No More Learning

[41]

"What! is not this my place of strength," she said,
"My spacious mansion built for me,
Whereof the strong foundation-stones were laid
Since my first memory? "

But in dark corners of her palace stood
Uncertain shapes; and unawares
On white-eyed phantasms weeping tears of blood,
And horrible nightmares,

And hollow shades enclosing hearts of flame,
And, with dim fretted foreheads all,
On corpses three-months-old at noon she came,
That stood against the wall.

A spot of dull stagnation, without light
Or power of movement, seem'd my soul,
'Mid onward-sloping [42] motions infinite
Making for one sure goal.

A still salt pool, lock'd in with bars of sand;
Left on the shore; that hears all night
The plunging seas draw backward from the land
Their moon-led waters white.

A star that with the choral starry dance
Join'd not, but stood, and standing saw
The hollow orb of moving Circumstance
Roll'd round by one fix'd law.

Back on herself her serpent pride had curl'd.
"No voice," she shriek'd in that lone hall,
"No voice breaks thro' the stillness of this world:
One deep, deep silence all! "

She, mouldering with the dull earth's mouldering sod,
Inwrapt tenfold in slothful shame,
Lay there exiled from eternal God,
Lost to her place and name;

And death and life she hated equally,
And nothing saw, for her despair,
But dreadful time, dreadful eternity,
No comfort anywhere;

Remaining utterly confused with fears,
And ever worse with growing time,
And ever unrelieved by dismal tears,
And all alone in crime:

Shut up as in a crumbling tomb, girt round
With blackness as a solid wall,
Far off she seem'd to hear the dully sound
Of human footsteps fall.

As in strange lands a traveller walking slow,
In doubt and great perplexity,
A little before moon-rise hears the low
Moan of an unknown sea;

And knows not if it be thunder or a sound
Of rocks [43] thrown down, or one deep cry
Of great wild beasts; then thinketh, "I have found
A new land, but I die".

She howl'd aloud, "I am on fire within.
There comes no murmur of reply.
What is it that will take away my sin,
And save me lest I die? "

So when four years were wholly finished,
She threw her royal robes away.
"Make me a cottage in the vale," she said,
"Where I may mourn and pray.
[44]

"Yet pull not down my palace towers, that are
So lightly, beautifully built:
Perchance I may return with others there
When I have purged my guilt. " [45]



[Footnote 1: 1833.

I chose, whose ranged ramparts bright
From great broad meadow bases of deep grass. ]


[Footnote 2: 1833. "While the great world. "]

[Footnote 3: "The shadow of Saturn thrown upon the bright ring that
surrounds the planet appears motionless, though the body of the planet
revolves. Saturn rotates on its axis in the short period of ten and a
half hours, but the shadow of this swiftly whirling mass shows no more
motion than is seen in the shadow of a top spinning so rapidly that it
seems to be standing still. " Rowe and Webb's note, which I gladly
borrow. ]

[Footnote 4: 1833 and 1842. Steadfast. ]

[Footnote 5: After this stanza in 1833 this, deleted in 1842:--

"And richly feast within thy palace hall,
Like to the dainty bird that sups,
Lodged in the lustrous crown-imperial,
Draining the honey cups. "]


[Footnote 6: In 1833 these eight stanzas were inserted after the stanza
beginning, "I take possession of men's minds and deeds"; in 1842 they
were transferred, greatly altered, to their present position. For the
alterations on them see 'infra. ']

[Footnote 7: 1833.

Gloom,
Roofed with thick plates of green and orange glass
Ending in stately rooms. ]


[Footnote 8: 1833.