No More Learning

--Ed.





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TO H. C.

SIX YEARS OLD


Composed 1802. --Published 1807


One of the "Poems referring to the Period of Childhood. "--Ed.




O thou! whose fancies from afar are brought;
Who of thy words dost make a mock apparel,
And fittest to unutterable thought
The breeze-like motion and the self-born carol;
Thou faery voyager! that dost float 5
In such clear water, that thy boat
May rather seem
To brood on air [A] than on an earthly stream;
Suspended in a stream as clear as sky,
Where earth and heaven do make one imagery; 10
O blessed vision! happy child!
Thou [1] art so exquisitely wild,
I think of thee with many fears
For what may be thy lot in future years.

I thought of times when Pain might be thy guest, 15
Lord of thy house and hospitality;
And Grief, uneasy lover! never rest
But when she sate within the touch of thee.
O too industrious folly!
O vain and causeless melancholy!
20
Nature will either end thee quite;
Or, lengthening out thy season of delight,
Preserve for thee, by individual right,
A young lamb's heart among the full-grown flocks.
What hast thou to do with sorrow, 25
Or the injuries of to-morrow?
Thou art a dew-drop, which the morn brings forth,
Ill fitted to sustain [2] unkindly shocks,
Or to be trailed along the soiling earth;
A gem that glitters while it lives, 30
And no forewarning gives;
But, at the touch of wrong, without a strife
Slips in a moment out of life.


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VARIANTS ON THE TEXT

[Variant 1:

1845.

That . . . 1807. ]


[Variant 2:

1827.

Not doom'd to jostle with . . . 1807.

Not framed to undergo . . .