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 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 LEARN AND TEACH. 
 
 g 80 cm, 
 
 IN TWO PARTS, 
 
 PY 
 
 CHAND03 HOSKYNS ABE A HALL, 
 
 AUTHOU OF 'arctic ENTERPRISE', AND OTHEH I'UK.MS. 
 
 " Spirits are not finely toucbM 
 But to fine issues : nor Nature never lends 
 The smallest scruple of her excellence, 
 But, like a thrifty goddess, she determines 
 Herself the glory of a creditor. 
 Both thanlis and use." 
 
 Sn^KESPiAK. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 J. iMALLETT, 59, WARDOUR STREET, \V. 
 
 1859.
 
 4000 
 
 DEDICATED, 
 
 BY PERMISSION, 
 TO 
 
 HIS EXCELLENCY, 
 THE RIGHT HONOURABLE 
 
 THE EARL OF CARLISLE, K,G. 
 
 LORD LIEUTENANT OF IRELAND. 

 
 ERRATUM. 
 Page 12 — line 19 — for triwnphcU, read triumphant.
 
 LEAM AND TEACH, 
 
 PART I. 
 
 CANTO I. 
 
 " I'll so offend to make offence a skill ; 
 Redeeming time when men think least I -will." 
 
 Shaksspbar. 
 
 To LEARN AND TEACH, yet Icam before you teach, 
 
 Like a due beginner. 
 Were a course, metliinks, within the easy reach 
 
 Of mortal sinner ; 
 For if ye yet are men, and can discern. 
 Own to inquiring souls, and wish to learn 
 
 Discernment's lesson ; 
 The wide world holds a volume to your eye, 
 Wherein the blind might scan his destiny, 
 
 And feel his mission. 
 
 2. B
 
 Si LEAllN AND TEACH. 
 
 Now of that wide worlcl, and its strange condition^ 
 
 'T were well to consider, 
 Ere we be sent upon some stranger mission. 
 
 In a world still wider : 
 And yet how many a thankless recollection 
 Springs uj) with but a moment's sad reflection 
 
 On seasons flown ; 
 Of duties undone, Time's aptest hours neglected. 
 His favours spurn'd, and e'en those gifts rejected. 
 
 That were our own. 
 
 But thou hast mark'd, in the flush time of spring. 
 
 How Nature lavish 
 Spreads forth a tempting sweet in every thing, 
 
 I'or thee to ravish ; 
 The breezes sweet that o'er her bosom roam. 
 
 Are but foreboders. 
 Telling of sweeter breezes yet to come. 
 
 And daintier odours ; 
 And youth will leave his duty and its dulncss. 
 To feast abroad, and riot in such fulness. 
 
 And thus, in life's sweet prime, all-watchful beauty 
 
 Spreads many a snare; 
 Thrusting herself betwixt thee and thy duty 
 
 In the way everywhere : 
 But luscious spring lives not throughout the year; 
 Summer brings autumn's fruits, and winter drear 
 
 Comes with decay ; 
 And this same strain might tell with warning tongue 
 To youth too, who will not be always young, 
 
 That he hath his day.
 
 PART I. CANTO I. 
 
 But pleasure prompts, and still the reckless rover 
 
 Of sweet to-morrow. 
 Untaught by to-day's truant to discover 
 
 That the path brings sorrow. 
 Still presses, the Circean cup to drink 
 
 In her rosy bowers ; 
 And goes to the extreme verge of ruin's brink 
 
 For her fatal flowers : — 
 But some retrace their steps, and yet recover. 
 While the many, not so sure-footed, fall over ; 
 
 And where ? — Look, trifler, ere it be too late. 
 
 Into what thou plungest ! 
 Look ! — ask of him who hath maintained his state 
 
 Of sin the longest ; 
 Ask, when the future o'er the past is looming, 
 And conscience, to the fearful fate forthcoming, 
 
 Points like a spectre ; 
 Ask ! — and though but a look be cast upon thee. 
 That look, if headlong sin hath not undone thee, 
 
 ♦Shall be a lecture. 
 
 But the tongue that speaks then the truth shall tell. 
 
 And no more rebel ; 
 For the soul in her last fearful earthly spell 
 Is an oracle; 
 Slie knows the eternal lot shall soon be cast. 
 And the rebellious flesh imprison'd fast 
 
 In the grave's cold dungeon; 
 But fears, now that deception's day is past. 
 Into the depths of what abyss at last 
 Herself is plunging.
 
 4 LEABN AND TEACH. 
 
 But lo ! what hopes from the repentant come. 
 
 What looks of love. 
 As he goes placidly to his high home. 
 
 Afar above ! 
 He sinii'd, but a Spirit brought a power before him ; 
 And ynth that power something more dread came o^er him 
 
 Than mere death's danger ; 
 And the traitor, self-convicted in his treason. 
 The rebel seli'-coudemn'd, became in season 
 
 His own avenger. 
 
 Insatiate ruin clamour'd for her claim. 
 
 And thought to have him. 
 But true discernment to the rescue came 
 
 In time to save him ; 
 He lookM into the abyss, and, struck with terror. 
 
 Saw no resource. 
 But to abandon, and redeem his error 
 
 By a nobler course : 
 So a wise leader, by well-timed retreat. 
 Rallies his force, and gives the foe defeat. 
 
 Thus he avenged liimself, if such may be 
 
 The stern resolution 
 To free the spirit from sin's tyranny. 
 
 And the world's pollution; 
 Manly resolve ! yet who of soul so base 
 
 That doth not feel 
 Inly the wish to give the honoured place 
 
 To virtuous zeal? 
 The accurs'd oppression shun, or, being in. 
 Renounce at once the bondage and the sin ?
 
 PART I. CANTO I. 
 
 111- judged that traveller's course who leaves the path, 
 
 As it were blindly, 
 Where peace her ever- even progress hath. 
 
 Calmly and kindly. 
 To tempt the dire morass, whose tangled brake 
 
 He must unravel. 
 Ere he might disengage his steps and take 
 
 More certain travel : 
 Yet, pilgrim, such, experience still would warn ye 
 To be the error of hfe's chequered journey ; 
 
 Or voyage, for life is like a course at sea 
 
 That man doth steer, 
 And he who best escapes the wreck will be 
 
 The best foreseer ; 
 Arming him early for those storms and troubles 
 
 That yet must come, 
 Ere, like a hopeful mariner, he doubles 
 
 His last cape home : 
 For oft the tumult of the time grows wilder, 
 As the haven opens on his sight the milder. 
 
 But he who in a life of lawless revels 
 
 Sails with the tide. 
 Yielding, erroneous, to those siren-evils 
 
 That ever misguide ; 
 Meets at each turn some tempter that hath power 
 
 To win him over. 
 And in each fresh associate of the hour 
 
 A ready approver : 
 But let him change his course, still will they haunt him. 
 Yet how ? — to obstruct, to liarass, and to taunt him.
 
 LEAEN AND TEACH. 
 
 Now shall he have to encounter looks estranged. 
 
 That once could proffer 
 The approving smile of sin ; the flatterer chang'd 
 
 Into the scoffer ; 
 And foes in unexpected forms, and trials 
 That still tempt back, and ceaseless self-denials 
 
 Await his bearing; 
 But great shall be the glory of his pride. 
 If all their efforts fail to set aside 
 
 His noble daring. 
 
 But the pang he shall feel is the fix'd remorse 
 
 That shall haunt his reflection. 
 Till peace that feelhig erase, and force 
 
 From recollection ; 
 While one of joys many ^t will be to think 
 
 That all mighL cluim 
 The hope from the same blessed source to drink. 
 
 Save for that shame, 
 The child misbegotten of craven pride, 
 Who fears to assert what the world will deride : 
 
 But the force of conscious truth will grow the stronger. 
 
 When the trial is near ; 
 Why then should conscious sin transgress the longer. 
 
 Through this base fear ? 
 Yet would she still h^ustain a state so piteous. 
 Sin on, and rather hold with the unrighteous. 
 
 And hug the dishonour. 
 The hereafter risk, perpetuate the ill, — 
 Than turn, and greatly brave those taunts that will 
 
 Be lavish'd upon her.
 
 PART I. CANTO I. 
 
 But such is sweet, when evil is subdued 
 
 By the true subduer ; 
 And one of many joys his sohtude 
 
 Shall bring the truer 
 To him now lonely-left, — the best and surest 
 Of blessings, and that brings, perchance, the purest 
 
 Of many joys, — 
 Shall be the thought that he might spread this peace, 
 And help to make that evil influence cease 
 
 Which still destroys : 
 
 For ceaseless now shall be the work of love 
 
 That liis life's day hence engages, 
 Ere he be call'd to the High Court above. 
 
 To take his wages. 
 Oh ! let him waste not theu, in vain remorse 
 Upon the errors of a liated course. 
 
 Those golden hours. 
 The bounteous grant of an All-gracious Heaven, 
 Who, after sins unnumber'd, yet forgiven, 
 
 His blessing showers. 
 
 The chastening hand shall temper his distress 
 
 With a pure pleasure. 
 And throw in his deepest cup of bitterness 
 
 A priceless treasure : 
 But who can say, save such as have repented. 
 How much the loss of many sins lamented 
 
 Supports the sinner; 
 Who, losing there where he would be a loser. 
 Goes as a gainer to his High Disposer, — 
 
 A glorious winner.
 
 8 LEARN AND TEACH. 
 
 For his past life, though he may not ignore it, 
 
 He may amend it ; 
 And 't were wiser to repent it and deplore it, 
 
 Than in sin to end it ; 
 Enough for him if One he hath ofl'ended. 
 Looking from Heaven on that life amended. 
 
 Proffers liis pardon ; 
 How fruitless then in self-recrimination 
 To waste those hours so precious for salvation, 
 
 And lose the guerdon. 
 
 A wise tongue saith, " things without remedy 
 
 Should be without regard :" 
 So should they, save that ye might profit by 
 
 The ills they award. 
 Prove, idler, then, life's work was but deferred, 
 Mid scenes o'er which, like summer's air-borne bird. 
 
 Ye so wantonly hover'd ; 
 And show that those unvalued tracts of time. 
 Like rich possessions mortgaged in thy prime. 
 
 Can yet be recovered. 
 
 This still is thine, till death annul the bargain. 
 
 And close the contract ; 
 Wake then, and wliile life's schedule leaves a margin. 
 
 Renew the compact ! 
 If little space be left, mourn not for such. 
 But seek Him who can make that little much, 
 
 A lowly suitor ; 
 Compute time's worth by liis lamented waste, 
 And from the giddy round of follies past 
 
 Rescue the future.
 
 PART I. CANTO I. 9 i 
 
 If thou art call'd into the vineyard late. 
 
 The more thy reason 
 To serve Him well who pays thee at the rate i 
 
 Of the day's full season : ! 
 
 Por look ! thy Lord shall prove a gracious Master 
 To thee, a truant of old, and a time-waster. 
 
 And reckless servant ; 
 So thou, at length, even at the latest hour. 
 Bring to thy task a purpose and a power 
 
 l^aithful and fervent. 
 
 The tiller tempers the most stubborn soil 
 
 By cultivation, 
 And he who hires requites that tiller's toil 
 
 With a due ration ; 
 But the full harvest in its future beauty ; 
 
 Shall tell how well that tiller did his duty ! 
 
 While he was serving ; J 
 
 And Heaven who lends shall still be found rewarding 
 The use of the talent that he lends, according ; 
 
 To its deserving. ; 
 
 If thou hast grudg'd thy culture, take more heed | 
 
 Hence, and amend thee ; 
 And fit thy stubborn spirit for the seed 
 
 That Heaven doth send thee. 
 If thou hast held the gold lent thee for use, 
 
 Bethink thee how ' 
 
 Thou'lt meet the lender ; shall thy sloth's excuse ] 
 
 Avail thee now ? — 1 
 
 Let then thy gold return still-added gold, ■ 
 
 And thy harvest to thy Lord an hundred-fold.
 
 10 LEARN AND TEACH. 
 
 But be not of great truth the wayside hearer 
 
 Who hears but a moment ; 
 Or the base apostate, or the recreant fearer 
 
 Of the evil world^s comment : 
 Nor rashly suffer the wild thorn to grow, 
 
 Eank and deceitful, 
 And o'ertop the aspiring plant that shoots below. 
 
 And bring it unfruitful : 
 Least let tliy spirit be tliat stony waste 
 Where thou no time-abiding tillage hast : 
 
 Thou hast — all have — some worldlych arge of worth. 
 
 To thy guidance given ; 
 And these tenets shall so shape thy path on eartli, 
 
 That it end in Heaven : 
 Yet some there be who love their aberration, 
 
 And, with fond folly. 
 Banish each better thought's solicitation 
 
 From the breast wliolly ; 
 But watch tlicir lives, and what is thei-c to scan 
 Save one unceasing war with God and man ? 
 
 Such men as these are untaught, or taught badly, 
 
 Never self-taught ; 
 And thus they pass their days in visions sadly, 
 
 Or vainly sought : 
 By conscience schooled, the unerring voice witliin. 
 
 They might have noted. 
 That a life spent amidst unseemly sin 
 
 Is a life besotted ; 
 That the path of vice is not a path of flowers. 
 While virtue blooms in never-fading bowers. —
 
 PART I, CANTO II. 11 
 
 What then remains, but that with humble hope, 
 
 And patient spirit. 
 Ye tread where Truth unfolds her boundless scope. 
 
 Yet take no merit : 
 And as your own good deeds might sway the lot 
 
 Others are born in. 
 What should your word of counsel be, or what. 
 
 But this, your warning ? — 
 " For thy day here, be it a mild or rude one. 
 Act thy part well, and let it be a good one : 
 
 '^ Be in thy course collected, not elated. 
 
 Patient, and let time prove ; 
 So shall the ills, to which that course is fated. 
 
 Be a source of love : 
 If thou would'st bear the cross, it is a blessing 
 
 Within thy reach ; 
 And will show that thou art i'eelint? and confessingr 
 
 What thou dost teach, — 
 The penance of a passing night whicli, borne. 
 Takes thee at length to an etci-nal morn."'
 
 12 LEARN AND TEACH. 
 
 CANTO ir. 
 
 " Life's but a walking shadow ; a poor player, 
 That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, 
 And than is heard no more." 
 
 Sbakbspeah. 
 
 Thus then it is : fulfil thy part, but view 
 
 Thy station truly ; 
 That what it there befits thee best to do. 
 
 May be done duly ; ; 
 
 Yet droop not, though thou failest to fulfil, I 
 
 There is an unseen tongue shall prompt thee still, I 
 
 And save thy falling ; j 
 
 Thou hast an ample stage, take then the part \ 
 
 Whereto thou^rt calFd, and throw thy cordial heart I 
 
 Into thy calling. • 
 
 Look ! in this loud world's ever-varied stir I 
 
 Of toil and strife, ! 
 
 Man, the chief mover, hath his theatre. 
 And acts his life ; 
 
 Its scenes exhibit, as in some passing play, 
 ■ Or joy or sorrow ; 
 
 For on that stage where gladness reigns to-day. 
 Grief mourns to-morrow : 
 
 Yet reckless vice holds here triumphal revel. 
 
 And virtue cannot counteract the evil. '
 
 PART I. CANTO II. 13 
 
 But the action here takes not its stated course 
 
 Through scenes ideal ; 
 It represents itself, and hath a force 
 
 Vivid and real. 
 Here are no plots in petty miniature. 
 Where merit seems to pine, or strife to incur 
 
 An uiifelt rage ; 
 But the ill endured, and still-accomplish'd crime. 
 And all the stern realities of time. 
 
 On their true stage. 
 
 The drama this, whose world-wide spectacle 
 
 Of life and death 
 Shows to the sun the teeming things that dwell 
 
 His skies beneath ; 
 Holding to open Heaven's examination 
 The face of life in faithful presentation. 
 
 And feature true ; 
 The course of vice and virtue to the grave : 
 E'en the great drama that great Nature gave. 
 
 And Shakespcar drew. 
 
 Here is the goal of untamed power's ambition, 
 
 And the field of fame ; 
 The god of the one, — insatiate acquisition. 
 
 Of the other, — a name ; 
 Such are fond idols, sought by all, yet found 
 
 By the few only; 
 And wise is he who takes a modest round. 
 
 Remote and lonely ; 
 For though he hath to play his part of sorrow. 
 Content to-day will bring content lo-morrow. 
 
 c
 
 14 LEAllN AND TEACH. 
 
 Tor look ! ye must not mete man's happiness 
 
 By that M'hich meets the eye; 
 Want hath lier woes, yet wealth is in distress 
 
 From superfluity : 
 And Innocence, albeit a homeless rover. 
 Is happier far than bloated Guilt above her. 
 
 Whom cares molest ; 
 While Merit spuni'd, with all her taunts upon her. 
 And forc'd to yield her place to foul Dishonour, 
 
 Is still most blest. 
 
 'T is here one universal Drama brings 
 
 Scene upon scene. 
 Made up of mix'd and all-incongruous things. 
 
 But mostly unclean : 
 Rough-visag'd Truth, smiling Hjpocrisy, 
 Contemptuous Pomp, and shrinking Poverty, 
 
 Jostling each other ; 
 Eich Praud, who with Display revels in sin. 
 Yet hath religious black to robe it in. 
 
 One with another ; 
 
 The Antic still, whose ever-changeful ways 
 
 With wild variety 
 Perplex, and feed fond observation's gaze 
 
 E'en to satiety. 
 Here ail in shape grotesque comes flaunting Polly 
 
 With aged Worth, 
 There, like a wiiiter-cloud, grim Melancholy 
 
 With smih'ng Mirth ; 
 And contraries still clash in fresh collision. 
 Like some enchantment, or some frenzied vision. —
 
 PART L CANTO 11. i& 
 
 Time flies, the moralist saith, nor saitli amiss 
 
 That his loss is disaster. 
 While the great grievance of the idler is 
 
 That he flies no faster. 
 That lean and hungry carle who withers yonder, 
 
 Is known a miser. 
 Who lays up wealth for wilder fools to squander, 
 
 Wilder yet wiser ; 
 For wiser he who gives the world his treasure. 
 Than he who hoards for mere possession's pleasure. 
 
