No More Learning

The wild dance maddens in the van, and those
Who lead it--fleet as shadows on the green,

Outspeed the chariot, and without repose _140
Mix with each other in tempestuous measure
To savage music, wilder as it grows,

They, tortured by their agonizing pleasure,
Convulsed and on the rapid whirlwinds spun
Of that fierce Spirit, whose unholy leisure _145

Was soothed by mischief since the world begun,
Throw back their heads and loose their streaming hair;
And in their dance round her who dims the sun,

Maidens and youths fling their wild arms in air
As their feet twinkle; they recede, and now _150
Bending within each other's atmosphere,

Kindle invisibly--and as they glow,
Like moths by light attracted and repelled,
Oft to their bright destruction come and go,

Till like two clouds into one vale impelled, _155
That shake the mountains when their lightnings mingle
And die in rain--the fiery band which held

Their natures, snaps--while the shock still may tingle
One falls and then another in the path
Senseless--nor is the desolation single, _160

Yet ere I can say WHERE--the chariot hath
Passed over them--nor other trace I find
But as of foam after the ocean's wrath

Is spent upon the desert shore;--behind,
Old men and women foully disarrayed, _165
Shake their gray hairs in the insulting wind,

And follow in the dance, with limbs decayed,
Seeking to reach the light which leaves them still
Farther behind and deeper in the shade.

But not the less with impotence of will _170
They wheel, though ghastly shadows interpose
Round them and round each other, and fulfil

Their work, and in the dust from whence they rose
Sink, and corruption veils them as they lie,
And past in these performs what . . . in those. _175

Struck to the heart by this sad pageantry,
Half to myself I said--'And what is this?
Whose shape is that within the car? And why--'

I would have added--'is all here amiss? --'
But a voice answered--'Life! '--I turned, and knew _180
(O Heaven, have mercy on such wretchedness! )

That what I thought was an old root which grew
To strange distortion out of the hill side,
Was indeed one of those deluded crew,

And that the grass, which methought hung so wide _185
And white, was but his thin discoloured hair,
And that the holes he vainly sought to hide,

Were or had been eyes:--'If thou canst forbear
To join the dance, which I had well forborne,'
Said the grim Feature, of my thought aware, _190

'I will unfold that which to this deep scorn
Led me and my companions, and relate
The progress of the pageant since the morn;

'If thirst of knowledge shall not then abate,
Follow it thou even to the night, but I _195
Am weary. '--Then like one who with the weight

Of his own words is staggered, wearily
He paused; and ere he could resume, I cried:
'First, who art thou? '--'Before thy memory,

'I feared, loved, hated, suffered, did and died, _200
And if the spark with which Heaven lit my spirit
Had been with purer nutriment supplied,

'Corruption would not now thus much inherit
Of what was once Rousseau,--nor this disguise
Stain that which ought to have disdained to wear it; _205

'If I have been extinguished, yet there rise
A thousand beacons from the spark I bore'--
'And who are those chained to the car? '--'The wise,

'The great, the unforgotten,--they who wore
Mitres and helms and crowns, or wreaths of light, _210
Signs of thought's empire over thought--their lore

'Taught them not this, to know themselves; their might
Could not repress the mystery within,
And for the morn of truth they feigned, deep night

'Caught them ere evening. '--'Who is he with chin _215
Upon his breast, and hands crossed on his chain?
'--
'The child of a fierce hour; he sought to win

'The world, and lost all that it did contain
Of greatness, in its hope destroyed; and more
Of fame and peace than virtue's self can gain _220

'Without the opportunity which bore
Him on its eagle pinions to the peak
From which a thousand climbers have before

'Fallen, as Napoleon fell. '--I felt my cheek
Alter, to see the shadow pass away, _225
Whose grasp had left the giant world so weak

That every pigmy kicked it as it lay;
And much I grieved to think how power and will
In opposition rule our mortal day,

And why God made irreconcilable _230
Good and the means of good; and for despair
I half disdained mine eyes' desire to fill

With the spent vision of the times that were
And scarce have ceased to be. --'Dost thou behold,'
Said my guide, 'those spoilers spoiled, Voltaire, _235

'Frederick, and Paul, Catherine, and Leopold,
And hoary anarchs, demagogues, and sage--
names which the world thinks always old,

'For in the battle Life and they did wage,
She remained conqueror. I was overcome _240
By my own heart alone, which neither age,

'Nor tears, nor infamy, nor now the tomb
Could temper to its object. '--'Let them pass,'
I cried, 'the world and its mysterious doom

'Is not so much more glorious than it was, _245
That I desire to worship those who drew
New figures on its false and fragile glass

'As the old faded. '--'Figures ever new
Rise on the bubble, paint them as you may;
We have but thrown, as those before us threw, _250

'Our shadows on it as it passed away.
But mark how chained to the triumphal chair
The mighty phantoms of an elder day;

'All that is mortal of great Plato there
Expiates the joy and woe his master knew not; _255
The star that ruled his doom was far too fair.

'And life, where long that flower of Heaven grew not,
Conquered that heart by love, which gold, or pain,
Or age, or sloth, or slavery could subdue not.

'And near him walk the . . . twain, _260
The tutor and his pupil, whom Dominion
Followed as tame as vulture in a chain.

'The world was darkened beneath either pinion
Of him whom from the flock of conquerors
Fame singled out for her thunder-bearing minion; _265

'The other long outlived both woes and wars,
Throned in the thoughts of men, and still had kept
The jealous key of Truth's eternal doors,

'If Bacon's eagle spirit had not lept
Like lightning out of darkness--he compelled _270
The Proteus shape of Nature, as it slept

'To wake, and lead him to the caves that held
The treasure of the secrets of its reign.
See the great bards of elder time, who quelled

'The passions which they sung, as by their strain _275
May well be known: their living melody
Tempers its own contagion to the vein

'Of those who are infected with it--I
Have suffered what I wrote, or viler pain!
And so my words have seeds of misery-- _180

'Even as the deeds of others, not as theirs. '
And then he pointed to a company,

'Midst whom I quickly recognized the heirs
Of Caesar's crime, from him to Constantine;
The anarch chiefs, whose force and murderous snares _285

Had founded many a sceptre-bearing line,
And spread the plague of gold and blood abroad:
And Gregory and John, and men divine,

Who rose like shadows between man and God;
Till that eclipse, still hanging over heaven, _290
Was worshipped by the world o'er which they strode,

For the true sun it quenched--'Their power was given
But to destroy,' replied the leader:--'I
Am one of those who have created, even

'If it be but a world of agony.