No More Learning

IV.


MY First is singular at best:
More plural is my Second:
My Third is far the pluralest--
So plural-plural, I protest
It scarcely can be reckoned!

My First is followed by a bird:
My Second by believers
In magic art: my simple Third
Follows, too often, hopes absurd
And plausible deceivers.

My First to get at wisdom tries--
A failure melancholy!
My Second men revered as wise:
My Third from heights of wisdom flies
To depths of frantic folly.

My First is ageing day by day:
My Second's age is ended:
My Third enjoys an age, they say,
That never seems to fade away,
Through centuries extended.

My Whole? I need a poet's pen
To paint her myriad phases:
The monarch, and the slave, of men--
A mountain-summit, and a den
Of dark and deadly mazes--

A flashing light--a fleeting shade--
Beginning, end, and middle
Of all that human art hath made
Or wit devised! Go, seek _her_ aid,
If you would read my riddle!




FAME'S PENNY-TRUMPET


[Affectionately dedicated to all "original researchers" who pant for
"endowment. "]

BLOW, blow your trumpets till they crack,
Ye little men of little souls!
And bid them huddle at your back--
Gold-sucking leeches, shoals on shoals!

Fill all the air with hungry wails--
"Reward us, ere we think or write!
Without your Gold mere Knowledge fails
To sate the swinish appetite! "

And, where great Plato paced serene,
Or Newton paused with wistful eye,
Rush to the chace with hoofs unclean
And Babel-clamour of the sty

Be yours the pay: be theirs the praise:
We will not rob them of their due,
Nor vex the ghosts of other days
By naming them along with you.
They sought and found undying fame:
They toiled not for reward nor thanks:
Their cheeks are hot with honest shame
For you, the modern mountebanks!

Who preach of Justice--plead with tears
That Love and Mercy should abound--
While marking with complacent ears
The moaning of some tortured hound:

Who prate of Wisdom--nay, forbear,
Lest Wisdom turn on you in wrath,
Trampling, with heel that will not spare,
The vermin that beset her path!

Go, throng each other's drawing-rooms,
Ye idols of a petty clique:
Strut your brief hour in borrowed plumes,
And make your penny-trumpets squeak.

[Picture: Go, throng each other's drawing-rooms]

Deck your dull talk with pilfered shreds
Of learning from a nobler time,
And oil each other's little heads
With mutual Flattery's golden slime:

And when the topmost height ye gain,
And stand in Glory's ether clear,
And grasp the prize of all your pain--
So many hundred pounds a year--

Then let Fame's banner be unfurled!
Sing Paeans for a victory won!
Ye tapers, that would light the world,
And cast a shadow on the Sun--

Who still shall pour His rays sublime,
One crystal flood, from East to West,
When _ye_ have burned your little time
And feebly flickered into rest!




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