 But sadder chances, and more moving scenes. 
 
 Discordant blend 
 With the strange vagaries Inquiry gleans, 
 
 Still without end. 
 Joy laughs whileAnguish mourns,and asHope lies sleeping 
 
 In her golden dreams. 
 Pale Disappointment her cold watch is keeping 
 
 O'er blighted schemes ; 
 For Joy and Hope exult at their exemption 
 From ills those mourners feel to be past redemption. 
 
 Here while young Mirth his clamorous revel keeps 
 
 With wild life o'erjoy'd. 
 There the late sharer of his gladness sleeps. 
 
 Untimely destroyed : 
 But joy and grief in the same breezes swell. 
 Where the cheerful nuptial peal and sad death-knell 
 
 Unite their jingle ; 
 While the mourner's pageant, and the festive dance, 
 Death's cavalcade, and Love's gay dalliance, 
 
 Rudely commingle.
 
 i 
 
 16 LEARN AND TEACH. | 
 
 Here Woe enacts some piteous rite, and Sin ! 
 
 Some midnight mystery, perchance, within 
 
 The sound of laughter : 
 And as Innocence sports, the Tempter steals between , 
 
 Iler and her bliss, nor leaves the sunny scene, ' 
 
 Till he hath reft her 
 Of the promise of life's present peace serene, ! 
 
 And marr'd the hereafter : 
 So once he came, in deadly-beauteous guise, { 
 
 To strike man's hopes, and blast his paradise. — 
 
 And War and Peace, the slayer, and the slain. 
 
 The wild beast and his prey. 
 Are here ; sweet Peace, — a queen of transient reign, • 
 
 The creature of a day, — ! 
 
 Builds here her homes, and sows her solitudes, j 
 
 And sings her joys ; 
 When sudden, fury-featured Strife intrudes, | 
 
 And War destroys ; ! 
 
 And earth, — a scene of wickedness proclaim' d, — | 
 
 Brings forth some monster-crime, too fearful to be named ; 1 
 
 " A deed without a name," — save with the damn'd ! — 
 
 And hark ! — wild cries 
 Of mothers, through aft'righted Britain's land, 
 
 In nameless agonies, ' 
 
 Ask her to answer with avenging tear ^ 
 
 That piercing call, ! 
 
 And cast aside her festal plume, and wear I 
 
 The funeral-pall 
 Of deepest die, — for in her distant tents 
 There is a slaughter of her innocents I
 
 PAET I. CANTO II. 17 
 
 There Siu sits 'midst the followers of his own 
 
 All-evil creed, 
 To uphold the hideous carnival, and crown 
 
 The dreadful deed; 
 Till direness, like some new-born Gorgon, is 
 Evoked from hell's yet-unexplored abyss 
 
 By this fell Power, 
 Who, in his last foal offspring, doth beget 
 Something of savageness uncompass'd yet 
 
 In time's saddest hour : — 
 
 How were it other ? — There the darkest faith, — 
 
 That faith of hell 
 Wliich He, the Light, is on His wondrous path 
 
 Yet, to dispel, — 
 Encaves the Hindoo in his ignorance. 
 Making his savage soul the toy of chance. 
 
 And superstition ; 
 To a self-seeking priest, who mocks the Heaven 
 With a grotesque idolatry, up-given 
 
 In mute submission. — 
 
 Only less foul comes from the traitorous hand 
 
 Of that arch-spoiler. 
 Who, with a toiling host at his command, 
 
 Enslaves the toiler : 
 Eor He who gave the life, by His decree 
 Enjoin'd the eternal law of liberty ; 
 
 And as the breath 
 Is to the life of man, so to the nation 
 Free freedom is alone the respiration 
 
 That saves from death :
 
 18 LEARN AND TEACH. 
 
 Her overthrow sets not the tyrant free ; 
 
 Nor can ye call 
 That free which is but a wild liberty 
 
 Bred from her fall. 
 True Freedom is the child of Peace and Love, 
 That ranges the empyrean spheres above, 
 
 But never came. 
 Save in a momentary form, on earth, 
 To die, and like some prodigy of birth. 
 
 Leave but a name : 
 
 Yet with that name, perchance, a light serene, — 
 
 As the star, passing by, 
 Throws a far luminous beauty where hath been 
 
 His bright divinity ; — 
 Something that lives through night's dark influence therej 
 Scorning alike the invader's steel, and snare 
 
 Of tyranny ; 
 A pulse that beats beneath the oppressor's chain, 
 Telling of life yet left, to live again. 
 
 And to be free. 
 
 Great hope, whose power can something yet control 
 
 Oppression's treason ! 
 A greater comes to cheer the patient soul. 
 
 In Heaven's due season : — 
 But she, thy vaunted-free, vain-glorious dreamer. 
 Begets, however much thou might'st esteem her. 
 
 Her own detraction; 
 Lo ! where she sways, the freest from restraint. 
 She is but a tyrant with a deeper taint, 
 
 And wilder action;
 
 PART I. CANTO II. 19 
 
 Even in her land of loudest protestation. 
 
 But a confusion ; 
 Or worse, — the tyrant's snare ; an ostentation. 
 
 And an illusion : 
 And fair Columbia's fame, the wildly-free, 
 Is stain'd with the dead-black spot of slavery ; 
 
 She who professes 
 To rend the inthralling manacle, and be 
 The fountain of that world-wide liberty 
 
 Which only blesses. 
 
 But baser power is sufferM still to trample 
 
 On freedom prostrate. 
 And patriots chainM who teach by stern example 
 
 How to remonstrate : 
 Tet Justice wakens while she hears proclaimed 
 The edict foul, and sees the look unshamed 
 
 Of cold Oppression ; 
 The iron link is at the captive's heart. 
 But retribution comes that shall impart 
 
 A fearful lesson. 
 
 And from her sea-fastness as she looks on. 
 
 In her old isle, 
 Indignant Britain doth duly con 
 
 These deeds the while ; 
 And a compeer in greatness hath cannon near. 
 
 Whose thunders greet her. 
 And his armaments leave their harbours there. 
 
 In glory to meet her ; 
 And they sail in friendly rivalry forth. 
 To save, lest tyrants devour the earth :
 
 20 LEARN AND TEACH. 
 
 For wearied at length of their fruitless strife, 
 
 These giants shake hands ; 
 As best befits their noble life, 
 
 And border-lands ; 
 And friendship from bitterest feuds doth come. 
 
 Sometimes, the mildest. 
 As the graft hath the fairest fruitage from 
 
 A stock the wildest : 
 And long may eacli sway, as a true peace-maker. 
 To bind the bond fast, and chastize the breaker. 
 
 All hail to thee, France ! — old enemies, 
 
 Once reconciled. 
 Should all the more stringently bind their ties. 
 
 As their strife was wild. 
 The alliance fair was a nation's choice. 
 And we bid thee all hail with a nation's voice. 
 
 And a nation's sympathy ; 
 May our blood, as one, in future flow ; — 
 And ever let, 'Death to freedom's foe,' 
 
 Be the battle-cry ! 
 
 And still may a temperate greatness o'erwhelm 
 
 Thy own commotion; 
 And thy fair reconcilement with that free realm. 
 
 Beside thee in ocean. 
 Bear the sweet fruits of peace ; so thy toil from afar, 
 Rising betimes like the morning-star 
 
 In modest glory, 
 Might dress thy vineyards, by hoof or car 
 Ne'er more to be trampled of deadening war, 
 
 Gloomy and gory !
 
 PART I. CANTO II. 21 
 
 Great states that have no cause for quarrels, 
 
 Should be good neighbours ; 
 Then be faithful. Prance ! and lay up your laurels. 
 
 And sheath your sabres ! 
 And be true, to thy own chosen chief ! 
 And ne'er let it be thy future grief, 
 
 Or fatal sin, 
 To raise the rebel-victor's shout. 
 And reckless, exchange the war without 
 
 For war within. 
 
 That isle thou look'st on, so cold and stormy. 
 
 Hath yet a breast. 
 That feels for a noble rival warmly. 
 
 And would have him blest ; 
 And when, by stern experience schooFd, 
 
 His tumults cease. 
 Oh, how doth she joy to see him ruled 
 
 Like herself, by peace ! 
 Tor her civil contention is not the sword's. 
 But the war of her sons is a war of words. 
 
 Yet from their united wisdoms rise 
 
 Disunions frequent; 
 And feuds with their train of enmities. 
 
 And grudgings sequent; 
 And where, in the councils of a nation, 
 Eeason should sway, and Deliberation 
 
 Ever abide. 
 Invective foul, and fierce Debate, 
 Kecrimination, and envious Hate, 
 
 Parade their pride ,
 
 22 LEARN AND TEACH. 
 
 And Faction, who loves round the great and wise 
 
 To raise her storm. 
 Masking in stern Truth's awful guise 
 
 Her evil form, 
 Brings all her hateful influence here ; — 
 
 So clouds conspire 
 To obstruct Heaven's light, and obscure the sphere 
 
 With tempests dire ; 
 But soon their thunder-shafts are spent. 
 And the sun supreme in the firmament. 
 
 And thus the true Patriot liolds his power. 
 
 Calm and unshaken. 
 Albeit in tumult's darkest hour 
 
 Foully forsaken ; 
 And though the storms rise in their wrath. 
 To obstruct his day, and cross his jiath. 
 
 In vain they rise ; 
 For he sits, like the sun enthroned on high, 
 In still-untarnish'd majesty. 
 
 And keeps the skies : 
 
 Great still to act, and to decide 
 
 For instant action. 
 He holds his course of fearless pride. 
 
 In spite of Faction ; 
 He heeds not censure, seeks not fame, 
 His country's glory is his aim, 
 
 Her honour his ; 
 'T is on no tortuous course of shame 
 That country rests her patriot's claim, 
 
 But 't is on this, —
 
 PART I. CANTO II. 23 
 
 He hath served her long, and served her well, 
 
 Yet this is treason ; 
 The Athenian did the like, and fell. 
 
 For the like reason : — 
 Even He, the Greatest, might not stand, — 
 
 A God on earth ! 
 But there were evil tongues at hand 
 
 To impugn His worth; 
 Reject a blessed-brought exemption, 
 And strive to undo a world's redemption. — 
 
 The isle, fair France, thy foe of old, 
 
 Now shares thv glory ; 
 So may your strife henceforth be told 
 
 In brighter story ! 
 She thinks with thee to be great and free. 
 And so long as ye are, so long shall ye be 
 
 The tyrant's terrors ; 
 But her good is not unmix'd with ill, 
 Yet, oh ! that she might prosper still. 
 
 And amend her errors ; 
 
 And teach to her sons of every estate, 
 
 Both rich and rude. 
 The homely truth, that to be great 
 
 Is but to be good ; 
 That honour alone gives the fair repute, 
 
 And that knowledge 
 Is a tree more valued for its fruit. 
 
 Than its foliage. 
 And becomes, if it bears not virtue's blessing, 
 Tlic wider curse as the more 't is increasing.
 
 24 LEAKN AND TEACH. 
 
 And let her heed not how high might be 
 
 The sinner's station, 
 For in guilt accomplish'd ye but see 
 
 Guilt's aggravation : 
 The poor man deprived, and untutor'd within, 
 Is sorely tried when in paths of sin 
 
 He is tempted to rove ; 
 But the rich man abounds in what he needs. 
 And this should prompt to blessed deeds 
 
 Of mercy and love. — 
 
 Yet deeds accurs'd are ofttimes perpetrated 
 
 Where blessings should be given, 
 As though on earth another hell were fated 
 
 To war with Heaven : 
 For an evil god hath here his time and season. 
 
 And his full sway, 
 Whose touch can stifle truth, and stir up treason. 
 
 Can save, or slay ; 
 Can warp stern ermined justice to his will ; 
 Can buy the oath, and make the healer kill. 
 
 At his behest such horrors arc enacted 
 
 Before Heaven's eye. 
 As make the good, who see such things transacted, 
 
 Look up on high 
 With trembling prayer to the Omnipotent, 
 His judgments to suspend, and to relent. 
 
 And yet have pity ; 
 And if within these gulfs of sin profound 
 But ten poor scatter'd righteous might be found, — 
 
 To spare the city.
 
 PART I. CANTO II. 25 j 
 
 I 
 
 His deeds of death it were a gloom to tell. 
 
 For horrors all, I 
 
 That thought might picture of an unknown hell, j 
 
 Come at his call ; 
 Many, — albeit the fiend he serves doth lend to 
 
 His living influence more, I 
 
 Setting him up for every power to bend to, 
 
 All sects to adore; i 
 
 Like the idol of that evil king of old, ' 
 
 Who carv'd his god, and worship'd him in gold. 
 
 At his unholy shrine, souls deem'd aloof 
 
 From earth's temptation. 
 Solemn and pure, and saintly, and sin-proof, \ 
 
 Offer oblation ; ' 
 
 And the world sees this, and decries the sight, i 
 
 Like a huge universal hypocrite, i 
 
 At itself preaching ; 
 For this Prince of darkness hath a dazzling light, 
 That bewilders e'en the teachers of the risht. 
 
 And confounds in the teaching. 
 
 1 
 
 I 
 
 But for this world that wields this power transmitted, j 
 
 As 't were its own. 
 Oh ! what a blessing, were the boon permitted 
 
 For good alone : — 
 No longer then should Honour's voice be slighted. 
 Nor faithful Lidustry die unrequited. 
 
 Nor merit pale 
 Sink unregarded, nor meek Patience pine, — 
 But Justice hold with even hand divine 
 
 Her awful scale. I 
 
 D
 
 26 LEARN AND TEACH. 
 
 That 't is not so, the Toil M'hose sinews feed thee. 
 
 The best can tell, 
 If the selfish lust of lucre vet mislead thee, 
 
 And no pity impel. — 
 Then wanton still, as wanton joys entice. 
 Proud Wealth ! and stint with a strange avarice 
 
 Toil's scanty measure; 
 Spread thy vain pageant forth on every breeze. 
 There is a world will worship as it sees 
 
 Such gorgeous treasure ! 
 
 But he who mines the gold that buys thy state. 
 
 And feeds thy fatness, 
 Who weaves thy robe, and makes that splendour great, 
 
 That makes thy greatness ; 
 "Who for thy thankless pomp laborious, bears 
 
 The heat of the day. 
 Himself in extreme misery's vileness wears 
 
 His poor life away ; — 
 Vileness untouch'd by thee, it is unclean ; 
 Unnoted, — 't is behind thy glittering scene ! 
 
 Turn, and survey him in his secret world 
 
 With equal eye ; 
 Look ! where he lies, after his labour hurl'd 
 
 To the loathsome sty ! 
 There shalt thou see, in foulness all forlorn. 
 Daughter and sire, the old and newly born, 
 
 On the same pallet spread ; 
 Mother, and son, and sister, piteous thrown. 
 Perchance, by one who hath his spirit flown, — 
 
 Lying with the dead !
 
 PA.RT I. CANTO II. 27 
 
 But pity from this worse than persecution 
 
 Turns away, tearful. 
 Thinking such wrong must bring a retribution, 
 
 Fatal and fearful : — 
 It is the strength of Toil that yields thy riches, 
 Stint but that strength and thou must stint thy wishes, 
 
 Reason proclaims it ; 
 But that he have some shelter at thy hands. 
 Honour and human brotherhood demands. 
 
 And justice claims it : 
 
 Deal then to Toil with unrestricting hand 
 
 Freely his hire, 
 And it will make his rugged breast expand 
 
 With kindlier fire : 
 And teach, and temper with mild admonition. 
 And 't will go far to make his rude condition 
 
 Content and sober ; 
 But if the poor man is the rich man's wealtli. 
 To rob his strength is but a foolish stealth, 
 
 That turns on the robber. 
 
 Each lacketh each, Plenty the hand that feeds. 
 
 And fills his abundance ; 
 While toiling Want looks for his nature's needs 
 
 To Wealth's redundance : 
 And would they be but mutually-conducive, 
 No disaffection thence, nor strife intrusive, 
 
 Might mar their union ; 
 But ye should see the trustful smile of greeting, 
 'Twixt each, and Toil with liberal Afilucnce meeting 
 
 b' 
 
 In calm communion. —
 
 28 LEARN AND TEACH. 
 
 Such acts God's holiest oracles proclaim 
 
 With voice divine ; 
 And such the all-suffering Redeemer came, 
 
 Himself to enjoin ; 
 And with His sinless lips spake forth, and cried 
 Rebuke at selfish wealth's presumptuous pride, 
 
 The curse of the earth ; 
 Warning mankind in love and peace to abide. 
 Renounce their grovelling instincts, and provide 
 
 Fov a higher birth. 
 
 But 't is in vain, though God on earth descending. 
 
 Vouchsafed his favour ; 
 And from the fellest act of her offending 
 
 Suffer'd to save her ; 
 Rebellious Sin, like a devouring host. 
 Makes her invading march, and riots most 
 
 Beneath His banner ; 
 And, girt with pious craft's false panoply. 
 Rages her worst, nor deems His distant eye 
 
 Might reach and scan her. 
 
 Thus the dark Drama swells with outrage foul, 
 
 Of every enormity ; 
 And Vice shis on, content in Virtue's cowl 
 
 To hide her deformity. 
 Thinking that outward semblance shall avail her. 
 Though undeceiving conscience iidy fail her. 
 
 At every grade ; 
 And, Heaven's express injunctions all forgot. 
 Belies herself, and seems what she is not. 
 
