No More Learning

Reverence the hope whose vital anxiousness
Gives the last human interest to his heart.
May never HOUSE, misnamed of INDUSTRY, 180
Make him a captive! --for that pent-up din,
Those life-consuming sounds that clog the air,
Be his the natural silence of old age!
Let him be free of mountain solitudes;
And have around him, whether heard or not, 185
The pleasant melody of woodland birds.
Few are his pleasures: if his eyes have now
Been doomed so long to settle upon earth
That not without some effort they behold
The countenance of the horizontal sun, [20] 190
Rising or setting, let the light at least
Find a free entrance to their languid orbs.
And let him, _where_ and _when_ he will, sit down
Beneath the trees, or on a [21] grassy bank
Of highway side, and with the little birds 195
Share his chance-gathered meal; and, finally,
As in the eye of Nature he has lived,
So in the eye of Nature let him die! [E]


* * * * *

VARIANTS ON THE TEXT

[Variant 1:

1805.

. . . eat . . . 1800. ]


[Variant 2:

1837.
The sauntering horseman-traveller does not throw
With careless hand . . . 1800. ]


[Variant 3:

1827.

Towards the aged Beggar turns a look, 1800. ]


[Variant 4:

1827.

. . . and, if perchance 1800. ]


[Variant 5:

1800.

. . . and, evermore,
Instead of Nature's fair variety,]
Her ample scope of hill and dale, of clouds
And the blue sky, the same short span of earth
Is all his prospect.