No More Learning

Shriek--who shall reply?
For is it not loved in vain?

_Infant Voices passing. _
Rock us softly,
Though it be all in vain.

_Aged Voices passing. _
O we live, O we live--
And this life we would survive,
Is a gloomy thing and brief,
Which, consummated in grief,
Leaveth ashes for all gain.
Is it not _all_ in vain?

_Infant Voices passing. _
Rock us softly,
Though it be _all_ in vain.

[_Voices die away. _

_Earth Spirits. _ And bringer of the curse upon all these.

_Eve. _ The voices of foreshown Humanity
Die off;--so let me die.

_Adam.
_ So let us die,
When God's will soundeth the right hour of death.

_Earth Spirits. _ And bringer of the curse upon all these.

_Eve. _ O Spirits! by the gentleness ye use
In winds at night, and floating clouds at noon,
In gliding waters under lily-leaves,
In chirp of crickets, and the settling hush
A bird makes in her nest with feet and wings,--
Fulfil your natures now!

_Earth Spirits. _ Agreed, allowed!
We gather out our natures like a cloud,
And thus fulfil their lightnings! Thus, and thus!
Hearken, oh hearken to us!

_First Spirit. _
As the storm-wind blows bleakly from the norland,
As the snow-wind beats blindly on the moorland,
As the simoom drives hot across the desert,
As the thunder roars deep in the Unmeasured.
As the torrent tears the ocean-world to atoms,
As the whirlpool grinds it fathoms below fathoms,
Thus,--and thus!

_Second Spirit. _
As the yellow toad, that spits its poison chilly,
As the tiger, in the jungle crouching stilly,
As the wild boar, with ragged tusks of anger,
As the wolf-dog, with teeth of glittering clangour,
As the vultures, that scream against the thunder,
As the owlets, that sit and moan asunder,
Thus,--and thus!