 In this hideous mascjuerade :
 
 PART I. CANTO II. 29 
 
 But to complicate confusion more^ and more 
 
 Bewilder the wildness, 
 Fanatic Strife stalks with rude step before 
 
 Christ's spirit of mildness ; 
 And sweet Eeligion, who would save the crowd, 
 
 See a wild antic 
 Usurp her throne, storming the Heavens aloud. 
 
 With gesture frantic ; 
 Herself betray'd, her chosen sons disbanded. 
 And undone the blessed bonds of the peace that Christ 
 
 commanded : 
 Turning, she meets a foe, to her deep grief. 
 
 At every corner ; 
 In guise of cold self-virtuous Unbelief, 
 
 Or the open scorner; 
 "Who, lost within a world of sin and night. 
 Wildly descants on the unaided light 
 
 Of human goodness ; 
 And the all- sufficient force of Nature's might. 
 To shun the wrong, and to pursue the riglit, 
 
 In this riot of rudeness. — 
 
 Thus the scene comes and passes, and again. 
 
 In cycle strange. 
 Comes round, with the same trials in its train, 
 
 And the same change ; 
 For all is change unceasing, things the same 
 
 In revolution ; 
 notation sure, — there should be no such name 
 
 As dissolution ; 
 Death is but reconstruction, — a new goal. 
 And starting-place for the enfranchis'd soul.
 
 80 LEARN AND TEACH. 
 
 But this cliange, tliougli Philosophy sedately 
 
 Await its coming, 
 Takes to a world whose shores afi'ect him greatly 
 
 With their dark looming : — 
 This is the change of Death, the eternal mover, 
 The strict arrester, and most stern reprover, 
 
 And certain slaver : 
 AAHio takes the last that in Life's drama lives. 
 Shifts the last scene, and his last exit gives 
 
 To the poor player. 
 
 CANTO III. 
 
 " Madman, thou errest : I say, there is no darkness but ignorance; in whidi 
 thou art more pnzzled than the Egyptians in their fog." 
 
 SHAKeSPEAR. 
 
 Now such a world of strange disparity 
 
 And stranger change. 
 Offers to Contemplation's musing eye 
 
 A boundless range; 
 For here a chaos rude of mingling schemes. 
 Born of Wealth's lust, or wild Ambition's dreams, 
 
 Meets the beholder ; 
 Which, though his youth's quick gaiety disown them, 
 He scans with care, and duly learns to con them, 
 
 As he grows older.
 
 PART I. CANTO HI. 31 
 
 But having watcli'd tlie pageant, as it passes. 
 
 With eve serene : 
 And pondered well its various forms and phases, 
 
 To the last scene ; — 
 How the like cause is for the like effect 
 
 Oft unavailing; 
 The source of achievement here, the source direct 
 
 There of the failing; — 
 Each thwarting each, and seeking strange relief 
 E'en from the infliction of his fellow's grief : 
 
 This man, with all the power of worldly wealth, 
 
 Or worldly science, 
 Looking to further selfish greed or stealth. 
 
 For its appliance ; 
 That, with the daily needs of common nature 
 
 Almost denied him. 
 Sharing his pittance with his fellow-creature 
 
 Pining beside him : — 
 I say, well scanning these tumultuous scenes. 
 What might he deem that all this drama means ? 
 
 Perchance, borne by a moment's wavering reason 
 
 To that conclusion. 
 He deems it a dark day, where every season 
 
 Comes in confusion ; 
 Or magic self-wrought by self-acting power, 
 Eor unknown purpose, and allotted hour, 
 
 AHke unknown ; — 
 But such is wild : — these wonder-worlds around 
 Have one great law, whose acts the power expound 
 
 Of love alone.
 
 32 LEAEN AKD TliACH. 
 
 Those orbs majestic, seeming disunited, 
 
 Are what they seem ; 
 But their remote disunion is requited 
 
 In the great scheme : 
 Tending unerringly to one briglit source, 
 They yield their light, and hold their heavenly course, 
 
 And keep their station ; 
 And as each orb hath its due path assign' d. 
 Even so its habitant of every kind, 
 
 His destination. 
 
 But the sphere of human action hath a rule, 
 
 And*W of order, 
 Whereof each man keeps in his breast a scliool, 
 
 And faithful warder : 
 The orb rolls on, secure in its own orbit, 
 And the ruin would involve, that did disturb it, 
 
 An unknown danger ; 
 So, in this lesser-moving sphere of man. 
 Whoso diverges from the eternal plan. 
 
 Wakens the Avenger. 
 
 All human woe springs from a will perverse, 
 
 In human action ; 
 The law a blessing, but a certain curse 
 
 That law's infraction. 
 If men would be but as they should be, friends. 
 
 With liberal love, 
 Even as the impartial daylight that descends 
 
 On all from above ; 
 Tumult should cease, these odds would be all even, 
 And virtue yet on earth iind a congenial Heaven. —
 
 PART I. CANTO III. 33 
 
 Teach then this truth, — thou who dust iuly feel 
 
 The unselfish ambition, 
 To exalt thy brother-creature, and to heal 
 
 His hurt condition : — 
 Yet vain, — though all the blessings of thy heart 
 
 Go with thy preaching ; 
 And thou dost practise what thou would'st impart, — 
 
 Vain all thy teaching : 
 For what can Virtue, albeit Heaven-exampled, — 
 On earth betrayed, derided, and down-trampled ? 
 
 Yet she shrinks not, but takes her ills upon her 
 
 As her best guerdon ; 
 It is her cross ; and lo ! a great Forerunner 
 
 Bore the like burden ; 
 And He is with her in the scene, and shares 
 
 Her persecution ; 
 And promises for all the ills she bears 
 
 Sure retribution. 
 The strife may come, the shaft her bosom enter. 
 But it cannot wound the trust where the hopes of that 
 
 bosom centre. 
 Virtue shrinks not ; the spirit of innocence. 
 
 For ever free, 
 Dwells spotless there, albeit traduced, perchance. 
 
 By the world's obloquy. 
 Perchance by Power, and forcedly mix'd with evil, 
 To be debased to sin's unhallow'd level ; 
 
 Yet 't is in vain ; 
 For she shall flow apart, hke the fine gold. 
 And reassert her beauty as of old. 
 
 And be pure again.
 
 34 LEARN AND TEACH. 
 
 Foulest aspersions rise, yet, like a saint, 
 
 She knows none ; 
 She may not lose her lustre, takes no taint. 
 
 And shows none ; 
 But as that gem which is the purest. 
 Repels the breath quickest and surest. 
 
 And spurns the touch ; 
 Before the breath of foul Detraction 
 That meets her in the world's wild action, 
 
 Virtue is such. 
 
 Almightily-arm'd, she fears not her assailants, 
 
 Though hosts assail her ; 
 Graces all-stainless are tlie true repellants 
 
 That never fail her ; 
 She can confront and look away their WTath, 
 And sweep them from her aspect and her path. 
 
 As the sun in the sky 
 Those clouds, conspiring in his heavenly way. 
 That rise like traitors, to dispute his sway. 
 
 And cross his majesty. 
 
 Tor the world's rude wounds she hath, in peace of soul, 
 
 A sovereign balm ; 
 The storm without may be beyond control, 
 
 But within 't is calm : 
 Tempestuous winds that sweep the watery scene 
 
 With wild commotion. 
 Cannot yet break the secret peace serene 
 
 In the depths of ocean ; — 
 So Virtue rests, in awe of One alone, 
 Whose watchful eve is ever on His own. —
 
 PART I. CANTO III. 85 
 
 But Vice too plays his worldly part ; 
 
 And though triumphs await the actor's art, 
 
 There looks on the act, and notes the man, 
 
 One great Spectator ; 
 The Greatest, — He is no other than 
 
 That man's Creator : 
 And whatever his course of fraud or force. 
 
 Grim Death, 't is certain. 
 Will intervene at the closing scene. 
 
 And draw the curtain. 
 
 But now for the actor of the wrong 
 
 Comes a fearful audit ; 
 The act is left, but no hireling tongue 
 
 Is left to applaud it : 
 He hath play'd his part, and served his time. 
 And now on a mightier stage sublime 
 
 Is summon'd to enter; 
 Of the reckless course of folly and crime, 
 That he took in the world's wild pantomime. 
 
 Too late a repenter. 
 
 He had a life, but of that hfc's mission 
 
 Never bethought him ; 
 Though the conscious sins of a fall'n condition 
 
 Ever besought him : 
 He walk'd not in the road of right 
 
 That his own dark instincts taught liim ; 
 And e'en shut his eyes to the beautiful light 
 
 That God himself had brought him : — 
 Strange sin ! to err where Reason points the road, 
 A.nd spurn tlie guidance of a present God ! —
 
 36 LEAEN AND TEACH. 
 
 Thus intersected, and. by patlis divided 
 
 Of good and ill, 
 Earth hatli one path, which who pursues is guided 
 
 Divinely still ; 
 The other is all-curs'd ; and whoso takes it. 
 Whether he still pursues it, or forsakes it. 
 
 Sooner or later, 
 Grows, at the dictates of his own remorse. 
 Or the chastening influence of some grander force, 
 
 Its deadliest hater. 
 
 Upon that path are flowers of many blooms. 
 
 But oh ! beware ! 
 Perditions, lurki)ig in their venomous wombs. 
 
 Are the fruits they bear : 
 It is the bloom of death, whose beauteous blossom 
 OfTers its odorous hues before the bosom. 
 
 But as a snare ; 
 A meretricious charm, and an illusion, 
 Thrown there to tempt to ruin and confusion. 
 
 And dark despair. 
 
 There Sin before the unwary footstep lays 
 
 Her fatal fangs, 
 Link'd with remorse that gnaws the soul, and slays 
 
 With lingering pangs ; 
 And yet not slays ; so it might seem the kinder, 
 If the sad soul, with this sad fate assigned her. 
 
 Should for ever die ; 
 But Death holds no dominion here, she hath 
 A life, or in the good or evil path. 
 
 Immortally.
 
 PART I. CANTO III. 37 
 
 Having freewill, she cliose the way of guilt, 
 
 AU-strangely tempted ; 
 Yet, through some precious blood that hath beeu spilt, 
 
 May be exempted, 
 Mercy mysterious ! from this wilful sin, 
 And the fearful penalty it brings within, 
 
 Freely and fully ; 
 But what are the conditions of exemption ? 
 That she feel all the force of her redemption. 
 
 Deeply and truly. 
 
 For he who takes this faith must own its source 
 
 As the all-hallow' d. 
 And by that faith as strictly shape his course. 
 
 As the form is follow'd ; 
 Being that true and steadfast sin-forsaker. 
 Who, as the unwortliiest suppliant, of his Maker 
 
 Implores salvation ; 
 While Charity, in all her varied beauty. 
 Prompts him to do for genuine love his duty, 
 
 Without ostentation. — 
 
 Learn then thy part ! — this, if thou duly connest. 
 
 As thy skill best can, 
 Hath no offence ; it is but to be honest 
 
 To God and man. 
 Give thy whole love to Heaven; this, if thou givest 
 Truly, it cannot but be that thou livest 
 
 In peace on earth ; 
 But the son's strife keeps the Sire unreconciled. 
 And thou art but the individual child 
 
 Of one great birth. 
 
 £
 
 38 LEABN AND TEACH. 
 
 Learn then, and teach tlie duty due to Heaven I 
 
 And hence shall come, 
 As surely as the blessed morn and even, 
 
 A worldly sum 
 Of debts incurred, and duties due to neighbours ; 
 And look ! the more are urg'd these blessed labours 
 
 Of mutual love. 
 The nearer still the approach to the all-ample. 
 And wondrous goodness of that great example 
 
 Sent from above. 
 
 Learn well, and it shall teach thee to teach well. 
 
 That that thou learnest 
 May to the taught the like sweet comfort tell 
 
 With that thou earnest : 
 Learn, and impart to all within thy reach ; 
 But practise still the precepts thou dost teach. 
 
 Else shall thy learning 
 A mockery prove, distasteful and ungrateful 
 To the unenlighten'd ear, and ever hateful 
 
 To the discerning : 
 
 And do not thou, as 't was the schoolman's use. 
 
 In night of yore, 
 To the dark cloister, and the cell recluse. 
 
 Confine tliv lore : 
 Grow with the growing time ; and be not sunk 
 In that self-sensual and cold-blooded monk. 
 
 Who, in these bright days. 
 Would, like the tyrant in his ancient hold, 
 Restrict to his own exclusive state and cold 
 
 Heaven's blessed rays : —
 
 PART r. CANTO III. 39 
 
 And let not those specious zealots charm thee, 
 
 Who prate so proudly 
 Their pious fears, and would alarm thee 
 
 By prating so loudly, — 
 That, in tracing the maze of earthly science. 
 You set Heaven's guidance at defiance, 
 
 And go from God : 
 Irreverend hand ! that would shut the book 
 By its great Author lent thee, to read, and look 
 
 At his works abroad. 
 
 And the witless tongue heed not, that saith 
 
 It shall still be the rule. 
 That the school under varied forms of faith 
 
 Is the sceptic's school : 
 While this wrangle of knowledge secular 
 Unbless'd by divine, as Instruction's bar. 
 
 Is but the jargon 
 Of men who are building on hollow ground. 
 And striving to make by an idle sound 
 
 A graceless bargain. 
 
 All temporal knowledge, to be true. 
 
 Must be based on divine; 
 For in man's mutual duties due. 
 
 They both combine. — 
 Teach then, within thy generation. 
 To each, the duties of that station 
 
 Wherein he is thrown ; 
 Teach him to deal as he'd receive ; 
 To be true, — and the issue humbly leave 
 
 To Heaven alone :
 
 40^ LEARN AND TEACH. 
 
 The one Faith given, feel no fear 
 
 What form it hath ; 
 So that he walk, witli a conscience clear. 
 
 In the Christian's path : 
 For of modes of faith if thou ask the best. 
 
 The answer is brief; 
 The doing right is the truest test 
 
 Of the right belief ; 
 And he who least assumes, as a believer. 
 Of God's rich grace, perchance, the full receiver. — 
 
 Learn then, and teach ! open wide the door 
 
 Of learning's treasure. 
 That others may of the precious store 
 
 Partake, at pleasure ; 
 And give no heed to that proud pretender. 
 
 Who fain would tell you. 
 To engross the light, and from its splendour 
 
 Exclude your fellow : 
 God, the great Giver of all bounties, gave 
 Knowledije to all but for the will to have. 
 
 *o" 
 
 And set not thy reason, through any persuasion. 
 
 So far at defiance. 
 As to fear that more knowledge might give occasion 
 
 For more self-reliance : 
 Mean fear ! lest the mind, with its power of expanse. 
 Once escaped from debasing ignorance. 
 
 As from a fetter. 
 Should learn, as its own true self-adviser. 
 If rightly taught, that to be wiser 
 
 Is but to be better.
 
 PART I. CANTO III. 41 
 
 The fruit of the fair tree is interdicted 
 
 By Heaven no longer, 
 And the reason it should be on earth unrestricted 
 
 Is thus the stronger : 
 Then lend no ear to the selfish folly, 
 For perversion foul and most unlioly 
 
 Falsely persuading ; 
 The light by which life must be conducted. 
 Should be, like Heaven's daylight, unobstructed. 
 
 And all-pervading. 
 
 The sun with a liberal bounty rears. 
 
 As he scatters his beams abroad. 
 The fruits of the earth's teeming womb, and cheers. 
 
 Like a descending god : 
 Even so in the mind's wild universe. 
 Light is a blessing, its lack a curse ; 
 
 And 't is most strange. 
 That while God gave that light for extension unceasing, 
 A churl should be found who would narrow the blessing. 
 
 And limit its range. 
 
 God gave thee the soil, but its culture is thine ; 
 
 He gave thee the plant, 
 And 't is thine to see that it shall not pine 
 
 For that culture's want ; 
 Look forth, proud man, o'er yon green domain ! 
 The hind that hath rear'd that grass and grain 
 
 Unto such beauty. 
 Asks of thee, as a fellow-creature. 
 To deal thus with his human nature, 
 
 And do thy duty !
 
 42 LEARN AND TEACH. 
 
 Tor the hind thou hast hired to till thy fields. 
 
 Is himself untill'd, 
 And nought but a noxious barrenness yields, 
 
 AVhile thy fields are fill'd : 
 And dispensest thou thus the gracious kindness 
 That couch'd the darkness of that blindness 
 
 By thyself so abhorr'd ? 
 But if thou art learned or rich, be assured, 
 Of that skill and wealth thou art but the steward 
 
 To a higher Lord. 
 
 More generous tillage shall bring thy soil 
 
 A better bearer. 
 And thy hind shall grow more honest and loyal. 
 
 As thou art fairer ; 
 The noxious Aveed for awhile may smother 
 The righteous plant in the one or the other ; 
 
 So 't will behove thee, 
 Watchful, to check the hcentious growth 
 In the tilled and the tiller, one and both, — 
 
 And this shall prove thee. 
 
 Each plant of Nature's prolific womb, 
 
 AVhen brought to birth. 
 Looks to the light for its growth to come, 
 
 As])iring from earth ; 
 And the cheering sun and the cherishing shower. 
 Alternate, encourage life's crescent power 
 
 "With their sweet spring-Aveather ; 
 But the bounties that raise the crop, and feed 
 The good corn, raise and rear the weed. 
 
 And they grow together :
 
 PART I. CANTO III. 43 
 
 But the tiller will ])ly the tutor's toil 
 
 With early care ; 
 And cleanse and correct the stubborn soil 
 
 Ere the seed is there ; 
 When, casting it on a temper'd loam, 
 Though the tare may encroach, and the darnel come. 
 
 In rank confusion, 
 Yet he works in his field from dawn till dark. 
 Leaving to Heaven to bring his work 
 
 To a good conclusion. — 
 
 Thus in man's wayward nature the good implanted 
 
 Comes up with the bad ; 
 Then toil should not slacken, nor tillage be scanted. 
 
