No More Learning

Charming age! perverted from its proper end!
When childhood labors, the field ought to be the
scene.
822 [solitary wilds,
Full of thought* | without a companion, I walk the
Pacing the earth with sluggish and lingering steps,
Vigilantly avoiding all haunts of human kind;
Intently watchful to shun with speed
The impertinent stare and prying eyes of the world:
For, long bereft of cheerful and gay thought, [me.
My appearance betrays the internal fire that consumes
823
Fresh from his lurking place, yon hollow trunk, see
The wild-cat, the most deadly of the savage tribes
That wander in British woods, \ accustomed on high
To seise the squirrel, or by stratagem
Pluck the dove from her nest,
Or, coming down to the ground, thin the race
That bores the sandy warren. ******
824. -- Home.
In that little expression, there is an enchantment:
It is a mystical circle, that encompasses
Comforts and virtues which are never known beyond
The hallowed boundary. My heart has frequently
Asked for that peaceable haven : at present havened,
* The reader may compare these lines with the first eight of
No. 697; both being translations from the twenty-eighth sonnet
of Petrarch. The former was first published; the latter gi>>en
afterwards by a different hand, as a literal translation.
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? Versification. 249
I reflect, on those, in the wilderness of this world
Who stray on, and do not find any home of rest.
825
In the mean time, the little songsters, eager to cheer
Their partners \ closely brooding in the brake under-
neath,
Strain their throats, or, with the attention of parents,
Conduct their offspring from twig to twig;
Instruct them to seise the gnat, to balance
Their wings in short flights, to* make trial of their
strength,
And venturously \ commit themselves to the bosom >>f
the air. ^
826
Whither shall I turn myself? whither shall I direct
My weary way ? thus exhausted with labor, and faint,
How, through the mazes of this forest,
Reach my dwelling? That deep cry,
That echoes along the wood, | appears to sound
My knell: it is the midnight howling
Of monsters prowling for their prey.
827. - Civilised Society. [multitude
Happy | the man, though undistinguished from the
By riches or dignity, who securely | resides
Where man, naturally fierce, has put off
His fierce disposition, having learned, though tar-
. , dy | in learning,
The arts and the manners of civilised life.
His necessities indeed are numerous: but supply -
Is obvious, being placed within the reach
Of industrious hands and temperate desires.
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? 210 Versification.
828
O ye, who court the silent peaceful retreats
Of contemplation, and who above all prefer
The lonely walk--as being best suited to [haunts
The views of those who sigh to penetrate the secret
Of Nat ure, observing her vagaries,
And, as bold and free from restraint as she, to muse
The free, the rapturous lay -- continue to pace along
Your solitary way ; and delightful be your musings.
829. -- Parental Authority.
See your friend, your best, your most sincere friend,
A parent, whose authority, in appearance
When severest, and collecting all its force,
Is only the graver countenance of affection,
Whose favor may lour, like the spring clouds,
And sometimes utter a tremendous voice,
But has a blessing in the darkest of its frowns,
At the same moment threatening and feeding the plant.
830 --Profusion.
It is a hungry vice. It devours | every thing
Thatgj'res to society its strength, beauty,
Security, and convenience, and utility;
Converts men into mere vermin, deserving to be trapped,
And hanged on gibbets, as fast as catchpole claws
Can lay hold on the slippery prey ; loosens the knot
Of union, and changes the band,
That holds the human kind together, into a scourge.
831. --The Owl.
She mourns during the whole night, J being perch'd
in some vacant niche,
Or time-rent crevice. To the forests sometimes
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? Versification. 251
She bends her silent wing, zehich moves slowly,
And on some tree, dead of old age,
Sits on the watch for her prey. But, should the foot
Of man force its way into her shades,
He, being startled, hears the decayed breaking brauch
Crash, as she rises:--further in the obscurity,
She wings her way to deeper solitudes.
832. --The Swallows.
A long time before the gusts of winter, with chilly
sweep,
Sigh through the groves, the swallow tribes,
Warned by heaven, | assemble in airy bevies,
Or sit in clusters, as if in deep consultation
When to launch: but they linger and wait,
Until the weak of the last broods
Have collected strength to venture on the seaward path.
