No More Learning

If not in their origin, in their present form this and the two preceding
poems appear due to the Seventeenth Century, and have therefore been
placed in Book II.


Poem 111.

The remark quoted in the note to No. 47 applies equally to these truly
wonderful verses, which, like "Lycidas," may be regarded as a test of
any reader's insight into the most poetical aspects of Poetry. The
general differences between them are vast: but in imaginative intensity
Marvell and Shelley are closely related. This poem is printed as a
translation in Marvell's works: but the original Latin is obviously his
own. The most striking verses in it, here quoted as the book is rare,
answer more or less to stanzas 2 and 6:

Alma Quies, teneo te! et te, germana Quietis, Simplicitas! vos ergo diu
per templa, per urbes Quaesivi, regum perque alta palatia, frustra: Sed
vos hortorum per opaca silentia, longe Celarunt plantae virides, et
concolor umbra.


Poems 112&113.

_L'Allegro_ and _Il Penseroso_. It is a striking proof of Milton's
astonishing power, that these, the earliest pure Descriptive Lyrics in
our language, should still remain the best in a style which so many
great poets have since attempted. The Bright and the Thoughtful aspects
of Nature are their subjects: but each is preceded by a mythological
introduction in a mixed Classical and Italian manner. The meaning of the
first is that Gaiety is the child of Nature; of the second, that
Pensiveness is the daughter of Sorrow and Genius.

112: Perverse ingenuity has conjectured that for _Cerberus_ we should
read _Erebus_, who in the Mythology is brother at once and husband of
Night.
But the issue of this union is not Sadness, but Day and
Aether:--completing the circle of primary creation, as the parents are
both children of Chaos, the first-begotten of all things. (Hesiod. )

_the mountain nymph_: compare Wordsworth's Sonnet, No. 210.

_The clouds in thousand liveries dight_: is in _apposition_ to the
preceding, by a grammatical license not uncommon with Milton.

_tells his tale_: counts his flock; _Cynosure_: the Pole Star; _Corydon,
Thyrsis_, etc. : Shepherd names from the old Idylls; _Jonson's learned
sock_: the gaiety of our age would find little pleasure in his elaborate
comedies; _Lydian airs_: a light and festive style of ancient music.

113: _bestead_: avail.

_starr'd Ethiop queen_: Cassiopeia, the legendary Queen of Ethiopia, and
thence translated amongst the constellations.

_Cynthia_: the Moon: her chariot is drawn by dragons in ancient
representations.

_Hermes_: called Trismegistus, a mystical writer of the Neo-Platonist
school; _Thebes_, etc. : subjects of Athenian Tragedy; _Buskin'd_:
tragic; _Musaeus_: a poet in Mythology.

_him that left half told_: Chaucer, in his incomplete "Squire's Tale. "

_great bards_: Ariosto, Tasso, and Spenser, are here intended.

_frounced_: curled; _The Attic Boy_: Cephalus.


Poem 114.