _190
Out of the forest of the pathless past
These recollected pleasures?
You are now
In London, that great sea, whose ebb and flow
At once is deaf and loud, and on the shore
Vomits its wrecks, and still howls on for more. _195
Yet in its depth what treasures! You will see
That which was Godwin,--greater none than he
Though fallen--and fallen on evil times--to stand
Among the spirits of our age and land,
Before the dread tribunal of "to come" _200
The foremost,--while Rebuke cowers pale and dumb.
You will see Coleridge--he who sits obscure
In the exceeding lustre and the pure
Intense irradiation of a mind,
Which, with its own internal lightning blind, _200
Flags wearily through darkness and despair--
A cloud-encircled meteor of the air,
A hooded eagle among blinking owls.
--
You will see Hunt--one of those happy souls
Which are the salt of the earth, and without whom _210
This world would smell like what it is--a tomb;
Who is, what others seem; his room no doubt
Is still adorned with many a cast from Shout,
With graceful flowers tastefully placed about;
And coronals of bay from ribbons hung, _215
And brighter wreaths in neat disorder flung;
The gifts of the most learned among some dozens
Of female friends, sisters-in-law, and cousins.
And there is he with his eternal puns,
Which beat the dullest brain for smiles, like duns _220
Thundering for money at a poet's door;
Alas! it is no use to say, 'I'm poor! '
Or oft in graver mood, when he will look
Things wiser than were ever read in book,
Except in Shakespeare's wisest tenderness. -- _225
You will see Hogg,--and I cannot express
His virtues,--though I know that they are great,
Because he locks, then barricades the gate
Within which they inhabit;--of his wit
And wisdom, you'll cry out when you are bit. _230
He is a pearl within an oyster shell.
One of the richest of the deep;--and there
Is English Peacock, with his mountain Fair,
Turned into a Flamingo;--that shy bird
That gleams i' the Indian air--have you not heard _235
When a man marries, dies, or turns Hindoo,
His best friends hear no more of him? --but you
Will see him, and will like him too, I hope,
With the milk-white Snowdonian Antelope
Matched with this cameleopard--his fine wit _240
Makes such a wound, the knife is lost in it;
A strain too learned for a shallow age,
Too wise for selfish bigots; let his page,
Which charms the chosen spirits of the time,
Fold itself up for the serener clime _245
Of years to come, and find its recompense
In that just expectation. --Wit and sense,
Virtue and human knowledge; all that might
Make this dull world a business of delight,
Are all combined in Horace Smith. --And these. _250
With some exceptions, which I need not tease
Your patience by descanting on,--are all
You and I know in London.
I recall
My thoughts, and bid you look upon the night.
As water does a sponge, so the moonlight _255
Fills the void, hollow, universal air--
What see you? --unpavilioned Heaven is fair,
Whether the moon, into her chamber gone,
Leaves midnight to the golden stars, or wan
Climbs with diminished beams the azure steep; _260
Or whether clouds sail o'er the inverse deep,
Piloted by the many-wandering blast,
And the rare stars rush through them dim and fast:--
All this is beautiful in every land. --
But what see you beside? --a shabby stand _265
Of Hackney coaches--a brick house or wall
Fencing some lonely court, white with the scrawl
Of our unhappy politics;--or worse--
A wretched woman reeling by, whose curse
Mixed with the watchman's, partner of her trade, _270
You must accept in place of serenade--
Or yellow-haired Pollonia murmuring
To Henry, some unutterable thing.