At last, the twitter of adieu, spreading, sounds:
They fly up, and melt in the air at a distance.
833. --Death.
Death! where the magic in that name,
That freezes my inmost heart ? At the idea, why
Starts, on every limb, the dew of fear ?
There are no terrors to environ the grave,
When the mind, collected within itself,
Views that narrow habitation. The ghastly train,
That haunt the midnight of Guilt,
Then disappear. --In that home of everlasting \ repose,
All sorrows cease. ****
834. --A January Night in Town.
Folly and Vice run their rounds there:
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? 252 Versification.
There multitudes are hastily going to the sight
Of'fictitious distress, yet have not leisure to hear .
Theprayer of the shivering orphan. The flaring lamps
Of chariots, drawn by pampered horses,
Illuminate the snowy street: the wheels, foiling with-
out noise,
Steal, unperceived, on incautious passenger,
Conveying the fair to flutter round
Amid the labyrinths of the dance.
^35. --A February Night in a Village.
While the night continues long, and dreary, and chilly,
As soon as the oblique sun has sunk from view,
The sound of the anvil cheerily invites
The fatigued | rustic to leave his [own*] fire,
And bask himself before the glare of the furnace;
Where the rustic circle, blest with merriment | which
costs them nothing,
(While their faces are tinted with the yellow blaze)
Beguile the hours, and do not envy rooms of state.
83(i. --April.
The western gale now sweeps lightly over the plain ;
It gently waves the cascade of the rivulet:
It gently divides the lock on the brow of Beauty,
And raises the tresses from the white neck,
And bends the fiawers, and causes the lily to stoop,
As if to kiss its image in the water,
Or curls the pool, with softest breath. [sparkles,
Conduct, where, through the glade, yon spring
Over whose brink the narcissus bends,
* The word, " own," is 10 be omitted.
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? Versification. 253
That delights to trace in the wave its beauty ;
"Where the western breeze, whispering through the
Dips his wings in the current, [leaves,
And sprinkles freshness over theflowers.
83? . --May. --Birds' Nesis.
The little bird, from the bank of wildflowers, now
Picks the moss, and flies to the thicket,
And returns repeatedly, and renews the work repeatedly,
Till all thefabric hangs complete;
Ah ! but ill hidden from the rye of the school-boy,
"Who, regardless of the bird's saddest plaint,
Snatches from the bush the labor of many an hour.
838. -- June.
Unfortunate is the man, who, in this season, pent
Within the gloom of city lane,
Pines for the flowery paths, and shades of the woods,
From which the desire of gain or of power
Enticed his youthful steps. He un-\-availingly turns
The rich descriptive pages of Thomson's pom,
And endeavours to persuade himself that the lovely
scenes
Are before his eyes. | In the same manner the hand of
childhood tries
To grasp the bunch of fruit or flowers represented in
a picture,
Bitf, being disappointed, feels the canvas smooth.
839. -- September.
At hour of noon, the reaper band
Repose from their labor*. Around their simple fare,
? See the note in the following page.
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? 254 Versification.
Spread upon the stubble, they blithesomely form
A circling groupe, while behind humbly waits
The dog, and, with significant look
And pawing foot, begs his little portion.
The short meal, seasoned with mirth,
And not without singing, gives place to sleep.
With sheaf under his head, the young rustic
Enjoys sweet sleep, while the young woman he loves
Steals to his side, and shelters him from the sun.
840. --October.
The woods are hushed: not a bird is heard,
Except where the red-breast mourns the fall ofthe leaf.
At close of day now grown shorter, the reaper*, fa-
tigued,
With sickle on his shoulder, hies towards home.
Night comes with menacing \ tempest, first lowly
whispering,
Sighing amid the branches; then,gradually,
With violence increased at each pause,
It rages furiously, | terrifying startled sleep.
841. --December.
