No More Learning

With it's own Virtues springs another earth:
Nature, as in her prime, her virgin reign
Begins, and Love and Truth compose her train; 785
With pulseless hand, and fix'd unwearied gaze,
Unbreathing Justice her still beam surveys:
No more, along thy vales and viny groves,
Whole hamlets disappearing as he moves,
With cheeks o'erspread by smiles of baleful glow, 790
On his pale horse shall fell Consumption go.

Oh give, great God, to Freedom's waves to ride
Sublime o'er Conquest, Avarice, and Pride,
To break, the vales where Death with Famine scow'rs,
And dark Oppression builds her thick-ribb'd tow'rs; 795
Where Machination her fell soul resigns,
Fled panting to the centre of her mines;
Where Persecution decks with ghastly smiles
Her bed, his mountains mad Ambition piles;
Where Discord stalks dilating, every hour, 800
And crouching fearful at the feet of Pow'r,
Like Lightnings eager for th' almighty word,
Look up for sign of havoc, Fire, and Sword; [Ll]
--Give them, beneath their breast while Gladness springs,
To brood the nations o'er with Nile-like wings; 805
And grant that every sceptred child of clay,
Who cries, presumptuous, "here their tides shall stay,"
Swept in their anger from th' affrighted shore,
With all his creatures sink--to rise no more.
To-night, my friend, within this humble cot 810
Be the dead load of mortal ills forgot,
Renewing, when the rosy summits glow
At morn, our various journey, sad and slow.





FOOTNOTES ON THE TEXT

[Footnote A: All the notes to this reprint of the edition of 1793 are
Wordsworth's own, as given in that edition. --Ed. ]


[Footnote B: The lyre of Memnon is reported to have emitted melancholy
or chearful tones, as it was touched by the sun's evening or morning
rays. ]


[Footnote C: There are few people whom it may be necessary to inform,
that the sides of many of the post-roads in France are planted with a
row of trees. ]


[Footnote D: Alluding to crosses seen on the tops of the spiry rocks of
the Chartreuse, which have every appearance of being inaccessible. ]


[Footnote E: Names of rivers at the Chartreuse. ]


[Footnote F: Name of one of the vallies of the Chartreuse. ]


[Footnote G: If any of my readers should ever visit the Lake of Como, I
recommend it to him to take a stroll along this charming little pathway:
he must chuse the evening, as it is on the western side of the Lake. We
pursued it from the foot of the water to it's head: it is once
interrupted by a ferry. ]


[Footnote H:

Solo, e pensoso i piu deserti campi
Vo misurando a passi tardi, e lenti.
'Petrarch'. ]


[Footnote I: The river along whose banks you descend in crossing the
Alps by the Semplon pass.
From the striking contrast of it's features,
this pass I should imagine to be the most interesting among the Alps. ]


[Footnote J: Most of the bridges among the Alps are of wood and covered:
these bridges have a heavy appearance, and rather injure the effect of
the scenery in some places. ]


[Footnote K:

"Red came the river down, and loud, and oft
The angry Spirit of the water shriek'd. "

HOME'S 'Douglas'. ]


[Footnote L: The Catholic religion prevails here, these cells are, as is
well known, very common in the Catholic countries, planted, like the
Roman tombs, along the road side. ]


[Footnote M: Crosses commemorative of the deaths of travellers by the
fall of snow and other accidents very common along this dreadful road. ]


[Footnote N: The houses in the more retired Swiss valleys are all built
of wood. ]


[Footnote O: I had once given to these sketches the title of
Picturesque; but the Alps are insulted in applying to them that term.
Whoever, in attempting to describe their sublime features, should
confine himself to the cold rules of painting would give his reader but
a very imperfect idea of those emotions which they have the irresistible
power of communicating to the most impassive imaginations. The fact is,
that controuling influence, which distinguishes the Alps from all other
scenery, is derived from images which disdain the pencil. Had I wished
to make a picture of this scene I had thrown much less light into it.
But I consulted nature and my feelings. The ideas excited by the stormy
sunset I am here describing owed their sublimity to that deluge of
light, or rather of fire, in which nature had wrapped the immense forms
around me; any intrusion of shade, by destroying the unity of the
impression, had necessarily diminished its grandeur. ]


[Footnote P: Pike is a word very commonly used in the north of England,
to signify a high mountain of the conic form, as Langdale pike, etc. ]


[Footnote Q: For most of the images in the next sixteen verses I am
indebted to M. Raymond's interesting observations annexed to his
translation of Coxe's 'Tour in Switzerland'.