No More Learning

MISSION

I've searched my faculties around,
To learn why life to me was lent:
I will attend the faintest sound,
And then declare to man what God hath meant.


DELAY

No generous action can delay
Or thwart our higher, steadier aims;
But if sincere and true are they,
It will arouse our sight, and nerve our frames.


PRAYER

Great God! I ask thee for no meaner pelf
Than that I may not disappoint myself;
That in my action I may soar as high
As I can now discern with this clear eye;

And next in value, which thy kindness lends,
That I may greatly disappoint my friends,
Howe'er they think or hope it that may be,
They may not dream how thou 'st distinguished me;

That my weak hand may equal my firm faith,
And my life practice more than my tongue saith;
That my low conduct may not show,
Nor my relenting lines,
That I thy purpose did not know,
Or overrated thy designs.


FOOTNOTES:

[8] [Eighteen lines of this poem appear in _Week_, pp. 181, 182, 351,
372. ]

[9] ["Suggested by the print of Guido's 'Aurora' sent by Mrs. Carlyle
as a wedding gift to Mrs. Emerson. " (Note in _Poems of Nature_. )]

[10] [Five stanzas of this poem appear in _Week_, pp. 46, 47. ]

[11] [The last four lines appear in _Week_, p. 54. ]

[12] ["The first four of these stanzas (unnamed by Thoreau) were
published in the Boston _Commonwealth_ in 1863, under the title of
'The Soul's Season,' the remainder as 'The Fall of the Leaf.
' There
can be little doubt that they are parts of one complete poem. " (Note
in _Poems of Nature_. )]

[13] [See p. 120. ]

[14] ["These stanzas formed part of the original manuscript of the
essay on 'A Winter Walk,' but were excluded by Emerson. " (Note in
_Poems of Nature_. )]

[15] ["First printed in full in the Boston _Commonwealth_, October 30,
1863. The last fourteen lines had appeared in _The Dial_ under the
title of 'The Black Knight,' and are so reprinted in the Riverside
Edition. " (Note in _Poems of Nature_. )]

[16] [In _The Dial_ this line reads, "Only the promise of my heart. "]

[17] ["A copy of this hitherto unpublished poem has been kindly
furnished by Miss A. J. Ward. " (Note in _Poems of Nature_. )]




A LIST OF THE POEMS AND BITS OF VERSE SCATTERED AMONG THOREAU'S PROSE
WRITINGS EXCLUSIVE OF THE JOURNAL

* * * * *

A WEEK ON THE CONCORD AND MERRIMACK RIVERS

"The respectable folks" PAGE 7

"Ah, 't is in vain the peaceful din" 15

"But since we sailed" 16

"Here then an aged shepherd dwelt" 16

"On Ponkawtasset, since we took our way" 16

"Who sleeps by day and walks by night" 41

"An early unconverted Saint" 42

"Low in the eastern sky" (TO THE MAIDEN IN THE EAST) 46

"Dong, sounds the brass in the East" 50

"Greece, who am I that should remember thee" 54

"Some tumultuous little rill" 62

"I make ye an offer" 69

"Conscience is instinct bred in the house" (CONSCIENCE) 75

"Such water do the gods distill" 86

"That Phaeton of our day" 103

"Then spend an age in whetting thy desire" 111

"Though all the fates should prove unkind" 151

"With frontier strength ye stand your ground" (MOUNTAINS) 170

"The western wind came lumbering in" 180

"Then idle Time ran gadding by" 181

"Now chiefly is my natal hour" 182

RUMORS FROM AN AEOLIAN HARP 184

"Away! away!