The blast loudly blows. While, screened from its fury,
The social circle feel their pleasures enhanced,
Ah! little do th. ey think of the ship,
In the midst o/'the uproar of the winds and billows^
The billows unseen, except by the glare of the lightning,
Or fash of the cannon, \ melancholy signal of distress !
* These descriptions were written in Scotland, where the
harvest is not so early as in the southern parts of our island.
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? Versification. 255
iach moment the crew \ fancy they feel
? h. e shock of a sunken rock. At length they strike.
Vafted on the blast, their voices reach,
faintly, the sea-girt hamlet. Assistance isun-availing.
842
3an prolific nature present to the eye
. \ more noble scene, than when the retiring sun
Gleams on the fading prospect, and illuminates
The extensive view with a last stream of brightness?
The death of Virtue is similar; similar the glow
Of her last hour, that enlivens the mind,
When on the course of a life properly spent
The eye of the mind reverts, and continues to gate,
"Till the shades of death overwhelm the sight,
And lull the senses in a durable | sleep.
*84S [thee,
England ! notwithstanding all thy faults, I still love
My native land! and, while yet a comer is left,
Where English manners and minds may be found,
Shall be forced to love thee. Though thy climate
Be changeable, and thy year, for the most part, de-
With rains, or withered by a frost, [formed
Yet I would not exchange thy sullen skies
And fields destitute of flowers, for warmer France
With all her vineyards, nor for Ausonia's groves
Of golden fruits, and her boweri of myrtle.
844
How the delighted \ breast swells, when the eye
Roves, unsated with pleasure, from shade [hand
To shade, from grove to thicket, from groups near at
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? 256 Versification.
To yon primaeval/orate, with darkening sweep
Retiring; and perceives the whole with beauty
Kindling, and glowing with renewed life!
For now, at the re-animating call of spring,
Each native of the wood-- from the trunk
Huge and towering, down to the bush--
Again assumes its own peculiar character.
845
Behold, from his cavern ] under yon hrambiy bank,
The fox glide forth, scenting the prey
PerchedatthecottageiniAeta'cin? ry. | Slowly creeping,
The weasel, and silently, through the fern,
Comes unawares on the dozing leveret. Prom her seat
She starts, and carries away the assailant,y<zsrenerf
Firmly to her neck, and, from the flowing vein,
Sucking the vital current. Beheld! she drops down: --r
The murderer slinks into the brake
From the carcase, sated with the blood.
846
Thus, when art her standard
Plants on some barbarous shore, to mountains .
And fastnesses in craggy rocks his warrior sons
The irritated Genius of the wilderness withdraws,
There bids them, from the detested influence
Of science free, their bloody rites,
Their unpolished manners, and savage laws, uphold :
'Till destiny shall again pour them from their caverns,.
Eager over their long-lost plains again ?
To extend the veil of ignorance and night.
847. -- Botany Bay.
Why, stern Memory, must thy hard hand
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? Versification. 257
Harrow my soul? why recalls thy power
The fields of England to my eyes here in exile--
The pleasures which once were mine?
Even now I
The lowly, lovely habitation : even now [behold
See the woodbine clasping its walls,
. And hear the red-breasts chirp around,
To ask their morning repast; for I was accustomed,
"With friendly hand, to furnish their morning repast,
Was accustomed to love their song, when lingering
morning
Streaked the light over the chilly landscape.
848
See yon pool, by springs
Still nurtured, attract the crowds that graze
The plain lying near. -- On the bank worn bare,
And marked with ten thousand steps, the colts
Join together in shifting groups or,, to the brink
Going down, dip their pasterns in the water.
The tribes that have horns, being bolder, or less of heat
And insects patient, far from shore
Immerge their chests; and, while the swarm
Now soars up, now resolutely descends,
Lash their sides, and, stamping quickly
And frequently, scatter the fluid round.
849
The glow of evening is faded. The West hardly
Retains a pale memorial of the sun-beams
That made it blaze, when the horizontal clouds,
With purple dies, and fissures bordered with gold,,
Streaked the calm aether; while, through haze,,
v3
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? <58 Versification.
The faint hills glimmered, more Joint, as their chain
Came near to the fount of brightness, still more jam/,
As the departing orb descended, and with the sky
United in undistinguishable splendor. . . .