 But heed must be had ; 
 For oft God's works are cross'd by the devil ; 
 And the good can scarcely grow for the evil. 
 
 And the poison-plant. 
 Where the ground is left waste in the growing hour. 
 Insinuates most its deadly power, 
 
 And supplies the want. 
 
 Then, teacher, clear, like a good task-master, 
 
 The weeds away ; 
 And the kindly crops shall spring the faster. 
 
 As the wild decay ; 
 Not merely clip, but eradicate. 
 And be early afield, and labour late. 
 
 Like the faithful hind ; 
 Ere to their summer-strength they grow, 
 And the seeds of a new rank offspring sow, 
 
 Throudi Ihe wanton wind.
 
 44 LEARN AND TEACH. 
 
 And if all thy efforts might not avail 
 
 From the foul companion 
 To save the pure^ and thy counsels fail 
 
 To mar their union ; — 
 Relax not yet, but renew thy pains, 
 A righteous deed itself sustains, 
 
 If the doer persist; 
 Urge the good work so well begun, 
 A conscious pride shall help thee on. 
 
 And Heaven assist. 
 
 The principle of truth instill'd 
 
 Shall yet take root, 
 Though a vicious growth in a soil self-will'd 
 
 Its power dispute ; — 
 But the weed, through the force whereby it was born, 
 "Will wither when pluck'd from the soil, and forlorn 
 
 On the surface strowu ; 
 Even so the licentious errors of youth. 
 Shall yield to the rays of sober truth. 
 
 When the man is grown. — 
 
 But feed with care, as you train the mind 
 
 With careful culture ; 
 Tor the hunger it hath a judgment blind ; 
 
 And like the vulture. 
 That mind hath an ever-insatiate gorge, 
 Where the quarry dcvour'd doth but enlarge 
 
 The lust for more : 
 Then teach it so to discriminate. 
 That such as befits its unsettled state, 
 
 Shall be its store.
 
 PART I. CANTO III. 45 
 
 And as 't is ranging for its prey. 
 
 Let your efforts tend 
 To place instruction in its way. 
 
 As a means to an end ; 
 Point to Truth's, as the road it shoukl be going ; 
 Let Truth be its aim, and be ever showing 
 
 Her priceless worth ; 
 Or your teaching all will be but sowing 
 A curse, to be for ever growing, 
 
 As that mind grows forth. 
 
 If the sons of the age seek erudition. 
 
 Open the book ; 
 And do not discourage so fair an ambition 
 
 With exclusion's cold look ; 
 For the mind is an ever-restless rover. 
 And like the dial's, its movements discover 
 
 Life's loss or gain ; 
 And if you forbid him the onward track. 
 You do but drive the creature back 
 
 To the woods again 
 
 To keep him benighted will teach him to ravage. 
 
 And steal, and slay ; 
 For thou art thyself but a tutor'd savage, 
 
 Brought into day ; 
 But would'st thou to that fell state return. 
 And the lesson of progress thyself unlearn, 
 
 Or keep shut in thy breast ? 
 Let then this truth on thy conscience strike. 
 That the worst of thy kind would with thee alike 
 
 Be reclaim'd and blest.
 
 46 LEARN AND TEACH. 
 
 And the vain mean fear lest in teaching the lesson 
 
 You instil the evil, 
 Might alike restrain from preaching God's blessing, 
 
 Eor fear of the devil ; 
 'T is that blessing that saves the tempted throng ; 
 In teaching the right, you unteach the wrong, 
 
 And expose the ill; 
 And a secular knowledge, pure and sound. 
 Must be divine, and shall thus confound 
 
 The Tempter's skill : 
 
 When he plies his craft, the lesson instructed 
 
 Shall come between. 
 And a host remain for one deducted ; 
 
 And though 't is seen. 
 That Guilt works fearful wonders there, 
 Where Skill steps in with his subtle snare, 
 
 Tet rest assured. 
 That man, with the shield of sound instruction. 
 Shall meet its sinuous introduction 
 
 With soul secured. 
 
 Then scatter the seeds of instructive lore 
 
 With liberal hand. 
 And spread with tempering counsels o'er. 
 
 Throughout the land : 
 Ye raise your palaces to abide, 
 When succeeding dwellers there have died. 
 
 Through long generations ; 
 T5ut purer shall be that good man's glory. 
 Who goes down as the founder of knowledge in story. 
 
 And the raiser of nations :
 
 PA.RT I. CANTO III. 47 
 
 Of granite- stone ye build the tower, 
 
 That ; with front sublime, 
 It may stand the assailing tempest's power, 
 
 And the stroke of time ; 
 But the structure of virtue ye might raise 
 On the basis of truth, iu life's early days, 
 
 Shall outlive the stone ; 
 And display a still- unfretted beauty. 
 When that stone hath long become time's booty, 
 
 And its glories are gone. 
 
 Raise then this structure with a fearless fervour. 
 
 Ever increasing ; 
 So shalt thou live thy country's best deserver, 
 
 And die with her blessing. — 
 Tell man, that with his clay he doth inherit 
 A night that throws its clouds across his spirit. 
 
 And shrouds his mind ; 
 Teach him himself, and open up before him 
 This ignorant dark that holds its influence o'er him, 
 
 And keeps him blind. 
 
 But as the unwara'd approach of sudden light 
 To the blind-born, might be a gift too bright 
 
 For mortal bearing ; 
 And as the sweetest music-sounds ye hear 
 Would strike but tumult to the opening ear 
 
 Of the new-hearing; 
 And as the sick are surest led to health. 
 And streiigthen'd best by gradual steps of stealth ; 
 So sliould'st thou grant the treasures of this wealth 
 
 With care and fearing.
 
 48 LEAKN AND TEACH. 
 
 Impart thy lore ; let in this hglit of Heaven ; 
 
 But be all- heedful : 
 Give all, but let no more at first be given. 
 
 Than at first is needful : 
 Deal gently with thy humbler human-kind ; 
 Open the road, but lead the untutor'd mind 
 
 By easy stages ; 
 Load not its strength, and strain not to distressing, 
 'T will find in its own toil its own best blessing. 
 
 And sweetest wages. 
 
 The wild horse sweeps the desert, yet when taken. 
 
 Yields to the trainer; 
 And the wildest spirit is not so all-forsaken. 
 
 But care might rein her ; 
 Let due restriction be thv earliest lesson. 
 Curb first the steed, but let a sage discretion 
 
 Govern thy touch ; 
 Restrain the step that would be too far-reaching. 
 Rein in the unruly will, and be not teaching. 
 
 At once, too much ; 
 
 For as the slave, long-fetterM to the soil. 
 
 And crush'd and quiet. 
 Looking on sudden freedom as a spoil. 
 
 Will rise and riot ; — 
 So the mind sudden-waked from ignorance. 
 Wherein it hath slept, as in a state of trance. 
 
 And known no other. 
 Looks fortli with all those thouglits of lawless forage, 
 Which nature's wiser instincts might discourage. 
 
 Yet cannot smother. — 
 
 i
 
 PAET I. CANTO III. 49 
 
 Learn then, and teach ! nor pass that precept by, 
 
 Ever the sternest, — 
 How best to live so as the best to die ; — 
 
 Teach, and be earnest ! 
 This is the sum of wisdom ; a rich treasure 
 Hath he who metes bis conduct by this measure, 
 
 And so guides his going. 
 That still some sweet spring up his path to bless, 
 In every step throughout life's wilderness 
 
 For ever growing. 
 
 But above all, a few brief truths instill. 
 
 In life's young day. 
 Ere, if thou canst, the thought of action ill 
 
 Hath sway ; 
 Point to the time, and give this truth to know. 
 
 As its moments fly, — 
 Virtue alone is happiness below, 
 
 Vice, misery; 
 Contentment, the true wealth in every station ; 
 Unbounded hope, a mere infatuation.
 
 51 
 
 LEAM AND TEACH. 
 
 PART II. 
 
 CANTO I. 
 
 " Consideration like an angel came, 
 And whipp'd the offending Adam out of him." 
 
 SHAK3SFEAA. 
 
 Thus far, by simple and unweeting hand. 
 
 Lowly endued. 
 Traced, as they were along the wayside scann'd, 
 
 In outline rude. 
 These scenes of man, in the error of his ways. 
 Are offer'd to the idler's passing gaze. 
 
 While like a spectre, 
 A strange Truth comes with solemn step profound, 
 Meetest to infix the moral, and expound, 
 
 And fill the picture, —
 
 52 LEAHN AND TEACH. 
 
 It chanc'd, — as it might ofttimes chance again 
 
 To man's condition, — 
 Like a reckless crew sent o'er a stormy main, 
 
 On a far mission, 
 A band of resohites and restless spirits. 
 Much on a par as to their social merits, 
 
 And well-allied. 
 Pursuing each his favourite course of sin. 
 Went down the flood they had been plung'd within. 
 
 As went the tide : 
 
 That flood was Life's wild ocean, through whose force 
 
 None sail securely. 
 Save such as keep them from the sinful course 
 
 To themselves purely ; 
 Steering apart, and with the wilder stream 
 Never more mingling tlian might well beseem 
 
 To stay its troubles ; 
 And then to their own peaceful way of life 
 Straightway returning from the scene of strife. 
 
 And its vain bubbles. 
 
 A land loom'd oft, yet unto them its shore 
 
 Was unassuring ; 
 Nor reck'd they on what rock they fell before 
 
 They reach'd their mooring ; 
 Some headland doubled, or some shoal escaped. 
 Bred them a merriment, and still they shaped 
 
 Their course, all -careless ; 
 If the storm rose, portentous of disaster. 
 It did but urge them on that course the faster. 
 
 And made them fearless.
 
 PART II. CANTO I. 53 
 
 Sin sat before these outlaws (for tliey were 
 
 Outlaws of reason,) 
 In every siren-shape, and set her snare 
 
 In every season ; 
 With what success, it little boots to tell ; 
 Suffice that one amidst them knew full well. 
 
 And rued full sore ; 
 See in the sequel through what wondrous motive 
 He sought, by a new course divinely-votive, 
 
 The promised shore. 
 
 It may be by some tender tie of kindred 
 
 Waked to compunction ; 
 Or that at length obstructive conscience hinder'd 
 
 Sin's further function ; 
 Belike, some mother's forceful voice reproved. 
 Or that some sister, whom the truant loved, 
 
 Charm'd him from error ; 
 Howbeit, when brought to ruin's very verge, 
 lie paused, and turn'd him from the threatening surge 
 
 With timely terror^ 
 
 And shaped his course anew ; how, — ye shall see ; 
 
 Yet 't was divined, 
 Nought save the marvel of some mystery 
 
 Might wake that mind. 
 Which sought in sin's vain promise a release 
 From haunting thought ; and thus the way of peace 
 
 Had been forsaken, 
 Evil companionship too early cherish'd, 
 And the path wherein so many souls have perish'd 
 
 Too r.ishly taken.
 
 1 
 
 1 
 '54 LEARN AND TEACH. * 
 
 But whence this error, ■wherein all so nearly ' 
 
 He liad been lost ? 
 Whence, but from love too true, and that too early : 
 
 And surely cross' d : 
 Now in this lot he did not stand alone; 
 It is the grief of many to bemoan I 
 
 Passion's frustration : 
 But early love, cross'd by untimely death, 
 Leaves to the stricken spirit nought beneath. 
 
 Save desolation. i 
 
 A fatal fascination had invaded 
 
 His boyhood's prime; 
 A form too early-lovely, for she faded 
 
 Before her time ; 
 He grew with her, and watch'd, and while beside her. 
 All-little deem'd he evil might betide her ; — 
 
 She was his pride. 
 The idol of his soul, his faith, his all ; 
 And when she found hitn fast within her thrall, — 
 
 She died. 
 
 His spirit, sudden thus o'crcast with gloom. 
 
 When young and guileless. 
 Against the instincts of a higher doom, 
 
 Plung'd into vileness ; 
 Wedded, for vain relief, with Infamy, 
 Yet loved her not with that unholy glee. 
 
 The world's foul fashion ; 
 Rut, blessed chance ! he had a sire, who felt 
 AjuI fcar'd for him, and oft in secret knelt 
 
 For God's compassion;
 
 PAUT II. CATSTO I. 55 
 
 Perchance, his prayer was heard ; a faithful prayer, 
 
 Sent up to Heaven, 
 Brings back return with teufokl fuhiess, where 
 
 The heart is given ; 
 Yet oft through unseen path that fulness falls, 
 
 Where least expected. 
 And by Him who hstens when the good man calls 
 
 Is best effected : 
 That sire was aged, had grown old in trial, 
 And took not Heaven's delay for Heaven's denial. 
 
 But the son, a truant, little reck'd of blessing. 
 
 Or to be bless'd ; 
 Yet oft, 't was said, a throe of thought distressing 
 
 Escap'd his breast; 
 Such was the momentary pang that told 
 Of something there which still maintain'd its hold. 
 
 As the defender ; 
 Striving through long and patient force to rout 
 The investing foe, and bear the battle out. 
 
 And not surrender : 
 
 For one he was, and he was one of many 
 
 That in error abide. 
 Whose leaning seem'd to be, if 't were on any. 
 
 On virtue's side ; 
 He felt foes, such as rebel-passions arc, 
 
 Within engaging. 
 And with the good and ever-evil war 
 
 For ever waging ; 
 And, feeling this, sumraon'd his thouglits within. 
 To hold a council ou this course uf sin.
 
 56 LEARN AND TEACH. 
 
 The youth, launch'd wild on changeful Life's existence, 
 
 As he roved on, 
 Descried, he thought, another in the distance. 
 
 Where change was none ; 
 A.^^(]^ — as the shore at twilight-time is brought 
 
 To storm-tost sailor, — 
 Its shadows loom'd upon his lonely thought. 
 
 Darker or paler. 
 As the tone or temper of his mind might be, 
 Or as the soul might, or the vision, see. 
 
 Now came the case no conscience might oppose, 
 
 Or fail to settle. 
 Save those unapprehensive most, or those 
 
 Of basest metal, — 
 "Whether 't were best to hold a course of life 
 With Heaven and Nature at eternal strife, 
 
 And open treason. 
 Or take the assurance of that peaceful transit, 
 Which had Heaven's promised guidance to advance it, 
 
 And the voice of reason. 
 
 The question once debated, 't was decided 
 
 By final judgment, 
 Vice should no longer in a breast misguided 
 
 Maintain a lodgment. 
 At this, iierce fury seized the baffled foe. 
 And the death-struggle straight ensued;— when lo ! 
 
 The aged sire 
 To the rescue came ; the day was lost and won ; 
 Heaven heard that fatlier's prayer, and gave that son 
 
 Time to retire.
 
 PART II. CANTO I. 57 
 
 All present danger past, in penitence 
 
 The youth fell low ; 
 And shame wrote in his heart a contrite sense, 
 
 And on his brow ; 
 The watchful sire, a sage in nature's laws. 
 Noting the effect, and conscious of the cause, 
 
 Forthwith endeavoured 
 That one he so lovM, e'en in degradation, 
 Might from the sinner's foul association 
 
 Be henceforth sever' d. 
 
 But here there came no marvel to unravel. 
 
 Though such may come ; 
 He told of realms where he, in early travel. 
 
 Was wont to roam ; 
 And drew such scenes before the enraptur'd child. 
 And with these tales of wonder so beguil'd 
 
 His listening youth ; 
 That henceforth, aught of wildest-strange tradition 
 Had fall'n upon his waken'd superstition, 
 
 As all of truth. 
 
 The boy held in his breast that gift of fear. 
 
 Such as is found 
 To bring the haunted bard and uttering seer 
 
 Alike spell-bound ; 
 An awe portentous, wliich he sought to fly. 
 By running into wild reality. 
 
 As it were goading 
 His spirit, till, like a startled steed, it fled 
 To the sure fulfilment of his direst dread, 
 
 And worst foreboding.
 
 58 LEARN AND TEACH. 
 
 Now on these moody fears the sire reflected 
 
 With thought distressing, 
 Yet deem'd they might become, if well directed, 
 
 His son's best blessing; 
 Inly advised of this, in quiet session, — 
 Whenas his wondrous words had gained jjossession 
 
 Of the youth's quick breast, — 
 The old man spread forth, as occasion ofFer'd, 
 Freely his lore, a various banquet proflferM 
 
 To a welcome guest ; 
 
 And thus began : — but first he laid before 
 
 His youthful hearer, — 
 (To enhance the value of one realm the more, 
 
 And make it dearer. 
 Even as the foil doth heighten more the jewel,) 
 Strange exiles whereof he, through fortunes cruel. 
 
 Was erst a sharer ; 
 So, that fair realm, where he would have him rove, 
 The youth, by contrast, come the more to love, 
 
 And view the fairer. 
 
 'T is thus in Nature's world the wilds that grow 
 
 Set off her beauty ; 
 Thus sinuous ways of sin more tempting show 
 
 The paths of duty ; 
 Sweet summer thus more gorgeous doth appear. 
 When, newly usher'd in by winter drear, 
 
 She spreads her treasures; — 
 Haply, so deeming, this fond sire began. 
 In j)hrase such as an anxious father can. 
 
 And suasive measures.
 
 PART II. CANTO II. 59 
 
 CANTO II. 
 
 " My soul, turn from them ; turn we to survey, 
 Where rougher climes a nobler race display : 
 Where the bleak Swiss their stormy mansion tread, 
 And force a churlish soil for scanty bread." 
 
 Goldsmith. 
 
 ''From Nature's hand free-fashioa'd, and intended 
 
 For freedom's clirae, 
 By her great self from tjrant-step defended, 
 
 And tyrant- crime, 
 There is a Laud that looks upon the world. 
 As with a Heaven-assured defiance, liurFd 
 
 Mutely below ; 
 AU-coldly there around the tiller's toil 
 She piles her snows, yet from the sacred soil 
 
 They shut the foe. 
 
