No More Learning

That truth, from which, through fear, thou twice didst start,
Fear haply told thee, was a learned strife,
Or not so vital as to claim thy life:
And myriads had reached Heaven, who never knew
Where lay the difference 'twixt the false and true!

Ye, who secure 'mid trophies not your own,
Judge him who won them when he stood alone,
And proudly talk of _recreant_ Berengare--
O first the age, and then the man compare!
That age how dark! congenial minds how rare!
No host of friends with kindred zeal did burn!
No throbbing hearts awaited his return!
Prostrate alike when prince and peasant fell,
He only disenchanted from the spell,
Like the weak worm that gems the starless night,
Moved in the scanty circlet of his light:
And was it strange if he withdrew the ray
That did but guide the night-birds to their prey?

The ascending day-star with a bolder eye
Hath lit each dew-drop on our trimmer lawn!
Yet not for this, if wise, will we decry
The spots and struggles of the timid Dawn;
Lest so we tempt the approaching Noon to scorn
The mists and painted vapours of our Morn.

? 1826.




FORBEARANCE

Beareth all things. --2 COR. xiii. 7.
Gently I took that which ungently came,
And without scorn forgave:--Do thou the same.
A wrong done to thee think a cat's-eye spark
Thou wouldst not see, were not thine own heart dark
Thine own keen sense of wrong that thirsts for sin,
Fear that--the spark self-kindled from within,
Which blown upon will blind thee with its glare,
Or smother'd stifle thee with noisome air.
Clap on the extinguisher, pull up the blinds,
And soon the ventilated spirit finds
Its natural daylight. If a foe have kenn'd,
Or worse than foe, an alienated friend,
A rib of dry rot in thy ship's stout side,
Think it God's message, and in humble pride
With heart of oak replace it;--thine the gains--
Give him the rotten timber for his pains!

1832.




_SANCTI DOMINICI PALLIUM_

A DIALOGUE BETWEEN POET AND FRIEND

FOUND WRITTEN ON THE BLANK LEAF AT THE BEGINNING OF
BUTLER'S "BOOK OF THE CHURCH" (1825)

POET

I note the moods and feelings men betray,
And heed them more than aught they do or say;
The lingering ghosts of many a secret deed
Still-born or haply strangled in its birth;
These best reveal the smooth man's inward creed!
These mark the spot where lies the treasure Worth!

Butler made up of impudence and trick,
With cloven tongue prepared to hiss and lick,
Rome's brazen serpent--boldly dares discuss
The roasting of thy heart, O brave John Huss!
And with grim triumph and a truculent glee
Absolves anew the Pope-wrought perfidy,
That made an empire's plighted faith a lie,
And fix'd a broad stare on the Devil's eye--
(Pleased with the guilt, yet envy-stung at heart
To stand outmaster'd in his own black art! )
Yet Butler-

FRIEND

Enough of Butler! we're agreed,
Who now defends would then have done the deed.
But who not feels persuasion's gentle sway,
Who but must meet the proffer'd hand half way
When courteous Butler--

POET (_aside_)

(Rome's smooth go-between! )

FRIEND

Laments the advice that sour'd a milky queen--
(For "bloody" all enlighten'd men confess
An antiquated error of the press:)
Who, rapt by zeal beyond her sex's bounds,
With actual cautery staunch'd the Church's wounds!
And tho' he deems, that with too broad a blur
We damn the French and Irish massacre,
Yet blames them both--and thinks the Pope might err!
What think you now? Boots it with spear and shield
Against such gentle foes to take the field
Whose beckoning hands the mild Caduceus wield?