No More Learning

And here again I come and only find
The drain-cut levels of the marshy lea,--
Gray sand banks and pale sunsets--dreary wind,
Dim shores, dense rains, and heavy clouded sea.




XLVI

[Published in _The Keepsake for 1851: an illustrated annual_, edited
by Miss Power. London: David Bogue. To this issue of the Keepsake
Tennyson also contributed 'Come not when I am dead' now included in
the collected Works. ]

What time I wasted youthful hours
One of the shining winged powers,
Show'd me vast cliffs with crown of towers,

As towards the gracious light I bow'd,
They seem'd high palaces and proud,
Hid now and then with sliding cloud.

He said, 'The labour is not small;
Yet winds the pathway free to all:--
Take care thou dost not fear to fall! '




XLVII

=Britons, Guard your Own=

[Published in _The Examiner_, January 31, 1852. Verses 1 (considerably
altered), 7, 8 and 10, are reprinted in Life, vol. I, p. 344. ]

Rise, Britons, rise, if manhood be not dead;
The world's last tempest darkens overhead;
The Pope has bless'd him;
The Church caress'd him;
He triumphs; maybe, we shall stand alone:
Britons, guard your own.

His ruthless host is bought with plunder'd gold,
By lying priest's the peasant's votes controlled.
All freedom vanish'd,
The true men banished,
He triumphs; maybe, we shall stand alone.
Britons, guard your own.

Peace-lovers we--sweet Peace we all desire--
Peace-lovers we--but who can trust a liar?
--
Peace-lovers, haters
Of shameless traitors,
We hate not France, but this man's heart of stone.
Britons, guard your own.

We hate not France, but France has lost her voice
This man is France, the man they call her choice.
By tricks and spying,
By craft and lying,
And murder was her freedom overthrown.
Britons, guard your own.

'Vive l'Empereur' may follow by and bye;
'God save the Queen' is here a truer cry.
God save the Nation,
The toleration,
And the free speech that makes a Briton known.
Britons, guard your own.

Rome's dearest daughter now is captive France,
The Jesuit laughs, and reckoning on his chance,
Would, unrelenting,
Kill all dissenting,
Till we were left to fight for truth alone.
Britons, guard your own.

Call home your ships across Biscayan tides,
To blow the battle from their oaken sides.
Why waste they yonder
Their idle thunder?
Why stay they there to guard a foreign throne?
Seamen, guard your own.

We were the best of marksmen long ago,
We won old battles with our strength, the bow.
Now practise, yeomen,
Like those bowmen,
Till your balls fly as their true shafts have flown.