No More Learning

LXV.

By a lone wall a lonelier column rears
A gray and grief-worn aspect of old days;
'Tis the last remnant of the wreck of years,
And looks as with the wild-bewildered gaze
Of one to stone converted by amaze,
Yet still with consciousness; and there it stands
Making a marvel that it not decays,
When the coeval pride of human hands,
Levelled Aventicum,[14. B. ] hath strewed her subject lands.

LXVI.

And there--oh! sweet and sacred be the name! --
Julia--the daughter--the devoted--gave
Her youth to Heaven; her heart, beneath a claim
Nearest to Heaven's, broke o'er a father's grave.
Justice is sworn 'gainst tears, and hers would crave
The life she lived in--but the Judge was just--
And then she died on him she could not save. [iz]
Their tomb was simple, and without a bust,[ja]
And held within their urn one mind--one heart--one dust. [15. B. ]

LXVII.

But these are deeds which should not pass away,
And names that must not wither, though the Earth
Forgets her empires with a just decay,
The enslavers and the enslaved--their death and birth;
The high, the mountain-majesty of Worth
Should be--and shall, survivor of its woe,
And from its immortality, look forth
In the sun's face, like yonder Alpine snow,[16. B.
]
Imperishably pure beyond all things below.

LXVIII.

Lake Leman woos me with its crystal face,
The mirror where the stars and mountains view
The stillness of their aspect in each trace
Its clear depth yields of their far height and hue:[jb]
There is too much of Man here,[315] to look through
With a fit mind the might which I behold;
But soon in me shall Loneliness renew
Thoughts hid, but not less cherished than of old,
Ere mingling with the herd had penned me in their fold.

LXIX.

To fly from, need not be to hate, mankind:
All are not fit with them to stir and toil,
Nor is it discontent to keep the mind
Deep in its fountain, lest it overboil[jc][316]
In the hot throng, where we become the spoil
Of our infection, till too late and long
We may deplore and struggle with the coil,
In wretched interchange of wrong for wrong
Midst a contentious world, striving where none are strong. [jd]

LXX.

There, in a moment, we may plunge our years[317]
In fatal penitence, and in the blight
Of our own Soul turn all our blood to tears,
And colour things to come with hues of Night;
The race of life becomes a hopeless flight
To those that walk in darkness: on the sea
The boldest steer but where their ports invite--
But there are wanderers o'er Eternity[je][318]
Whose bark drives on and on, and anchored ne'er shall be.

LXXI.

Is it not better, then, to be alone,
And love Earth only for its earthly sake?
By the blue rushing of the arrowy[319] Rhone,[17. B. ]
Or the pure bosom of its nursing Lake,
Which feeds it as a mother who doth make
A fair but froward infant her own care,
Kissing its cries away as these awake;--[jf]
Is it not better thus our lives to wear,
Than join the crushing crowd, doomed to inflict or bear?

LXXII.

I live not in myself, but I become
Portion of that around me; and to me
High mountains are a feeling, but the hum[320]
Of human cities torture: I can see[jg]
Nothing to loathe in Nature, save to be[jh]
A link reluctant in a fleshly chain,
Classed among creatures, when the soul can flee,
And with the sky--the peak--the heaving plain[ji]
Of Ocean, or the stars, mingle--and not in vain.

LXXIII.

And thus I am absorbed, and this is life:--
I look upon the peopled desert past,
As on a place of agony and strife,
Where, for some sin, to Sorrow I was cast,
To act and suffer, but remount at last[jj]
With a fresh pinion; which I feel to spring,
Though young, yet waxing vigorous as the Blast
Which it would cope with, on delighted wing,
Spurning the clay-cold bonds which round our being cling.