No More Learning

Yet could not all creation pierce
Beyond the bottom of his eye.

He spake of beauty: that the dull
Saw no divinity in grass,
Life in dead stones, or spirit in air;
Then looking as 'twere in a glass,
He smooth'd his chin and sleek'd his hair,
And said the earth was beautiful.

He spake of virtue: not the gods
More purely, when they wish to charm
Pallas and Juno sitting by:
And with a sweeping of the arm,
And a lack-lustre dead-blue eye,
Devolved his rounded periods.

Most delicately hour by hour
He canvass'd human mysteries,
And trod on silk, as if the winds
Blew his own praises in his eyes,
And stood aloof from other minds
In impotence of fancied power.

With lips depress'd as he were meek,
Himself unto himself he sold:
Upon himself himself did feed:
Quiet, dispassionate, and cold,
And other than his form of creed,
With chisell'd features clear and sleek.






THE POET

First printed in 1830.

In this poem we have the first grand note struck by Tennyson, the first
poem exhibiting the [Greek: spoudaiotaes] of the true poet.


The poet in a golden clime was born,
With golden stars above;
Dower'd with the hate of hate, the scorn of scorn,[1]
The love of love.

He saw thro' [2] life and death, thro' [2] good and ill,
He saw thro' [2] his own soul.
The marvel of the everlasting will,
An open scroll,

Before him lay: with echoing feet he threaded
The secretest walks of fame:
The viewless arrows of his thoughts were headed
And wing'd with flame,--

Like Indian reeds blown from his silver tongue,
And of so fierce a flight,
From Calpe unto Caucasus they sung,
Filling with light

And vagrant melodies the winds which bore
Them earthward till they lit;
Then, like the arrow-seeds of the field flower,
The fruitful wit

Cleaving, took root, and springing forth anew
Where'er they fell, behold,
Like to the mother plant in semblance, grew
A flower all gold,

And bravely furnish'd all abroad to fling
The winged shafts of truth,
To throng with stately blooms the breathing spring
Of Hope and Youth.

So many minds did gird their orbs with beams,
Tho' [3] one did fling the fire.
Heaven flow'd upon the soul in many dreams
Of high desire.

Thus truth was multiplied on truth, the world
Like one [4] great garden show'd,
And thro' the wreaths of floating dark upcurl'd,
Rare sunrise flow'd.

And Freedom rear'd in that august sunrise
Her beautiful bold brow,
When rites and forms before his burning eyes
Melted like snow.

There was no blood upon her maiden robes
Sunn'd by those orient skies;
But round about the circles of the globes
Of her keen eyes

And in her raiment's hem was traced in flame
WISDOM, a name to shake
All evil dreams of power--a sacred name.
[5]
And when she spake,

Her words did gather thunder as they ran,
And as the lightning to the thunder
Which follows it, riving the spirit of man,
Making earth wonder,

So was their meaning to her words.
No sword
Of wrath her right arm whirl'd, [6]
But one poor poet's scroll, and with 'his' word
She shook the world.


[Footnote 1: The expression, as is not uncommon with Tennyson, is
extremely ambiguous; it may mean that he hated hatred, scorned scorn,
and loved love, or that he had hatred, scorn and love as it were in
quintessence, like Dante, and that is no doubt the meaning. ]

[Footnotes 2: 1830. Through. ]

[Footnote 3: 1830 till 1851. Though. ]

[Footnote 4: 2 1830. A. ]

[Footnote 5: 1830.

And in the bordure of her robe was writ
Wisdom, a name to shake
Hoar anarchies, as with a thunderfit. ]

[Footnote 6: 1830. Hurled. ]






THE POET'S MIND

First published in 1830.

A companion poem to the preceding. After line 7
in 1830 appears this stanza, afterwards omitted:--

Clear as summer mountain streams,
Bright as the inwoven beams,
Which beneath their crisping sapphire
In the midday, floating o'er
The golden sands, make evermore
To a blossom-starred shore.