No More Learning

VOICE OF UNSEEN SPIRITS:
The pale stars are gone!
For the sun, their swift shepherd,
To their folds them compelling,
In the depths of the dawn,
Hastes, in meteor-eclipsing array, and the flee _5
Beyond his blue dwelling,
As fawns flee the leopard.
But where are ye?

[A TRAIN OF DARK FORMS AND SHADOWS PASSES BY CONFUSEDLY, SINGING. ]

Here, oh, here:
We bear the bier _10
Of the father of many a cancelled year!
Spectres we
Of the dead Hours be,
We bear Time to his tomb in eternity.

Strew, oh, strew _15
Hair, not yew!
Wet the dusty pall with tears, not dew!
Be the faded flowers
Of Death's bare bowers
Spread on the corpse of the King of Hours! _20

Haste, oh, haste!
As shades are chased,
Trembling, by day, from heaven's blue waste.
We melt away,
Like dissolving spray, _25
From the children of a diviner day,
With the lullaby
Of winds that die
On the bosom of their own harmony!

IONE:
What dark forms were they? _30

PANTHEA:
The past Hours weak and gray,
With the spoil which their toil
Raked together
From the conquest but One could foil.

IONE:
Have they passed?
PANTHEA:
They have passed; _35
They outspeeded the blast,
While 'tis said, they are fled:

IONE:
Whither, oh, whither?

PANTHEA:
To the dark, to the past, to the dead.

VOICE OF UNSEEN SPIRITS:
Bright clouds float in heaven, _40
Dew-stars gleam on earth,
Waves assemble on ocean,
They are gathered and driven
By the storm of delight, by the panic of glee!
They shake with emotion, _45
They dance in their mirth.
But where are ye?

The pine boughs are singing
Old songs with new gladness,
The billows and fountains _50
Fresh music are flinging,
Like the notes of a spirit from land and from sea;
The storms mock the mountains
With the thunder of gladness.
But where are ye? _55

IONE:
What charioteers are these?

PANTHEA:
Where are their chariots?

SEMICHORUS OF HOURS:
The voice of the Spirits of Air and of Earth
Has drawn back the figured curtain of sleep
Which covered our being and darkened our birth
In the deep.

A VOICE:
In the deep?

SEMICHORUS 2:
Oh, below the deep. _60

SEMICHORUS 1:
An hundred ages we had been kept
Cradled in visions of hate and care,
And each one who waked as his brother slept,
Found the truth--

SEMICHORUS 2:
Worse than his visions were!

SEMICHORUS 1:
We have heard the lute of Hope in sleep; _65
We have known the voice of Love in dreams;
We have felt the wand of Power, and leap--

SEMICHORUS 2:
As the billows leap in the morning beams!

CHORUS:
Weave the dance on the floor of the breeze,
Pierce with song heaven's silent light, _70
Enchant the day that too swiftly flees,
To check its flight ere the cave of Night.

Once the hungry Hours were hounds
Which chased the day like a bleeding deer,
And it limped and stumbled with many wounds _75
Through the nightly dells of the desert year.