No More Learning

XVIII.

Long winding caverns, glittering far
Into a crystal distance!
Through clefts of which shall many a star
Shine clear without resistance,
And carry down its rays the smell
Of flowers above invisible.

XIX.

I said that two or three might choose
Their dwelling near mine own:
Those who would change man's voice and use,
For Nature's way and tone--
Man's veering heart and careless eyes,
For Nature's steadfast sympathies.

XX.

Ourselves, to meet her faithfulness,
Shall play a faithful part;
Her beautiful shall ne'er address
The monstrous at our heart:
Her musical shall ever touch
Something within us also such.

XXI.

Yet shall she not our mistress live,
As doth the moon of ocean,
Though gently as the moon she give
Our thoughts a light and motion:
More like a harp of many lays,
Moving its master while he plays.

XXII.

No sod in all that island doth
Yawn open for the dead;
No wind hath borne a traitor's oath;
No earth, a mourner's tread;
We cannot say by stream or shade,
"I suffered _here_,--was _here_ betrayed. "

XXIII.

Our only "farewell" we shall laugh
To shifting cloud or hour,
And use our only epitaph
To some bud turned a flower:
Our only tears shall serve to prove
Excess in pleasure or in love.

XXIV.

Our fancies shall their plumage catch
From fairest island-birds,
Whose eggs let young ones out at hatch,
Born singing!
then our words
Unconsciously shall take the dyes
Of those prodigious fantasies.

XXV.

Yea, soon, no consonant unsmooth
Our smile-tuned lips shall reach;
Sounds sweet as Hellas spake in youth
Shall glide into our speech:
(What music, certes, can you find
As soft as voices which are kind? )

XXVI.

And often, by the joy without
And in us, overcome,
We, through our musing, shall let float
Such poems,--sitting dumb,--
As Pindar might have writ if he
Had tended sheep in Arcady;

XXVII.

Or AEschylus--the pleasant fields
He died in, longer knowing;
Or Homer, had men's sins and shields
Been lost in Meles flowing;
Or Poet Plato, had the undim
Unsetting Godlight broke on him.

XXVIII.

Choose me the cave most worthy choice,
To make a place for prayer,
And I will choose a praying voice
To pour our spirits there:
How silverly the echoes run!
_Thy will be done,--thy will be done. _

XXIX.

Gently yet strangely uttered words!
They lift me from my dream;
The island fadeth with its swards
That did no more than seem:
The streams are dry, no sun could find--
The fruits are fallen, without wind.

XXX.

So oft the doing of God's will
Our foolish wills undoeth!
And yet what idle dream breaks ill,
Which morning-light subdueth?
And who would murmur and misdoubt,
When God's great sunrise finds him out?