No More Learning

One, after this play, hopes to play at cards,
One a wild night to spend beside his doxy chooses,
Poor fools, why court ye the regards,
For such a set, of the chaste muses?
I tell you, give them more and ever more and more,
And then your mark you'll hardly stray from ever;
To mystify be your endeavor,
To satisfy is labor sore. . . .
What ails you? Are you pleased or pained? What notion----

_Poet_. Go to, and find thyself another slave!
What! and the lofty birthright Nature gave,
The noblest talent Heaven to man has lent,
Thou bid'st the Poet fling to folly's ocean!
How does he stir each deep emotion?
How does he conquer every element?
But by the tide of song that from his bosom springs,
And draws into his heart all living things?
When Nature's hand, in endless iteration,
The thread across the whizzing spindle flings,
When the complex, monotonous creation
Jangles with all its million strings:
Who, then, the long, dull series animating,
Breaks into rhythmic march the soulless round?
And, to the law of All each member consecrating,
Bids one majestic harmony resound?
Who bids the tempest rage with passion's power?
The earnest soul with evening-redness glow?
Who scatters vernal bud and summer flower
Along the path where loved ones go?
Who weaves each green leaf in the wind that trembles
To form the wreath that merit's brow shall crown?
Who makes Olympus fast? the gods assembles?
The power of manhood in the Poet shown.

_Merry Person_. Come, then, put forth these noble powers,
And, Poet, let thy path of flowers
Follow a love-adventure's winding ways.
One comes and sees by chance, one burns, one stays,
And feels the gradual, sweet entangling!
The pleasure grows, then comes a sudden jangling,
Then rapture, then distress an arrow plants,
And ere one dreams of it, lo! _there_ is a romance.
Give us a drama in this fashion!
Plunge into human life's full sea of passion!
Each lives it, few its meaning ever guessed,
Touch where you will, 'tis full of interest.