No More Learning

Dull, dismal hole! my curse on thee!
Where heaven's own light, with its blessed beams,
Through painted panes all sickly gleams!
Hemmed in by these old book-piles tall,
Which, gnawed by worms and deep in must,
Rise to the roof against a wall
Of smoke-stained paper, thick with dust;
'Mid glasses, boxes, where eye can see,
Filled with old, obsolete instruments,
Stuffed with old heirlooms of implements--
That is thy world! There's a world for thee!
And still dost ask what stifles so
The fluttering heart within thy breast?
By what inexplicable woe
The springs of life are all oppressed?
Instead of living nature, where
God made and planted men, his sons,
Through smoke and mould, around thee stare
Grim skeletons and dead men's bones.
Up! Fly! Far out into the land!
And this mysterious volume, see!
By Nostradamus's[5] own hand,
Is it not guide enough for thee?
Then shalt thou thread the starry skies,
And, taught by nature in her walks,
The spirit's might shall o'er thee rise,
As ghost to ghost familiar talks.
Vain hope that mere dry sense should here
Explain the holy signs to thee.
I feel you, spirits, hovering near;
Oh, if you hear me, answer me!
[_He opens the book and beholds the sign of the Macrocosm. [_6]]
Ha! as I gaze, what ecstasy is this,
In one full tide through all my senses flowing!
I feel a new-born life, a holy bliss
Through nerves and veins mysteriously glowing.
Was it a God who wrote each sign?
Which, all my inner tumult stilling,
And this poor heart with rapture filling,
Reveals to me, by force divine,
Great Nature's energies around and through me thrilling?
Am I a God? It grows so bright to me!
Each character on which my eye reposes
Nature in act before my soul discloses.
The sage's word was truth, at last I see:
"The spirit-world, unbarred, is waiting;
Thy sense is locked, thy heart is dead!
Up, scholar, bathe, unhesitating,
The earthly breast in morning-red! "
[_He contemplates the sign. _]
How all one whole harmonious weaves,
Each in the other works and lives!
See heavenly powers ascending and descending,
The golden buckets, one long line, extending!
See them with bliss-exhaling pinions winging
Their way from heaven through earth--their singing
Harmonious through the universe is ringing!