 " For wild exploit that land yields not to any, 
 By many virtues, as by mountains many. 
 
 On high uplifted ; 
 Her womanhood is fair, her manhood free, 
 Robust, and, as the mountaineer should be. 
 
 Valiant and gifted ; 
 Still prompt with various viand to regale 
 
 The pilgrim-stranger, 
 For he is of the desert and the dale, 
 
 Alike, the ranger :
 
 60 LEARN AND TEACH. 
 
 " There oft, — to bring the chamois to the bay, — 
 
 With rifle girded, 
 Well-breath'd, and with a body for the frayj 
 
 Belted and sworded ; 
 ]^loodhound to trail, and telescope to say 
 
 Where he is herded ; 
 Accoutred well, through many a wildering day, 
 
 And peril nightly, 
 He wends, and wiles with song the hours away, 
 
 Tor his heart sits lightly. 
 
 " But many a terror round that toiler's path. 
 
 And o'er his soul. 
 Must come, methinks, ere he attained hath 
 His midnight goal; 
 Yet thoughts like these are transient things. 
 That tell him of what sires he springs. 
 
 And of what nation ; 
 And, as the rival Alps arise, 
 He cuts the clouds, and climbs the skies, 
 In emulation. — 
 
 " Thus in the uphill of man's pilgrimage, 
 
 Perils prevail ; 
 And where he most hath need of counsels sage. 
 
 There most assail ; 
 Lying in wait, ere in his onward course 
 
 He reach the summit. 
 Thief-like, to stop him on the road, or worse, 
 
 Decoy him from it ; 
 But some there be, too true to turn away. 
 From virtue's chosen path too great to stray.
 
 PART II. CANTO II. 61 
 
 " Yet who from virtue's sacred cause decoy'd 
 
 By the world's guile, — 
 His high-placed hopes obscuretl, but not destroyed, — 
 
 Yet stray awhile ; 
 Stray from her ranks, disloyal, yet return 
 To her bright standard, — he it is doth earn 
 
 Wreaths more unfading 
 Than all by warrior-chieftain ever worn. 
 Wreaths that take lustre from foul censure's scorn, 
 
 And sin's upbraiding. 
 
 " But he who in the fearful field of honour 
 
 Strikes for a name. 
 Goes through a world of death ere he hath won her, 
 
 And fix'd his fame ; 
 But once that summit gain'd, all the more nearly 
 The abyss lay yawning, ever the more dearly 
 
 He rates his glory ; 
 And sweet 't is to be sung in his land's song. 
 And greatly known her wondering sons among, 
 
 And told in story. 
 
 " Ever with such hazards, and for such vain guerdon, 
 
 The up-climber copes ; 
 Yet what would struggling life be but a burden. 
 
 Without its hopes : 
 The ambitious step death's dizzy path despises, 
 If on that path a sweet grows that disguises 
 
 His fatal form ; 
 Thus doth the hunter of the mountain-forage 
 Oppose to gulfs of rock his boisterous courage. 
 
 In night and storm : 
 
 o
 
 62 LEARN AND TEACH. 
 
 " And as he homeward takes his headlong journey. 
 
 Where torrents lioarse 
 Roar down some gorge, whose threatening shadows sternly 
 
 Fall on his course ; 
 He eyes the impending height, whose peaks arise 
 
 But to elate him, 
 For he knows, when he brings home his mountain-prize, 
 
 Whose smiles await him ; 
 Tew are his fears ; his native cliffs abide 
 Steadfast, and stand eternal at his side : 
 
 " But lo ! — in the faithless world of man, 
 
 At that dark hour. 
 When the eye, bewilder'd, fails to scan 
 
 Misfortune's power. 
 The friend who, while thy star was shining. 
 
 Came flattering by 
 The first, will be, with that star declining, 
 
 The first to fly ; 
 And he, who partook of thy fortune past, . 
 Shall leave thee alone at the first rude blast. 
 
 " In thy success, such is the friendly hand 
 
 The world doth ofl'er ; 
 Hand ever prompt to serve at Wealth's command. 
 
 And share his coffer : 
 But, Son ! let not such specious love deceive thee ; 
 Be true unto thyself, though the world leave thee. 
 
 And self-reliant ; 
 If thou hast soul, aspire, but be persistent, 
 For in thy course are many foes existent, 
 
 And each a giant :
 
 PART II. CANTO II. 63 
 
 ** Let but thy aim be pure, thy purpose true. 
 
 And feel assurance, 
 A fortitude shall grow, to bring thee through, — 
 
 A sure endurance : — 
 If stern obstructions rise in thick confusion. 
 Learn from themselves a sturdy resolution. 
 
 And never yield ; 
 If ill comes, as a foe thou canst not fly, 
 Thou boldest yet, if thou hast purity, 
 
 A steadfast shield. 
 
 ** The mountaineer surveys his mountain-ranges 
 
 With conquering eye ; 
 His aim is clear, his purpose never changes, 
 
 The storms pass by: 
 His life is like his own wild atmosphere, 
 Fearful yet hopeful, yet his direst fear 
 
 Is a day undeeded ; 
 By him the ice-cataract, and thunder-shock. 
 The snow perennial, and the eternal rock. 
 
 Alike unheeded, 
 
 *' His is a dime where in each feature. Nature, 
 
 liemote and rude, 
 Jlemains as she was framed, like her Creator, 
 
 In solitude; — 
 There, granite-hewn, she stands, an awful form. 
 That ever, since the first, hath braved the storm. 
 
 Now, as of old ; 
 Patient alike, beneath the suns of summer, 
 And with the wintry tempest thrown upon her, — 
 
 Patient, and cold ;
 
 64 
 
 LEARN AND TEACH. 
 
 " Her aspect is as she uprose at birth. 
 
 From chaos thrown ; 
 Struck from the very frame-work of the eartli. 
 
 And left, alone; 
 Alone and motionless; and though around her 
 The flash and thunder-bolt fall to confound her; 
 
 All-vain their visits are ; 
 The mark she bears is her own lineament, 
 The furrows in her hoary forehead rent. 
 
 Are not their scar : 
 
 " Thousands of years, winter's on winter's snow 
 
 Hath fall'n there, yet that clime, 
 Vi ith this cold burden on her a^ed brow. 
 
 Stands forth subhme; 
 Scathless before the dire north-blast that hastens 
 Stern winter's car, and on her bosom fastens 
 
 With icy fang; 
 And though the glacier bind a chain, that seldom 
 Remits its hold, she shrinks not from the thraldmn. 
 
 And feels no pang : 
 
 " But she stands forth, as though to ask on high 
 
 Of Him who made her, 
 From her fair sons, and her free liberty. 
 
 To stay the invader ; 
 And His great covenant, in words of wonder, 
 Is heard upon her hills, where cliff and thunder 
 
 In conflict meet; 
 And He, as her own safeguard, ever bound her. 
 And the tide of tyranny that sweeps around her. 
 
 Breaks at her feet.
 
 PART 11. CANTO II. 65 
 
 *' On her untrodden tops there sits a God, 
 
 Whose fearful ire 
 Comes forth in words that may be heard abroad, 
 
 And looks of fire : 
 There, on the thunder-tempest driven, 
 He rolls His chariot through the Heaven, 
 
 Or, in mists below. 
 Broods o'er the glacier's city of ice, 
 Or sweeps down o'er the precipice. 
 
 In a cloud of snow : 
 
 " He is known in the mountain-steep, where storms 
 
 Usher His coming ; 
 He is known in the mountain-deep, in the fearful forms 
 
 Of an ocean foaming ; 
 His face, through the starry firmament wide, 
 In unnumber'd mysteries descried. 
 
 Shines everywhere ; 
 'T is His breath that curls up the water-tides. 
 And through the waste of the desert guides 
 
 The wandering air. 
 
 •' But the storm to these giant-mountains sent 
 
 Through the clement, 
 Seems, for the hour of its action, lent 
 
 For their merriment : 
 The ocean delights in his foaming flow ; 
 And the peaks of the Alp exulting know 
 
 The time of their carnival ; 
 Por those Titans, though they stir not, throw 
 Tiieir boisterous welcomes to and fro, 
 
 And answer each other's call : (')
 
 GO 
 
 LEARN AND TEACH. 
 
 " This tempest-intercourse is the glee 
 
 Of their mountain-meeting, 
 And the flasliing cloud's artillery, 
 
 Their manner of greeting : 
 And the ocean was told to foam and flow. 
 And toss its tumults, and to grow 
 
 With the growing wind ; 
 'T was for sucli purpose spread below, 
 And the tide that it gives and takes doth show 
 
 Its path assigu'd. 
 
 " But man, though he hath a God within him, 
 
 Kebel as he may, 
 Goes with each vain thing that would win him 
 
 From his true way ; 
 And scorning to listen to Nature's tale, 
 And take his road through her temperate vale. 
 
 Blessing, and blest ; 
 Trusts himself to sin's stormy element, 
 Where all, who e'er went before him, went, 
 
 Never to rest, — 
 
 " God to the mountain gave a steadfast feature, 
 
 To the storm a force ; 
 But his Maker hath mark'd out for reason's creature 
 
 A peaceful course ; 
 And the Alp sustains the tumult of the skies, 
 As with a conscious greatness, that defies 
 
 The tempest's strife ; 
 Yields yet this lesson — if thou would'st but hear, — 
 That Peace hath yet a less aspiring sphere. 
 
 And lowlier life ;
 
 PART II. CANTO II. G7 
 
 " For terrible, amid the conflict loud * 
 
 That frequent rages, i 
 
 The huge snow-bolt, hurl'd through the midway cloud, j 
 
 In the strife engages : — I 
 
 And while in cold embrace, the peaks beneath, 
 The Glacier sits, in many a shape of death 
 
 Grimly array'd, , 
 
 In stern and stoic-like philosophy, i 
 
 Till the elemental tumult passes by, 
 
 And the strife is stay'd ; j 
 
 I 
 
 '' Yet sometimes, by the tempest's fury shaken i 
 
 To wildest wrath, 
 Or by the icy pressure torn, and taken 
 
 A downward path, — 
 As though to make confusion more confounding, 
 Along the rattling crags afar resounding, 
 
 With furious sally, '\ 
 
 Like a beleaguer'd foe in force collected, ; 
 
 He comes, with a visitation least expected, i 
 
 On the sleeping valley : — 
 
 " But his distant kin, in those fields of frost 
 
 That in fur Spitzbergen's mists lie lost, | 
 
 Have a wilder destination ; 
 The glacier there, in the mountain-gap, j 
 
 Appals not, j 
 
 For in living Nature's flowery hip j 
 
 He falls not. 
 But in a limitless waste of snow, I 
 
 That hath no sound, above or below, 
 
 Save the sea's agitation :
 
 68 LEAEN AND TEACH. 
 
 " And there, — as polar pilots tell 
 
 In words of terror, — 
 They fall, and sweep o'er an ocean fell. 
 
 In endless error; 
 That the sternest, it may be, that e'er steer'd forth, 
 To unlock the ice-door, and unseal the north. 
 
 Is aghast and grim. 
 As he sees the icy rampart rent. 
 And sent down to sail on his element. 
 
 And battle with him : 
 
 " And fierce and furious is that war 
 
 Of Death with Life; 
 And the wound he deals there is not like the scar 
 
 Of human strife ; 
 Tor he coldly strikes, and the weapon he wields 
 Is not like the weapon of battle-fields. 
 
 Where patriots fight ; 
 The warrior falls there on a field of ice. 
 And his wound is the frost's cold cicatrice. 
 
 Or famine's bite ; 
 
 " Or Disease, who works with her hideous fingers 
 
 The wasting tetter. 
 While, hugg'd by the floating foe, he lingers 
 
 In his icy fetter : — 
 But the Glacier that sleeps in the Alpine gorge, 
 K)iows not his strength, nor cares to urge 
 
 His downward flight ; 
 But he lies in his granite bed profound. 
 And keeps, like the clifl's wherewith he is bound, 
 
 A passive might : —
 
 PART II. CANTO II. 69 
 
 " Yet he bears his ponderous lot with an endurance, 
 
 Steadfast and stern. 
 That might to suffering man give some assurance, 
 
 If he would learn : — 
 The clouds o'er Virtue's rugged path that rise. 
 Like the visitations of the angry skies. 
 
 Threaten in vain ; 
 She knows the storm that comes, comes but to prove her. 
 That 't is Heaven's great design not to remove her. 
 
 But to sustain : 
 
 " And ever, when the world's reproaches rude 
 
 Rise to defame her. 
 She swerves not, but with meek and patient mood 
 
 Outbears the clamour ; 
 iVnd like a saint on earth in Heaven's protection, — 
 Scorn of that pious-proud, whose self-perfection 
 
 No prayer might move, — 
 She walks serene, in the cold world apart. 
 Dispensing unseen bounties from her heart. 
 
 And breathing love : 
 
 
 " Tims where the Alp her fellest waste expands, 
 
 Portentous, o'er thee. 
 Or, like some sudden apparition, stands, 
 
 Eearful, before thee ; 
 Bethink thee, there the tempering breezes play, 
 And fountains, lost along tlieir wandering way. 
 
 Sport through the vale ; 
 There from her icy lip and breast of snow. 
 Sweet fragrance comes, and streams of mercy flow. 
 
 That never fail ;
 
 70 LEARN AND TEACH. 
 
 " There Nature, of her wintry wrath repenting, 
 
 For her stricken child, 
 Comes, like a gracious goddess, all-relenting. 
 
 And reconciled ; 
 Summer returns, and Winter, as he rages, 
 
 Grimly retires, 
 Or, chang'd in aspect, lingers and assuages * 
 
 Her fiercer fires. — 
 Pause then, fond youth ! amend what is amiss ; 
 Subdue thy passions, and confirm thy bliss : 
 
 " If thoughts unruly overbear thy spring, 
 
 Reflect a moment. 
 And let the summer of thy manhood bring 
 
 More serious comment. 
 Passions, 't is sure thou hast ; — all nature hath ; 
 Earthquakes convulse the world, the tempest's wrath 
 
 Maddens the ocean ; 
 Volcanoes vent their fires ; while oft between. 
 Thunders break forth, and whirlwinds sweep the scene, 
 
 And aid the commotion : 
 
 " Yet in them dwells, — to still them, or to move them, — 
 
 A ruling spirit ; 
 Even such, — to guide thy passions and reprove them, — 
 
 Bost thou inherit ; 
 For He who gave, gave not this sacred trust. 
 To incite their fury, and inflame their lust, 
 
 But to control ; 
 That so, those passions, at a temperate pace, 
 Might take thee calmly through thy earthly race 
 
 To the great goal. —
 
 PART II. CANTO II. 71 
 
 " Think on these words, o'er mountains when, afar, 
 
 Thy way thou takest ; 
 And let their memory be the guiding star 
 
 Thou ne'er forsakest ; 
 Ketain their counsels as thy truest riches ; 
 And (for, methinks, to speed thy father's wishes 
 
 Is yet thy love,) 
 Assure thee well, if e'er a father's prayer 
 Went for a child to Heaven, — my cry is there. 
 
 For thee, above ! — " 
 
 For future lay 't is left to say 
 
 How those wishes \vere rewarded. 
 And how well the scope of the son's quick hope 
 
 With the father's prayer accorded ; 
 'T is enough to tell that tlie breaking morning 
 
 Waked Hope to fulfil her dream. 
 And that son, in the spell of that lather's warning, 
 
 Set forth, (as ye might deem,) 
 Led by a fond invisible hand. 
 To trace the glorious mountain-land.
 
 72 LEARN AND TEACH. 
 
 CANTO III. 
 
 " And this our life, exempt from public haunt, 
 Finds tongues in trees, booka in the running brooks, 
 Sermons in stones, and good in everything." 
 
 Shaeespear. 
 
 All-holy dawn ! fair hour, when Nature's face, 
 
 No longer hidden. 
 Looks up, unscarr'd by time's or ruin's trace. 
 
 Fresh as in Eden ; 
 Toil's early friend, restorer of the earth. 
 True still-recurring promise, glorious birth. 
 
 Child of the day ! 
 Meek saint rcturn'd, and with new beauty given, 
 Like a descended messenger from Heaven, 
 
 To assert thy sway ! 
 
 Sweet com'st thou to give hope unto the sailor, 
 
 And sweet and well, 
 To loose the captive from the steely jailor, 
 
 And stony cell : 
 Grief looks for thee, who mourns o'er love forsaken. 
 And Conscience, by his spectral terrors taken, 
 
 Implores thy light ; 
 Guilt seeks, self-scared, thy golden-opening door, 
 And darkness-loving Treason loves thee more 
 
 Than his OM^n night.
 
 PART II. CANTO III. 73 
 
 Sweet art thou, when through the wild mountain-air 
 
 Tliy bkishes come. 
 Showing to tlie bewilder'd traveller where 
 
 He may safely roam ; 
 Sweet to the soldier who hath lain in blood. 
 
 The fell night on, 
 Thy succour, in his helpless solitude, 
 
 When the battle is done : — ■ 
 Darkness and all her fiends shrink back before thee ; 
 And they who shun thee most the most adore thee ! 
 
 Sweet is thy sure and timely visitation, 
 
 AYhere mortals are, 
 Loosing them from dark night's incarceration ; — 
 
 But sweeter far 
 Break'st thou, oh Light Divine ! within the breast 
 Of the repentant who, with faults confess' d, 
 
 "Welcomes thy visit ! 
 Who, offering up a heart too long estrang'd, 
 Bays priceless bliss for that poor heart exchang'd , 
 
 And cheaply buys it. — 
 
 Such light, perchance, with that fair morning came 
 
 To that truant youth ; 
 To guide him from a course of sin and shame 
 
 To the paths of Truth : 
 Howbeit, he rose, like one who had been striving 
 Fiercely within, or traveller late-arriving 
 
 After mishap ; 
 But it quickly calm'd his spirits to review 
 In hope that land of mountain-promise through, 
 
 As in a map. 
 
