No More Learning

THE YOUTH:
Oh, still those dissonant thoughts! --List how the music
Grows on the enchanted air! And see, the torches
Restlessly flashing, and the crowd divided
Like waves before an admiral's prow!

NOTE:
_132 how the 1870; loud 1824.

A MARSHALSMAN:
Give place _135
To the Marshal of the Masque!

A PURSUIVANT:
Room for the King!

NOTE:
_136 A Pursuivant: Room for the King! 1870; omitted 1824.

THE YOUTH:
How glorious! See those thronging chariots
Rolling, like painted clouds before the wind,
Behind their solemn steeds: how some are shaped
Like curved sea-shells dyed by the azure depths _140
Of Indian seas; some like the new-born moon;
And some like cars in which the Romans climbed
(Canopied by Victory's eagle-wings outspread)
The Capitolian--See how gloriously
The mettled horses in the torchlight stir _145
Their gallant riders, while they check their pride,
Like shapes of some diviner element
Than English air, and beings nobler than
The envious and admiring multitude.

NOTE:
_138-40 Rolling. . . depths 1870;
Rolling like painted clouds before the wind
Some are
Like curved shells, dyed by the azure depths 1824.

SECOND CITIZEN:
Ay, there they are-- _150
Nobles, and sons of nobles, patentees,
Monopolists, and stewards of this poor farm,
On whose lean sheep sit the prophetic crows,
Here is the pomp that strips the houseless orphan,
Here is the pride that breaks the desolate heart.
_155
These are the lilies glorious as Solomon,
Who toil not, neither do they spin,--unless
It be the webs they catch poor rogues withal.
Here is the surfeit which to them who earn
The niggard wages of the earth, scarce leaves _160
The tithe that will support them till they crawl
Back to her cold hard bosom. Here is health
Followed by grim disease, glory by shame,
Waste by lame famine, wealth by squalid want,
And England's sin by England's punishment. _165
And, as the effect pursues the cause foregone,
Lo, giving substance to my words, behold
At once the sign and the thing signified--
A troop of cripples, beggars, and lean outcasts,
Horsed upon stumbling jades, carted with dung, _170
Dragged for a day from cellars and low cabins
And rotten hiding-holes, to point the moral
Of this presentment, and bring up the rear
Of painted pomp with misery!

NOTES:
_162 her 1870; its 1824.
_170 jades 1870; shapes 1824.
_173 presentment 1870; presentiment 1824.

THE YOUTH:
'Tis but
The anti-masque, and serves as discords do _175
In sweetest music. Who would love May flowers
If they succeeded not to Winter's flaw;
Or day unchanged by night; or joy itself
Without the touch of sorrow?

SECOND CITIZEN:
I and thou-

A MARSHALSMAN:
Place, give place! _180

NOTE:
_179, _180 I. . . place! 1870; omitted 1824.


SCENE 2:
A CHAMBER IN WHITEHALL.