The subsiding glow, more mild, still more mild,
Spared the pained eye, and, with sober rays
Extinguished in the gathering dusk, refreshed the
eye-sight.
850. -- The Finding of Muses.
The Nile glides slowly. Amid the flags on the margin,
The babe is left, shut up in a bulrush ark,
Left by the hand of a mother. His sister waits
At a distance; and, pale between hope and fear, sees
The royal virgin, surrounded by her attendants,
Draw near to the river bank, draw near to the spot
Where sleeps the child. She sees them stoop
To view the ark. The lid of rushes is opened,
And wakes the babe, smiling in his tears;
As when, along a small lake on a mountain,
The south-wind of summer breathes with gentle sigh,
And separates the reeds, showing, as they bend,
A water-lily, which floats on the wave. *--
851
What wonders can the divine power perform
More grand than it annually produces,
And all iu sight of mankind | who pay no attention ?
Being familiar with the effect, we disregard the cause,
And, in the constancy of the course of nature,
The regular recurrence of genial months,
x\nd renewal of a faded world,
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? Versification. < q$q
JDiscover nothing to wonder at. Should God again,
JKs o? i a certain occasion in Gibeon*, interrupt fhe
. . career
Of the punctual and undeviating sun,
How would the world be astonished! Bat does it speak
less
A divine agency, to make him know
His moment when to descend, and when to ascend,
Age after age, than to stop his course ?
Every thing that we behold, is miracle: but, being
seen
So duly, every thing is miracle to no purpose.
852. -- Cruel Punishment of a Negro Slave.
Inhuman Europeans! not satisfied
VVith sentences of death, aloft you hung your vietim
Confined in a cage, to scorch beneath the torrid ray,
And feed, while yet alive, the fowls of heaven!
Behold! already they cling round the bars !
The head of the vulture looks through : she ineffectu-
ally strives
To force her passage. The lesser* birds zcait
'Till exhausted nature sinks: then they pounce on,
And tear the flesh. In excruciating pain
The victim awakes, and rolls his eyes,
And with feeble effort drives away the ravening multi-
tudes oj birds.
* Gibeon--The first syllable to be accented, the two latter
reduced by synaciesis to one, as bipn in Gabion.
t See the remarks on Lesser and W'orscr, in page 07.
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? 260 Versification.
He groans in the most dreadful manner : it is thirst,
thirst, thirst,
The most dire of human torments! Down again
He sinks: again he feels the beak.
853. -- Ovid's Departure into Exile*.
While I scan in memory's mirror
The scenes of that night--
That night of deepest woe, when, forcibly dragged by
destiny
From every thing that my heart held dear, to Home
I sorrowfully bade adieu -- the tear
Even at this moment rolls down my cheek. The morn-
ing | was approaching
Of that day, by Caesar's will
Previously ordained to be the period, when, within
thy boundaries,
Ah ! dearly-beloved Italy ! my steps
Might not any longer dare to tread :--nor sufficient
Had been the time allowed, nor had my mind
(However submissive to the severe decree)
Exerted sufficient energy, to prepare myself
For the hour which impended: -- the delay,
Indulged during too longa time, had frozen up my soul,
And benumbed the thinking power within me.
Heedless, I did not select, from the menial throng
What slave should, in the wilds of Scythia, ease
My various wants, what friend
Escort me on my journey; nor store of dress
* From his Triftia^book 1, clfgy 3.
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? Versification. 261
Proper for this ungenial rude climate, nor any thing
Necessary to life's enjoyment, occupied
^My providential care. Bereft of intellect
I stood, as a person who, stunned by lightning, retains
The vital spark, without being conscious that he is
alive.
At length the excess of my grief | dissipated the cloud
That before had darkened my reason; and, thought
Recovering its lost empire, I address,
* In last, melancholy, parting speech, the sorrowful few
Who now remain, of friends that were lately so nu-
merous^
THE END.
) unci GillH, Pnuter, Crowu court, Fleel-st eft, L^uda-'.
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