 H
 
 74 LEARN AND TEACH. 
 
 Boots not to say how well the youth responded 
 
 To that morning's call, 
 Launching all-buoyant on the tide that bounded 
 
 His sire's old hall ; 
 Nor lists to tell with what impatient pride, 
 All-nnconcern'd at such, he sped beside 
 
 Thy fields, fair France ; 
 Holding the flattering future in abeyance. 
 And slumbering in his hopes, or his conveyance. 
 
 As in a trance. 
 
 Suffice, when on the mountains fell, at length. 
 
 His wondering gaze. 
 He felt the appalling scene in all its strength. 
 
 And went his ways; 
 Winding his steps through many a witchery. 
 
 Where many a fairy 
 Spread many a charm in that unearthly sky, 
 
 Unseen and airy ; 
 Till, wild Eomanche, upon thy bosom fair, ( ^ ) 
 He threw him listlessly, and linger'd there ! 
 
 Then 't was, a sight before his ravish'd eye 
 
 Majestic rose. 
 Majestic, yet with a calm majesty. 
 
 Great in repose. 
 Nature he sought in wildness, and had found her, 
 "With all her solitary vastness round her; 
 
 And here she shone. 
 Attired in many-mingled hues, and sate, 
 A peerless queen, and kept her mountain-state. 
 
 And had her throne.
 
 PART II. CANTO III. 7 
 
 But her temple spread afar, and stood on high, 
 
 By many a columji 
 Of unhewn granite, and wild imagery. 
 
 Supported, solemn; 
 Here she receives her court, where spirits unknown 
 Do homage, girdled in her icy zone 
 
 By eternal towers ; 
 Winter is their defender ; yet beneath. 
 Sweet summer-winds breathe forth their wanton breath 
 
 O'er a waste of flowers : 
 
 While, ever and anon, peers forth, as by 
 
 Some inspiration. 
 Like a new region call'd up in the sky, — 
 
 The prey-bird's habitation, — 
 A passing scene of grey peaks in the air, {-) 
 Passing, for soon the clouds envelop there 
 
 That spectral show; 
 These are great Nature's temple-tops ; — look ! where 
 She spreads a mantle o'er her bosom bare. 
 
 Of maiden-snow : 
 
 Never hath man's polluting footstep trod 
 
 Those heights sublime. 
 But Nature there hath communed with her God 
 
 From endless time ; 
 There Winter reigns in cold security, 
 Spreading in white and polar purity. 
 
 That ever freezes. 
 His lap of snows ; whence, at his airy will, 
 A wafted mercy comes, that tempers still 
 
 The summer- breezes.
 
 1 
 
 76 LEARN AND TEACH. 
 
 I 
 
 But take then from this mitigating wind ' 
 
 Thy action's guidance ; j 
 And a sweet type in its timely mercy find 
 
 Of God's contrivance, ' 
 
 Who frowns, yet spares, reserves His ire aloof, ; 
 And comes in love, giving the precious proof 
 
 In this appearance ; 
 
 Prames of His blast a breeze. His storm a shower, , 
 
 And from the centre of His vengeful power, j 
 
 Breathes a forbearance. ] 
 
 But at the base of each stone-pyramid. 
 
 Dense, or disjointed, / 
 
 Or sudden-sever' d in their rolling pride 
 
 By peak sky-pointed, I 
 
 Like a Imo-e army's mustering force, the clouds ] 
 
 Come round in ominous-conspiring crowds, j 
 
 While some, asunder, ' 
 
 Halt upon cliffs apart, till at high call 
 In full and dark conclave assembled all. 
 
 They strike their thunder : 
 
 Yet the dark tempest's distant lightning-glare 
 
 Gives to the roaming 
 I'ime to retreat, seek shelter, and prepare 
 
 For its sure coming : 
 Bestir thee then ! let not its eyeless wrath 
 O'ertake thy steps, and turn thee from thy path. 
 
 And triumph o'er thee; 
 Loiterer, the day is yet thine own, the road 
 Lighted unto thy feet, the bless'd abode 
 
 Open before thee !
 
 PART II. CANTO III. 77 
 
 What though with tlireatening pomp tlie glacier rear. 
 
 From the gap near it. 
 Its liorrid brow, and in such guise appear, 
 
 As ye might fear it ; 
 Be steadfast still, for woe unto that man. 
 Who, rashly urg'd, leads forth the adventurous van 
 
 In midnight error ! 
 Betwixt each step up-yawns a precipice. 
 Where Death dwells in unfathom'd fields of ice, 
 
 An unknown terror : 
 
 But Nature, from this fastness in the rock, — 
 
 To the poor peasant 
 To make the river fresh, and to his flock 
 
 The pasture pleasant, — 
 Sends forth unnumber'd rills ; so doth she turn 
 Her terror to a joy, and thou might' st learn. 
 
 Rover, from this, 
 That oft the counseUor most grim and stern, 
 Lacks not the love that labours but to earn 
 
 For others the bliss : 
 
 Look ! from the cliffs cold mouth this mercy comes. 
 
 And that tliou takest. 
 Plows for each fly that thirsteth as he roams, 
 
 Even as thou lackest : — 
 So lot thy soul, (tlius inly spoke the youth. 
 As, pondering here, he took the impress of truth 
 
 From the rock's rude feature,) 
 So let thy soul, with like impartial part. 
 Give the best bk^ssing that thou hast at heart, 
 
 To thy brother-creature ! —
 
 78 LEAllN AND TKACH. 
 
 Step forth ! — thy visioii, like some dreamer's, strays 
 
 O'er a rich profusion. 
 Yet palpable, aud growing with thy gaze, 
 
 And no delusion : 
 Step forth ! — albeit one landscape fair forsake thee, 
 A fairer, pilgrim, where yon track shall take thee 
 
 By path deep-hidden, 
 Shows where, methinks, the charmed spirits repair, 
 A haunt on earth for the blest troops of air. 
 
 But to man forbidden. 
 
 Look ! — Now thou stand'st upon a peerless throne, 
 
 Thy state profound 
 MarshaU'd with clouds : look ! — from this place of stone. 
 
 What seems the ground. 
 Hath a many-colour'd carpet, thick with flowers, 
 Where the day dances, and the enchanted hours 
 
 Yet linger so. 
 That the sweet nymphs of evening keep the skies. 
 Till Morn comes blushing on their revelries. 
 
 And bids them go ; 
 
 Yet she steals chastely in, and with her blushes 
 
 Eenews the gambols ; 
 And from its fount of stone the ice-stream gushes. 
 
 And the flock rambles ; 
 And the due peasant wakes his pastoral reed. 
 Come with the mountain-maiden up to lead 
 
 The dance of day ; 
 While the cold mists that brought the evening-sadness. 
 Like human cares before the face of gladness. 
 
 Melt away.
 
 PAET II. CAJ^TO lit. 79 
 
 Now wheels tlie honey-bee, from blossom winging 
 
 Onward to blossom. 
 His busy hum, gathering his sweets, and singing 
 
 In Eden's bosom ; 
 And piping birds, and oft from cleft abhorrent 
 The mountain-breeze, with the down-struggling torrent 
 
 Borne on, and blending; 
 And goat back-clambering, at the herd-boy's call, 
 From scarce-reach'd slope, and wondrous waterfall, ( ^ ) 
 
 From Heaven descending. 
 
 With ceaseless spray watering the vale, and urging 
 
 The wild rock-river, — 
 Such, with the thousand ecstacies emerging 
 
 Prom the scene for ever. 
 Might well entrance the spirit of that rover. 
 Who, spite of adventitious ill, a lover 
 
 Of the true and great, 
 Eoam'd lonely at a sire's revered behest, 
 To learn from Nature's proudest what were best 
 
 For his petty state ; 
 
 And he k-arn'd, and strangely Icarn'd ; — but at this tide 
 
 Must not be told 
 What mountain-spells and mysteries abide, 
 
 ^et to unfold. 
 Nature's great frame made him appear the less. 
 Yet had she lent his soul a loftiness. 
 
 And sterner stature ; 
 But vie^^'^d, apart from her sublimities. 
 She stood before him in a kindlier guise, 
 
 And fairer feature ;
 
 80 LEARN AND TEACH. 
 
 'T was til en she wore a. more familiar mien. 
 
 Blooming beside him ; 
 And seem'd to wish, albeit a mighty queen, 
 
 Bliss might betide him ; 
 For nature smiles upon the lowliest 
 As on the proud, and makes her beauty blest ; 
 
 Ah I happy there, — 
 Where queenly state puts on a pomp like this, 
 Whose fairest hope is for a people's bliss. 
 
 And chiefest care. 
 
 And there's a love that in the earth's high places 
 
 Takes root, 
 And keeps in pride's cold atmosphere its graces, 
 
 And bears its fruit; 
 And chill'd, albeit, by icy state, and scanted. 
 Lives yet, a solitary thing, implanted 
 
 Amid the gloom ; 
 Even as the wild flower, in the waste abiding, 
 Clings to the loftiest cliff with a confiding 
 
 And steadfast bloom : 
 
 Pilgrim ! behold yon rocks that pathless prove, 
 
 Save to thine eye; 
 Look up ! — a thousand symbols of such love 
 
 Can'st thou descry ; 
 There, blossoms wreath the cliff's cold brow, and dress 
 Death in his sternest form with loveliness ; 
 
 And breezes blow ; 
 And rills gush from their confines stony-hearted. 
 Showing, that love, where baffled most and thwarted. 
 
 Should still do so, —
 
 PAET II. CANTO III. 81 
 
 And range in richness forth : such; might the world. 
 
 Duly accounting, 
 Be as yon vale is with the blessing liurl'd 
 
 From that true fountain ; 
 Taking the precept to be gather'd thence, — 
 That the good given is given but to dispense j 
 
 Even as the river 
 Thrown on that vale doth linger till he leave her 
 Eichly endow' d, and grown from a receiver 
 
 Herself a giver. 
 
 But the stream that sweetly feeds that flowery wild; 
 
 Tells, as it wanders. 
 To him who, by its prompting voice beguiFd, 
 
 A moment ponders, — 
 That the season when the fullest tide is flowing, 
 Is still the time when fortune comes bestowing 
 
 Her fairest gift ; 
 And as yon little lake stores up its treasure. 
 So store thou, and dispense the allotted measure 
 
 "With care and thrift ; 
 
 Else when in day of dry adversity 
 
 Tliou needs must droop, 
 How bitter then shall be the change to thee, 
 
 Untaught to stoop. — 
 Here is great Nature's book, herself the teacher ; 
 Learn ! — or she will be found thy sure impeacher. 
 
 It needs must be ; 
 Look ! in its every page there is example ; 
 Tlie volume is thine own, its range is ample. 
 
 Its knowledge free.
 
 82 LEARN AND TEACH. 
 
 Hark ! — the bee tells how Industry doth hourly 
 
 Gather her hoard, 
 Lest winter come, and the storm bluster sourly. 
 
 Before 't is stored ; 
 But the bird's louder lay tells thee, between 
 Thy toil, to bring some mirth upon the sceue, 
 
 "Where all were beauty. 
 If, warn'd by nature's and by reason's voice. 
 Each would act well his part, and all rejoice. 
 
 And love their duty. — 
 
 Thuswise impress' d, with philosophic smile. 
 
 And sentiment. 
 The youth approv'd and fructified his toil. 
 
 Still as he went; 
 When lo ! — round-roll'd in dark and threatening mood- 
 Making him in that mountain-solitude 
 
 Yet more alone, — 
 Clouds came upon his path ; he turn'd, and strove 
 With that wild course where he who roves must rove 
 
 A way unknown : 
 
 And here full long and fatally, perchance, 
 
 'T were his to roam, 
 Save that there sudden peer'd upon the expanse, 
 
 A peasant's home : 
 Day had declined, and mountain- regions throw 
 
 Their shadows early, 
 And 't is sweet to see — as those dark shadows grow,— 
 
 Attain'd so nearly, 
 That welcome in the waste, which to discover. 
 Is well for the bewildei-'d mountain-rover.
 
 » 
 
 PART II. CANTO III. 83 
 
 From cleft fast by, with modest voice complaining, 
 
 Did meekly emerge 
 A little rill, that grew and went on gaining 
 
 A prouder surge ; — 
 Thus, man, the pilgrim deem'd, ere life grow firmer, 
 Yields to his helpless lot with idle murmur. 
 
 And feeble force ; 
 But when in childhood's humble world no longer. 
 He takes, as age goes on, and waxes stronger, 
 
 A bolder course : — 
 
 The impending portal gain'd, with artless truth 
 
 The peasant hail'd him, 
 And drew that courteous greeting from the youth 
 
 Which never failed him ; 
 Meantime, the hostess of the hut, in bread 
 Of rye and milk of mountain-goat forth-spread 
 
 Her household hoard. 
 Simple yet sweet, while dish'd with anxious care,' 
 Some chamois-venison for the stranger's fare 
 
 Smoked on the board : 
 
 And now full many a daring feat of worth, 
 
 And thrilling tale, 
 \Yith lauglitcr from the heart, and unforced mirth, 
 
 Tliroughout prevail ; 
 Till mountain-venture and the chamois-chase, 
 
 With short repose. 
 Wore out the night, and onward brought apace. 
 
 Day to disclose. 
 Freedom enthroned in unrestricted reign. 
 The ample monarch of a rock-domain :
 
 84 LEARN AND TEACH. 
 
 The peasant now led forth his ])ilgrim-guest, 
 
 And bade him heed, 
 How Industry from the rock's churHsh breast 
 
 Can force the seed ; 
 And rear the flowers of love, earth's fair increase ; 
 AYhile, wing'd on many a sound, comes dreamy peace 
 
 The mountains o'er; 
 And in wild range the populous bee, to yield — 
 A fellow-labourer in contentment's field — 
 
 His luscious store : 
 
 The youth spoke not, but own'd with pensive look 
 
 The precept mild 
 Taught by that scene where, in her loneliest nook, 
 
 Nature's free child 
 Plies, as he sings, the hour's rude industry ; 
 Or copes the storm, and wakes the day on high, 
 
 A mountain-ranger; 
 Then to Ins home within that rock-recess 
 Comes smiling, like determin'd happiness. 
 
 In spite of danger : 
 
 He cannot choose but smile, for smiles are there, 
 
 AVaiting the meeting ; 
 And 't is sweet and seemly, where the faith is fair, 
 
 Thus to be greeting 
 
 His morn's repast from hasty haiul, yet trim, 
 Tells there i^ some one will yet think of him 
 
 Wandering away ; 
 That the same hand shall set the pine-log burning. 
 Prepare the couch, and welcome his returning 
 
 At close of day.
 
 PART II. CANTO III. 85 
 
 Such with observant heed the pilgrim saw, 
 
 And learn'd from such, 
 That in untutor'd nature was a law 
 
 Might profit much : 
 Here the fair troth was kept as it was plighted ; 
 By watchful Love her wanderer's ills requited, 
 
 His hardshi])s shared ; 
 Love who still t^lls, through all his headlong journeys, 
 By a substantial faith, that his retnra is 
 
 Look'd for, and cared : 
 
 But that within his wild home's resting-place 
 Dwells this true warder, 
 
 Prompts him to speed his flagging mountain-chase 
 
 With a fresh ardour ; 
 While, tired with quest and borne down with its spoil. 
 The home-return were but an irksome toil 
 
 To that unbless'd, 
 Who all day long in solitary flight. 
 Comes back, hke an unmated bird, at night. 
 
 To a lone nest. 
 
 Sweet is love's early choice, but for the hour 
 
 After election. 
 They best can speak who have most felt the power 
 
 Of tried aftection : 
 The hunter takes his treacherous mountain-range 
 
 With fearless tread. 
 Yet meets in his true love welcome exchange 
 
 Por dangers fled, 
 Blest state ! where souls, in sweet communion, prove 
 The true effects of undissemblcd love. 
 
 I
 
 86 LEARN AND TEACH. 
 
 CANTO IV. 
 
 " Italy, how beautiful thou art ! 
 Yet I could weep, — for thou art lying, alas ! 
 Low in the dust ; and they who come Admire thee 
 As we admire the beautiful in death." 
 
 Rogers. 
 
 Sporting with time, thus mused the pilgrim-boy. 
 
 But moments muse not, 
 And 't were fitting he so use the instructive toy. 
 
 That he misuse not ; 
 Glean profit from his play, and learn discretion 
 
 From fleeting summer, 
 And not come back with the unbless'd impression 
 
 Of a short- comer : 
 Time lent liim leisure, and he deem'd it meet 
 To cull instruction from a source so sweet. 
 
 At length from his proud pinnacle receding. 
 
 An humbled learner. 
 He trod," — yet ever with fond eye up-heeding 
 
 Its aspect sterner, — 
 The Alp's enamelFd slope, and rambled on. 
 Till he found that pathway in advance was none, 
 
 Nor in retreat ; 
 That path, quoth he, my guidance late, doth picture 
 The worldly friend who, in some dark conjecture, 
 
 Forsakes the feet.
 
 PART II. CANTO IV. 87 
 
 But boldly forth the adventurous rover sped. 
 
 And still persisted. 
 Hour after hour beguil'd, and onward led, 
 
 Even as he listed ; 
 And still new wonders so entranced his gaze. 
 And filled his soul, that, for all future days 
 
 Come what there may. 
 He had no thought o^er fairer fields to launch. 
 If from the bosom of the sweet Romanehe 
 
 He e'er could stray : 
 
 Yet he left her, but it was as a lover 
 
 Who leaves his heart ; 
 And found, as he soar'd o'er the snows above her. 
 
