No More Learning

But no two dreams are like.

As when a soul laments, which hath been blest,
Desiring what is mingled with past years,
In yearnings that can never be exprest
By sighs or groans or tears;

Because all words, tho' cull'd [30] with choicest art,
Failing to give the bitter of the sweet,
Wither beneath the palate, and the heart
Faints, faded by its heat.




[Footnote 1: Suggested apparently by Denham, 'Verses on Cowley's
Death':--

Old Chaucer, like the morning star
To us discovers
Day from far. ]


[Footnote 2: Here follow in 1833 two stanzas excised in 1842:--

In every land I thought that, more or less,
The stronger sterner nature overbore
The softer, uncontrolled by gentleness
And selfish evermore:

And whether there were any means whereby,
In some far aftertime, the gentler mind
Might reassume its just and full degree
Of rule among mankind. ]


[Footnote 3: 1833. Screamed. ]

[Footnote 4: The Latin 'testudo' formed of the shields of soldiers
held over their heads. ]

[Footnote 5: 1883 to 1848 inclusive. Stedfast. ]

[Footnote 6: 1833.

Clasping jasmine turned
Its twined arms festooning tree to tree.

Altered to present reading, 1842. ]


[Footnote 7: A lady, i. e. , Helen.
]

[Footnote 8: Tennyson has here noticed what is so often emphasised by
Greek writers, that tallness was a great beauty in women. See Aristotle,
'Ethics', iv. , 3, and Homer, 'passim, Odyssey', viii. , 416;
xviii. , 190 and 248; xxi. , 6. So Xenophon in describing Panthea
emphasises her tallness, 'Cyroped. ', v. ]

[Footnote 9: 1883. Sovran lady. ]

[Footnote 10: As the old men say, 'Iliad', iii. , 156-8. ]

[Footnote 11: The one is Iphigenia. ]

[Footnote 12: Aulis. ]

[Footnote 13: It was not till 1884 that this line was altered to the
reading of the final edition, 'i. e.