No More Learning

[11] While from door to door
This old Man creeps, [12] the villagers in him
Behold a record which together binds
Past deeds and offices of charity, 90
Else unremembered, and so keeps alive
The kindly mood in hearts which lapse of years,
And that half-wisdom half-experience gives,
Make slow to feel, and by sure steps resign
To selfishness and cold oblivious cares. 95
Among the farms and solitary huts,
Hamlets and thinly-scattered villages,
Where'er the aged Beggar takes his rounds,
The mild necessity of use compels
To acts of love; and habit does the work 100
Of reason; yet prepares that after-joy
Which reason cherishes. And thus the soul,
By that sweet taste of pleasure unpursued
Doth find herself [13] insensibly disposed
To virtue and true goodness. 105
Some there are,
By their good works exalted, lofty minds
And meditative, authors of delight
And happiness, which to the end of time
Will live, and spread, and kindle: even such minds [14] 110
In childhood, from this solitary Being,
Or from like wanderer, haply have received [15]
(A thing more precious far than all that books
Or the solicitudes of love can do! )
That first mild touch of sympathy and thought, 115
In which they found their kindred with a world
Where want and sorrow were. The easy man
Who sits at his own door,--and, like the pear
That [16] overhangs his head from the green wall,
Feeds in the sunshine; the robust and young, 120
The prosperous and unthinking, they who live
Sheltered, and flourish in a little grove
Of their own kindred;--all behold in him
A silent monitor, which on their minds
Must needs impress a transitory thought 125
Of self-congratulation, to the heart
Of each recalling his peculiar boons,
His charters and exemptions; and, perchance,
Though he to no one give the fortitude
And circumspection needful to preserve 130
His present blessings, and to husband up
The respite of the season, he, at least,
And 'tis no vulgar service, makes them felt.

Yet further. --Many, I believe, there are
Who live a life of virtuous decency, 135
Men who can hear the Decalogue and feel
No self-reproach; who of the moral law
Established in the land where they abide
Are strict observers; and not negligent
In acts of love to those with whom they dwell, [17] 140
Their kindred, and the children of their blood.
Praise be to such, and to their slumbers peace!
--But of the poor man ask, the abject poor;
Go, and demand of him, if there be here
In this cold abstinence from evil deeds, 145
And these inevitable charities,
Wherewith to satisfy the human soul?
No--man is dear to man; the poorest poor
Long for some moments in a weary life
When they can know and feel that they have been, 150
Themselves, the fathers and the dealers-out
Of some small blessings; have been kind to such
As needed kindness, for this single cause,
That we have all of us one human heart.
--Such pleasure is to one kind Being known, 155
My neighbour, when with punctual care, each week
Duly as Friday comes, though pressed herself
By her own wants, she from her store [18] of meal
Takes one unsparing handful for the scrip
Of this old Mendicant, and, from her door 160
Returning with exhilarated heart,
Sits by her fire, and builds her hope in heaven.

Then let him pass, a blessing on his head!
And while in that vast solitude to which
The tide of things has borne [19] him, he appears 165
To breathe and live but for himself alone,
Unblamed, uninjured, let him bear about
The good which the benignant law of Heaven
Has hung around him: and, while life is his,
Still let him prompt the unlettered villagers 170
To tender offices and pensive thoughts. [D]
--Then let him pass, a blessing on his head!
And, long as he can wander, let him breathe
The freshness of the valleys; let his blood
Struggle with frosty air and winter snows; 175
And let the chartered wind that sweeps the heath
Beat his grey locks against his withered face.
Reverence the hope whose vital anxiousness
Gives the last human interest to his heart.
May never HOUSE, misnamed of INDUSTRY, 180
Make him a captive! --for that pent-up din,
Those life-consuming sounds that clog the air,
Be his the natural silence of old age!
Let him be free of mountain solitudes;
And have around him, whether heard or not, 185
The pleasant melody of woodland birds.
Few are his pleasures: if his eyes have now
Been doomed so long to settle upon earth
That not without some effort they behold
The countenance of the horizontal sun, [20] 190
Rising or setting, let the light at least
Find a free entrance to their languid orbs.
And let him, _where_ and _when_ he will, sit down
Beneath the trees, or on a [21] grassy bank
Of highway side, and with the little birds 195
Share his chance-gathered meal; and, finally,
As in the eye of Nature he has lived,
So in the eye of Nature let him die! [E]


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VARIANTS ON THE TEXT

[Variant 1:

1805.

. . . eat . . . 1800. ]


[Variant 2:

1837.