 How hard to part ; 
 'T was his first mountain-love ; and oh, beware ! 
 Ye, who yet know not how those features are 
 
 In the heart imprinted. 
 That take with the first charm ; — thus inly sigh'd 
 One in whose breast such charms, perchance, abide, 
 
 Too deeply tinted. 
 
 But here he loved as others love, and roving 
 
 Like other rovers ; 
 Learn'd that the eye, from an old charm removing, 
 
 A new discovers : 
 Even so ; and time was on the wing, and willing, 
 
 And quickly brought him, — 
 Though Hope, he fear'd, might not be found fulfilling 
 
 All she had taught him, — 
 To skies, — but imagination lacks a name 
 For sights and sounds that in their compass came.
 
 88 LEARN AND TEACH. 
 
 A waste of rocks that the eye fails in ranging, 
 
 Tor some soar higher, 
 Posted hke sentry-guards, and hark ! exchanging 
 
 Their watchwords dire 
 In Avhat ye hear as thunders ; — but that flash. 
 Rending, as 't were, yon chlls with fiery gash. 
 
 At each fierce entry 
 Up-opens a wild workl, and shows most hke 
 The giant-glance, — before his terrors strii;e. 
 
 Sent by the sentry : 
 
 And snows, urg'd headlong o'er the mountain's flank. 
 
 With thundering car, 
 And files of ice, in serried rank on rank. 
 
 Take up the war ; 
 And the battle-peal rolls merrily afar ; 
 But things whereon, to infix a fatal scar, 
 
 The sky-bolt falls. 
 Are such as in the world the weaker are. 
 Opposing to their fate a feeble bar, 
 
 "When the time calls. 
 
 But words fail all to express a scene, whose lone 
 
 And spectral grandeur. 
 Oft-told, is yet to them but truly known 
 
 Who thither wander ; 
 Writ, 't will ofiend, like to that painter's piece 
 Who yields his canvass to the wild caprice 
 
 Of fancy's sport ; 
 Or as some deed of awe, that in the telling 
 Passes behef by its too far excelling. 
 
 Or else falls short. —
 
 PART II. CANTO IV. 89 
 
 So, to return : — this youth's love-spell was bindiug, 
 
 Till, his way he did take 
 Where coils Durance awhile his serpent-winding ( i ) 
 
 Into a lake ; 
 Diverging thence, he ascended till he stood 
 High in a pass of stony solitude, ( ^ ) 
 
 Where meekly dwell 
 A few poor scatter'd Christians in their path 
 To Heaven; 't was here Neff kept for them the faith. 
 
 And fix'd the spell. 
 
 And 't were wiser, deem'd the pilgrim, as he gazed 
 
 On their existence. 
 From crops on cliffs, beneath such blessings rais'd. 
 
 To pick subsistence ; 
 With this poor flock their aspect wear of sweetness, 
 
 And feel its peace. 
 Waiting, in Resignation's calm completeness. 
 
 The expiring lease, 
 Than lead, in sumptuous state, a life of riot, 
 Fruitful of nothing save the heart's disquiet. 
 
 Short was the scene, yet hopeful for his soul, 
 
 He felt its power. 
 And would not he should err from the control 
 
 Of such an hour ; 
 But had a thought, (perchance 't was heard in Heaven,) 
 That he might strive in faith, as these had striven. 
 
 And not give way ; — 
 In pondering thus, a voice amid the shock 
 Of the flood's conflict with an aged rock, ( ' ) 
 
 Thus seem'd to say ; —
 
 90 I^BAllN AND TEACH, 
 
 " Behold the torrent through this channel ancient, 
 
 With wrath sublime 
 Careering, like mercurial youth impatient 
 
 Of halthig time ; 
 See ! how it rolls, in ceaseless tumult, on. 
 Tears its wild way, and chafes tlie unyielding stone 
 
 That sternly hems it ; 
 Look well ! — and learn a steadfast majesty ; 
 And, rather than yon idle uproar, be 
 
 The power that stems it." — 
 
 Something beyojid, a valley of fair fountains. 
 
 And fairer daughters, — 
 Where loud Guil, wandering through a maze of mountains^ 
 
 Loses his waters, — ( * ) 
 Stole, like a seraph, o'er his raptur'd eye ; 
 He paus'd, and paid his homage, and pass'd by. 
 
 And quickly pass'd ; 
 Tor rolling thunder-clouds rose gloomily, 
 \Yhere Yiso's spectral summit pierc'd the sky. 
 
 And bade him haste : ( ^ ) 
 
 When, still ambitious of new heights, he went 
 
 O'er Winter's regions. 
 To adorn whose icy court, Flora had lent 
 
 Her gayest legions. 
 Which show'd like youth in the cold lap of age, 
 ( )i' as peace comes, bearing o'er prostrate rage 
 
 Her presence sacred ; 
 But like yon snows are the world's sympathies. 
 And in bosom hke that rock uuyicldiug lies 
 
 Relentless hatred. —
 
 PAUT II. CANTO IV. 91 
 
 Thus shaped he from some passing imagery 
 
 Semblance ideal, 
 Nor reck'd those gorgeous realms should reach his eye 
 
 In aspect real. 
 Where Italy like an enchantment lies, — 
 Till he had passM through many a paradise, 
 
 And many a peril ; 
 And, that which never charm'd his youth the less. 
 O'er many a wide- spread mountain-wilderness, 
 
 Silent and sterile : 
 
 Yet further tarrying not than to elicite 
 
 Precept severe. 
 Like one who seeks, after some loftier visit. 
 
 His own calm sphere, — 
 Ingulf'd at length within a wild ravine. 
 O'er a road rude with crags of threatening mien 
 
 He slowly rang'd ; 
 Pields bright as hopes stole on the distant scene. 
 Yet a wide waste of clitfs and snows between 
 
 Kept them estrang'd : 
 
 But swift as thought kenn'd he that fairest realm 
 
 Of realms most fair, ( « ) 
 "Whose charms, albeit in mourning yet, o'erwhelm 
 
 The gazer there, — 
 And thus exclaim'd ; — " Oh ! may thy future be 
 What Nature made thee for, fair Italy, 
 
 A peerless nation ! 
 And as thou risest from yon rocks on high, 
 So may'st thou yet redeem thy majesty 
 
 From desolation ! —
 
 92 LEARN AND TEACH. 
 
 " Fertile of fame ! — oli thou, wliose greatness wrought 
 
 A world's control ! ( 7 ) 
 Thy aspect comes upon me like a thought 
 
 That sears the soul ! 
 Thou, — the old empire, all of heroes, — thou. 
 
 The unexampled ! 
 It was no common stroke that laid thee low. 
 
 Thy spirit was trampled ; — 
 But Nature comes, Nature who yet would save. 
 And sits, a beauteous mourner, on tliy grave ! 
 
 " Her flowers bedeck the dead ; from whose great dust,- 
 
 Sweet omen fair ! — 
 Springs life, luxuriant still, and speaks a tvnst, 
 
 And breathes a prayer, 
 That thou shalt yet be free ! — Here, at thy portal, 
 I gaze on thee, as on a thing immortal, 
 
 And feel thy sway ; 
 But thy attire speaks thee a hving spirit, 
 As 't were to life come back again, to inlierit 
 
 A brighter day ! — " 
 
 He said ; and turned, as Grief turns from the dead, 
 
 AVith tears, yet hopes ; 
 Seeking a solace where the gorge forth-led 
 
 O'er fairy slopes ; 
 Here the pale-purple Rhododendron waving, 
 LookM o'er a torrent that its way went laving. 
 
 Like human life ; 
 A changeful course, where sounds of gentlest meaning 
 Speak all of peace, till care comes intervening, 
 
 And all is strife :
 
 PART II. CANTO IV. 98 
 
 Yet let the rocks rise in what form they Hsted, 
 
 And in what force. 
 Like to a strenuous will that flood resisted, 
 
 And kept its course ; 
 And 't was a sight, how with the stubborn foe 
 Those waters struggled, ere they leap'd below 
 
 To Lucerne's vale ; 
 Here the youth smiled, responsive to her cheer. 
 And while she waked the retrospective tear. 
 
 Thus bade her hail : — 
 
 '.' Thou lovely valley of Lucerne, ( ^ ) 
 How precious were the skill to earn 
 
 A peace so calm as thine ! 
 How sweeter far to seek thy shades. 
 And trace thy green and devious glades. 
 
 That hold a lot like mine ! 
 
 " A lot like mine I will not tell ; 
 It is my lot, and so 't is well. 
 
 It might have been less mild ; 
 "Who holds his lot without alloy ? 
 And I, alas ! — fate's restless toy. 
 
 Misfortune's houseless child ! 
 
 " And now I'm far remote from all. 
 That happier wight can gladness call. 
 
 My native land and home ; 
 Fate sends me forth, the toy is toss'd ; 
 Yet wherefore grieve ? there's nothing lost. 
 
 And misery must roam :
 
 94 LEARN AND TEACH. 
 
 " There's nothing lost, yet something gain'd ; 
 I have a home ; the tear's but feign'd 
 
 That falls for fancied ill ; 
 I have yet a home ; one kindly care 
 Still wakes to watch me tlu-ough the snare 
 
 That compasseth me still. 
 
 " But I, sweet vale ! must wander on, 
 The spirit of my spirit gone, 
 
 Yet in each sight and sound 
 Still seen, in true return, and known ; 
 A Form, though still before me, flown, 
 
 Lost, yet for ever found : 
 
 " That Form of love is lost to me ; 
 Yet there is one will think of me, 
 
 A pensive pilgrim here : 
 The woodland-path I loved so well. 
 The haunted stream, — I cannot tell. 
 
 If they will keep their cheer : 
 
 " But ah ! one eye shall fondly glow. 
 One faithful bosom shall bestow 
 
 A sigh for my return ; 
 And if within thy green retreat 
 I rest in death my weary feet, 
 
 There's one will weep. Lucerne ! — ''
 
 PART II. CANTO IV. 95 
 
 Thus ran the instinctive lay ; yet reassured 
 
 By its last strain, — 
 In guise of one who feels his soul secured 
 
 !From the outcast's pain, — 
 He turnVl him to the mountain-world again. 
 Even from so fair a scene, where he would fain 
 
 Have linger'd long ; 
 But, as the sweetest dream flies swiftest by. 
 So fled Lucerne, left with a passing sigh. 
 
 And plaintive song. 
 
 Deep in yon pathless realm lies Nature's field. 
 
 Perchance, the fairest. 
 As in her rudest rock is still conceal' d 
 
 Her gem the rarest ; — 
 The proud thought spurr'd his spirit to the quest ; 
 And many a clifl', with feature huge impress'd 
 
 Like living thing, 
 Rose with the ever-changeful hour ; — yet all 
 Look'd like poor subjects, of pretension small. 
 
 Before their king : — 
 
 And that king is Blanc ; for the snows remain 
 
 Ever around him ; 
 And by right Divine that king doth reign. 
 
 For Creation crown'd him : 
 And his vassals lie chain'd in links of stone. 
 And may not encroach upon his throne. 
 
 There are gulfs between ; 
 And like kings who would be deem'd the great. 
 He retires, and keeps in secret state 
 
 His awful mien :
 
 96 LEARN AND TEACH. 
 
 And a sea of waves that must not flow, 
 
 But in surge-like swell 
 Seem to be plunging, yet cannot go 
 
 From their icy spell, — 
 Guard the grim precincts of his court, 
 As they had been order'd to resort 
 
 There, and remain ; 
 Eang'd round, a stern and faithful legion, 
 To keep that an uninvaded region 
 
 Through his great reign. 
 
 Yet from him no peak of majesty ( ' ) 
 
 Pierces the air, 
 To tell the pilgrim's acliing eye 
 
 That Blanc is there : 
 He scorns those sons of humbler height 
 Who in being conspicuous take delight, — 
 
 And with aspect calm 
 Looks o'er them on Jungfrau's unreach'd snows, 
 And for loftiness, loiieness, and repose. 
 
 Still bears the palm. — 
 
 " Hail, mighty Blanc ! — I look up on thy brow 
 
 "With tears of awe ; — 
 Hail, and farewell '.—already, how 
 
 All that I saw 
 Around tliy realm is nought before thee ; 
 And if man fall here to adore thee ; 
 
 It is that thou 
 Dost teach his humbled sovd, I tliink, 
 Before thee and thy God to sink, 
 
 As I do now !" —
 
 PART II. CANTO IT. 97 
 
 Awed by this soul-subduing apparition 
 
 That fix'd his gaze, 
 His pride of earth wrought to the meek ambition 
 
 Of prayer and praise, — 
 Prostrate in thouglit, he left the solemn scene, 
 To seek some glory of a milder mien. 
 
 And lowlier stature. 
 There, as in more familiar sphere, to explore 
 Fields, if unknown, yet in accordance more 
 
 With custora'd nature : 
 
 Nor vain the search ; deep dales, and rambling rivers. 
 
 And stately mountains. 
 Led to a lake, where a great flood delivers ( ^'^ ) 
 
 His feeding fountains; 
 But she, meek child of an impetuous sire, 
 Takes with a trembling joy his transient ire 
 
 To her lone breast ; 
 As 't were to say, — " Peace to thy troublous tide. 
 Proud stream ! — my skies are calm ; come, and abide 
 
 With me at rest I" 
 
 And 't were hard to say which wore an aspect purest. 
 
 That lake, or sky ; 
 Yet the calm of the unruflied wave seem'd surest 
 
 To the pilgrim's eye : 
 So fair was she, that clitl's in wild confusion 
 
 Stood gazing by, 
 With their rough faces on her soft seclusion 
 
 Thrown lovingly ; 
 While Blanc came, spell-struck, from his distant throne. 
 To woo this beauteous daughter of the Khone. — ( ^^ ) 
 
 K
 
 98 LEAKN a:nd teach. 
 
 Awed by such forceful rivalry, the youth 
 
 Might but aspire 
 To wake to tones of sympathetic truth 
 
 His feeble lyre : 
 He was heart-pierc'd ; — alas ! and to M'ithold 
 Its love-plaint in such scenes, what breast so cold 
 
 Might e'er avail ? 
 And, even as stricken souls will speak their pain. 
 Thus did he pour, in desultory strain. 
 
 His artless tale : — 
 
 Adieu, fair Daughter of the Ehone, 
 Gentlest and sweetest ! 
 
 Adieu, adieu ! I must be gone ; 
 
 Farewell ! — the happiest hours have flown. 
 Ever the fleetest : 
 
 Fleeter than fleetest mine, alas F 
 
 Born but to die : 
 Amid thy fairy scenes to pass 
 I should have joy'd, with one that was 
 
 In days gone by ; 
 
 But 't was denied me ; and I roam, 
 
 A restless thing. 
 Seeking in desert-wastes a home ; 
 Yet through far years, for time to come. 
 
 Shall feel the sting.
 
 PAET II. CANTO IV. 99 
 
 Yet, as I wander o'er thy wave, 
 
 A something seems 
 
 Of placid love a power to have, 
 That weans me, where thy waters lave. 
 From grief's extremes ; 
 
 But short, sweet nymph ! my sojourn here. 
 
 Perchance, 't is well ; 
 For, dallying long with thee, I fear, 
 Thy charms might but awake the tear 
 
 I would dispel. 
 
 I go to greet thy noble sire ; 
 
 I own him such ; 
 Yet, placed in sphere of life far higher 
 Than thine, perchance, he doth aspire, 
 
 And dash too much ; 
 
 If so, — albeit he bear the palm, 
 
 For prouder waters, — 
 I '11 say thou breath'st a holier balm. 
 And that I love far more the calm 
 
 Of his sweet daughter's. — 
 
 What though the haughty Alp send down 
 
 His legions wild. 
 With guns to make his greatness known ; 
 Still can'st thou smile upon his frown. 
 
 As thou hast smiled :
 
 lUO I.EAKN AXD TEACH. 
 
 What though on thy soft bosom break 
 
 His fearful thunder ; 
 The challenj^e rude content to take, 
 Thou show'st thee yet a patient lake. 
 Thou peerless wonder ! 
 
 And thus, what storms soe'er combine 
 
 To cloud the scene. 
 May thy sweet gentle state be mine. 
 My life like thine be pure, like thine 
 My soul serene ! 
 
 My fleeting hour is passed with thee. 
 
 Lake of tlie river ! 
 But, oh ! — whate'er the future be. 
 Calm as this course u))on thy sea. 
 Be mine, for ever. —
 
 PART II, CANTO V. iOl 
 
 CANTO V. 
 
 " But go thou to the pastoral rales 
 
 Of the Alpiue mountains old, 
 If thou wouWst hear immortal tales 
 
 By the wind's deep whispers told !" 
 
 Hema^s. 
 
 With this he wrench'd his spirit from the spell. 
 
 That mutely bound him 
 To those wild banks, where he had lov'd to dwell, 
 
 Save that around him, 
 A voice of call, mystix) and undefiii'd, — 
 A secret, it might seem, the mountain-wind 
 
 Hc4d in its keeping, — 
 Urg'd him to follow in its airy wake. 
 And sweep away the tear that in that lake 
 
 He would be weeping : 
 
 He heard the summons, and obey'd ; when, lo ! — 
 
 As he did wander, 
 Where a loud flood seem'd, Uke himself, to go 
 
 With wild meander, — 
 A light, as of some star, or meteor's play, 
 Flash'd on him from above, then pass'd away, 
 
 Like one who blesses 
 A moment and retires ; — the day had flown, 
 And a dark grandeur had it all its own 
 
 In these recesses.
 
 102 LEAKN AXD TEACH. 
 
 tSavc for that liglil ; a rock-star lonel)'-left 
 
 There, as it seem'd, 
 To be the usher to a hideous cleft, 
 
 Whereiu it gleam'd ; 
 Such might its beams impart ; but whence, or what 
 Its nature, how it came that this wikl spot 
 
 Showed such a sign ; 
 Whether a friendly guide, or the decoy 
 Of some death-doing habitant, — the boy 
 
 Could not divine. 
 
 Now all this while, with hands ever uprear'd 
 
 Oaring the dark. 
 His weary frame to that lone light he steerM, 
 
 Like w^andering bark ; 
 His gaze fixM ever-upward on that beacon. 
 Like seaman's sent at midnight from some deck on 
 
 Some headland looming, 
 Whence springs the hope that hails him to the shore 
 I'rom the wild restless waves that round him roar. 
 
 And would entomb him : 
 
 'Twas well; for dangers thick did intercept 
 
 The course he held ; 
 And tlie flood rose rapidly, and foam'd, and swept. 
 
 And chafed, and swelFd; 
 But ever, as the wanderer was approaching, 
 That light, where most the torrent came encroaching, 
 
 l-aithfully fell; 
 As 't were to sav, — " Tread in the wav of truth, 
 I '11 guide thee with my beams, unguarded youth, 
 
 And guide thee well \"
 
 PART II. CANTO V. 103 
 
 While swept tlie torreiit thus, hke soul impassion' J, 
 
 Wilful; jc't grand. 
 Sudden, a ledge of steps, — as it were fashion'd 
 
 By Nature's hand, — 
 The down-shot light reveal'd; a ghastly glare 
 It gave, when thrown upon the bosom bare 
 
 Of a dark adit, 
 That led forth from that ledge ; and he who had 
 This hold, were one of deeds or fortunes bad, 
 
 Whoever had it ; 
 
 So deem'd the youth : even such a fell forlorn 
 
 Seem'd it, as ne'er 
 Mortal might pierce, nor searching eye of morn 
 
 Penetrate there : 
 Ascended now, he watch'd with faltering mien. 
 As the light stray'd athwart the savage scene. 
 
 Like life in death ; 
 For, like a lamp in some deserted tomb. 
 It oped a dismal cave, whose hollow womb 
 
 Yawn'd from beneath ; 
 
 The scene around, without this pit forlorn, 
 
 Forlorn and void, 
 Show'd like a world with all its creatures born. 
 
 Struck, and destroy'd : 
 But the close precincts of that ragged cave. 
 
 That ever griiui'd, 
 Look'd like the approach to some fell living grave 
 
 For men that sinn'd ; 
 And now the moon broke through the pass, and lent 
 With her cold smile a joyless merriment:
 
 104 LEARN AND TEACH. 
 
 Chcer'd yet to see her presence in the sky 
 
 Faithful and fond, 
 He enter' d, yet with step ail-stealthily, 
 
 This cavern shunn'd ; 
 With spars of all fantastic shapes and hues 
 Wreath'd, its dark roof dripp'd evermore with ooze. 
 
 And a green scum ; 
 Saving for such, it seem'd mere emptiness. 
 With nought of human hope those steps to bless 
 
 That there might come : 
 
 Within a fissure of the jutting cliff 
 
 Thus as he enter'd, 
 A momentary thought cross'd him, that, if 
 
 He rashly ventured. 
 Some direness might, — but while the dreary doubt 
 Stay'd his advance awhile, forth-issuing out 
 
 From inner portal, 
 An ancient awful man, with measured walk — 
 Measured, and like the slow and solemn stalk 
 
 Of an immortal, — 
 
 ApproachM, and, with a deep unearthly gaze 
 
 EixM on the stranger, 
 Ask'd how it fell that, in these wildering ways 
 
 Of doubt and danger. 
 One, w'hose few years show'd him unused to such. 
 Untried in irksome paths, nor practised much 
 
 In toil and trial, 
 Should, — " yet for him who hath his ills endured. 
 This cell," exclaim'd the Sage, " be well assured. 
 
 Gives no denial.*' —
 
 PART II. CANTO V. 105 
 
 " Sir, sacred Sir ! " — " Hold, son, — 't is not for thee, 
 
 Young though thou art. 
 To do ine homage thus ; the world is free, 
 
 To play thy part ; 
 In me thou see'st a man remote and lonely, 
 Living submissive to his lot, yet only 
 
 Living in prayer ; 
 Crept from the crowd of a too turbulent v/orld, 
 And as a wave swept to the rock, and hurl'd, 
 
 And broken there." — 
 
 The voutli was awed, as taken in a trance 
 
 He knew not whither ; 
 While thus resumed the sage; — "what fell miscliance 
 
 Hath brought thee hither?" — 
 " Father revered ! " — quickly replied the boy, 
 " Mischance it cannot be which leads to joy 
 
 Great as is mine ; 
 Yet have I err'd, but to redeem the error 
 Is hence my hope, and turn remorse and terror 
 
 To peace divine. 
 
 " 1 have a tale to tell; y^t if too bold 
 
 111 the recital, 
 1 know not what excuse might serve, when told, 
 
 For your requital ; 
 It is a tale of pain, and pain deep-felt 
 
 Would fix the hearer ; 
 It may be long, sorrows are so, and dealt 
 
 So by the bearer : " — 
 " Peace 1 let it be so, — fear not to offend ; 
 Tell it," exclaim'd the sage, " and to the end." —
 
 106 LEARN AND TEACH. 
 
 •' Father, — I had a love I truly loved. 
 
 My bride 
 She might not be, yet how should that be proved ? — 
 
 She died ! 
 Living, she kept me in her soul, but when 
 She went, my peace went with her ; — oh ! and then 
 
 Sin, unrestrained 
 By the sweet presence of that spirit past, 
 Amid the ruins of my peace down-cast. 
 
 Alone remain'd : — 
 
 " I had ; — yet, ah ! there lurks in sweetest flowers 
 
 A fatal worm. 
 That with invisible deadly tooth devours 
 
 The very germ : 
 Ye love and nurture them, and try to rear ; 
 liut 't is of no avail, a death is there. 
 
 To mar your joy ; 
 So tender are they that the very hand, 
 "Whose care it is the budding sweet to expand. 
 
 Doth but destroy." — 
 
 " The sweets of the early year drop early ; while, — 
 
 Their fragrance past, — 
 Others succeed, but only to beguile. 
 
 And fall as fast ; 
 And what is love but such ? — the prime, alas ! — 
 As the spring gives the blossom to the grass, 
 
 A transient race, — 
 The prime that brings it, brings it to its foes. 
 To fade untimely, ere its beauty blows. 
 
 And leave no trace :" —
 
 PAET II. CA?;T0 V. 107 
 
 With mild assent responding thus, the sage 
 
 At once proceeded, 
 By censure meet for inexperienc'd age, 
 
 And days unheeded, 
 To call the truant from sin's reckless course ; — 
 " And I too had a love," with earnest force 
 
 The hermit said ; 
 " He died, and left me here a lonely father; 
 That he had lived, I would have will'd the rather, — 
 
 But Heaven forbade : 
 
 " I bow'd my head ; and am in this, his dwelling. 
 
 Yet bless'd to be ; 
 It hath a pomp I think the most excelling. 
 
 And worthiest me. — 
 I have had sore experience of this earth. 
 Which yet I venerate, — it gave me birth. 
 
 But prompts me now 
 To look to Heaven, and trace my pathway there 
 Through meditation, and perpetual prayer. 
 
 And holy vow : 
 
 " The which if thou would'st free participate. 
 
 There is a cell 
 Inly from this, for soul of lowly state 
 
 Bedizen'd well ; — 
 Follow me '.—and within that peaceful nook. 
 My fare of fruits, and the cold water-brook. 
 
 Where I invite thee. 
 Shall for thy tale of pain, if thou wilt speak, 
 (Whereof I have some acquaintance yet to seek,) 
 
 Poorly requite thee." —
 
 108 LEAKN Ay-D TEACH. 
 
 With this the youth, led by his grey attendant 
 
 And sentinel, 
 Stole soft beneath the stony roof impendent 
 
 Into that cell : 
 The light lived on without, its aspect turning 
 
 To that pass of wildness, 
 And a light within, like the old man's spirit, burning 
 
 With holy mildness ; 
 Such, with a rock-hewn bench, and on the floor 
 A couch of rush, were all the hermit's store, 
 
 Save in a little sanctuary that oped 
 
 Dimly apart. 
 Where this forlorn self-outcast pray'd and hoped, 
 
 And bared his heart, 
 Some relics dear, and in the rock a chink, 
 Where morn look'd in ; such led the youth to think 
 
 How poor the lot 
 Of man might be;— this did the sage perceive, 
 Look'd up, and said 't was his best bliss to live, 
 
 By man forgot. 
 
 " Where should I go for sweeter than the fare 
 
 Of Nature's field ? " 
 Ur<T'd he, " or perfume purer than the air 
 
 Yon mountains yield ? 
 Why seek a kindlier, in my passing day. 
 
 Than this rusli^bed. 
 When He, the All-Holy, had not where to lay 
 
 His blessed head ? — 
 Let but his path be pure, his conscience clear, 
 Bounded his hopes, — man lacks but little here :
 
 r-ART n. CANTO V. 109 
 
 "What lose I, tlms self-exiled from tire world ? — 
 
 Its scenes of ])ain ■: 
 If then within its lawless tumults hurl'd. 
 
 What should 1 gain ? — 
 My gain is herej shuun'd in this rude abode 
 By man, I am all the more alone Avith God, 
 
 Whose great control 
 Frees me from many ills, — a blest release ; 
 Ills that do still disturb the hohest peac^ 
 
 And hurt the soui. — " 
 
 " But whence these ills ? — It is the part, and ever 
 
 Must be the joy 
 Of an Almighty Maker to deliver, 
 
 And not destroy x" — 
 Thus subtly urg'd the youth, when thus the sage, 
 Arm'd in the sacred privilege of age. 
 
 Rebuked the thought : 
 *' Dismiss the ambitious doubt ! — 'T is thine to soar 
 Within a bounded range, and seek no more 
 
 Than God hath taught ; 
 
 " His law and word, — a safeguard and a treasure; 
 
 To true partakers ; 
 But curse to them who have fdl'd up their measure, 
 
 As His law-breakers : — 
 Oh ! strive not with His greatness, nol assume 
 
 Daring desires 
 With Him M'ho turns the city to a tomb. 
 
 Where pride aspires : — 
 War, famine, and disease the secret sword. 
 Are but the avenging workers of His word :
 
 110 LEAllN AND TEACH. 
 
 " Survey the empire-cities of the past, 
 
 Prom the first-born 
 Even to the greatest of the great down-cast, ( ^ ) 
 
 That vast forlorn. 
 Who lies with her life and spirit gone, 
 A huge disjointed skeleton 
 
 On a blasted heath ; 
 A bone is here, and a bone is there ; 
 But who may that giant-frame repair, 
 
 Or give it breath ? 
 
 " Attempt not, with unhallow'd pride. 
 
 That graceless sin, 
 To draw Fate's mystic veil aside. 
 
 And pry within : 
 Nature man's course proclaims to all ; 
 Think not to scale the eternal wall 
 
 That prisons thee here ; 
 Seek not to feed a vain ambition ; 
 Self-knowledge and self-intuition 
 
 Are thy true sphere." — 
 
 " Early the tree of Knowledge grew, and early— 
 
 By sin beguiled 
 To pluck the fruit for which he paid so dearly, — 
 
 Was man defiled : 
 Poor helpless man l'*' cxclaim'd the youth, " afflicted 
 With a frail being, and a scope restricted 
 
 To dark surmise; 
 Forbid, save in a bounded sphere, to use it, 
 And for his life, condemn' d, alas ! to lose it. 
 
 With all its ties."
 
 PART II. CANTO V. Ill 
 
 " But," said the sage, " that tree of Light once tasted 
 
 Against God's will, 
 Who sees the fair fruits of His knowledge wasted 
 
 Wantonly still. 
 Its lessons spurn' d, its richness cast away ; 
 What yet remains but to redeem the day 
 
 Of duty scanted ? 
 And lo ! for one fair tree of Life forbidden. 
 There springs another in a fairer Eden 
 
 Divinely planted : 
 
 *' This then, at least, is thine ; the boon denied thee 
 
 Is still awarded ; 
 Let not this tempting tree grow forth beside thee, 
 
 All-unregarded ; 
 If sin hath set thee with thy God at strife, 
 
 Ilumblv forsake it : 
 And for the fruit of the true tree of Life, 
 
 Freely partake it; 
 Touch not the tree forbid by thy great Giver, 
 But feast upon this fruit, and live for ever ! 
 
 '' If it were wild to sin, 't were wilder far 
 
 To incur its curses. 
 When for unnumbcr'd sins, be sure, there are 
 
 Unnumber'd mercies ; 
 So thou but ask of Him who can impart. 
 With penitent spirit, and a prostrate heart 
 
 Low in the dust ; 
 Look to Him as the Healer of thy woes. 
 And meek and child-like in His power repose 
 
 A fearless trust :
 
 11^ lEARN AKD TEACIT. 
 
 " Do this, aiiil let thy brother-creature learn, 
 
 Even from tlie doing, 
 That Iltv thou look'st to, liatli the power to turn. 
 
 And save from ruin : 
 Oft hast thou giveii an earthly gift, and felt. 
 Even as thy bounteous hand the blessing dealt, 
 
 An earthly joy ; 
 Oh ! what then were the precious bliss sublime 
 To lay thy lioly offering there, where time 
 
 Cannot destroy !" — 
 
 • 
 
 Thus wore the solemn scene : in converse dear 
 
 Each qucstion'd each, 
 AVilli mutual love, tiie youth content to hear. 
 
 The sage to teach ; 
 Till simple fare, seasoned with counsels mild. 
 And short repose, the weary night beguil'd. 
 
 And morning, blushing 
 To leave the gorgeous world so long unseen. 
 Waked to new life, deep glade, and valley green. 
 
 And fountain gushing. 
 
 One theme, whereon he found the hermit still 
 
 Gravely reserv'd, 
 (For drawn into that piteous theme, his will 
 
 Had sudden swervM 
 As from some fear,) the youth, though ofttimes thwarted, 
 Urg'd with him yet ; and now, ere he departed. 
 
 Would fain renew it : — 
 " It is a haunted spot," the sage replied ; 
 " But FU take thee to that fatal mountain-side. 
 
 And thou shalt view it." — •
 
 PART II. CAMO V. 113 
 
 Sped from tlie cell, the morn's devotion ended, 
 
 And spare repast. 
 Before the growing prospect they ascended, 
 
 Until at last 
 High on a tract of mountain-verdure soft 
 Arrived, the hermit raisM his eyes aloft, 
 
 Entranc'd in prayer ; 
 Then broke forth thus, in spirit reconcil'd, — 
 " Great Power I I humbly thank thee that my child 
 
 Is in thy care !" 
 
 Then turning to the youth, said fondly, " Thou 
 
 Shalt know the story ; 
 There is the spot, 'neath yon impending brow 
 
 Of mountain hoary ; 
 There is the fatal spot, the spot of death ; 
 His body's grave is in the gorge beneath, — 
 
 His spirit yonder ! 
 Yet oft, I think, it waits my Heavenly calling, 
 Fondly permitted through that place appalling 
 
 To wander : 
 
 " The thought is love's ; — I love to think 't is so : 
 
 He is at rest. 
 Hoving, he watch'd an eagle from below 
 
 Into her nest : 
 He clirab'd ; — alas ! he should have fear'd, and might 
 Have known what in ambition's airy flight 
 
 He then was doing. — 
 'T is rash to trifle with a scene unsichtlv, 
 And perilous to sport too long and lightly 
 
 On the brink of ruin :
 
 I 
 
 114 LEARN AND TEACH. 
 
 '• Eemembcr this ! — If in thy youtli's career 
 
 Thou hast retreated, 
 Timely, from sin, let not tlie deed of fear 
 
 Be once repeated ! — 
 My thoughtless boy had scaled yon crags on big) 
 Oft, and as oft scaled with impunity ; 
 
 These perils past, 
 He came to place, as on a sure defence, 
 111 his tried skill a fearless confidence. 
 
 And fell at last : 
 
 " Wildly adventured he ; (the quicklier told, 
 
 The less 't is felt ;) 
 That boy-prize tempted him ; he lost his hold 
 
 There, as he knelt ; 
 Fell through yon cleft v — I lived, yet saw him fall ! 
 And witli him fell my earthly blessings all ; 
 
 Yet was there given. 
 In kind exchange, one thought of priceless worth, — 
 Perfection tarries not on this cold earth. 
 
 It hastes to Heaven : 
 
 " Thou keep'st him in my eye ; — at once, adieu ! 
 
 With this fond prayer. 
 That such a death may not become thy due. 
 
 As was his share !" — 
 So, with enfeebled step, that lonely man 
 Crept downward to his cave, as one whose span 
 
 Of life was narrow'd ; 
 The youth resum'd his course, as one, with soul. 
 Spite of that aged counsellor's control, 
 
 Perplex'd and harrow'd.
 
 PAUT II. CANTO VI. 115 
 
 CANTO VI. 
 
 " This is uo mortal business, nor no sound 
 That the earth owes." 
 
 SnAKESFKAR. 
 
 But many a treacherous path the pilgrim traced 
 
 Torth from that cell, 
 Till in the wildest of the mountain-waste 
 
 It thus befell ;— 
 The morn had grown, and to deep gorge descended 
 
 The mountain -light ; 
 And spirits, he deem'd, that on the dark attended. 
 
 Long taken flight ; 
 And universal life seem'd with the sun, 
 Even in this waste, its waken'd course to run. 
 
 There breath'd a peaceful harmony in all, 
 
 Save the youth's breast, 
 "Where all alone he on himself did call, 
 
 As his sole guest : 
 A strangeness haunted him, he knew not why. 
 Like some unwonted dream that will )iot fly. 
 
 When flies the slumber ; 
 But things in quick succession came to entrance 
 His thought, the latest not the least, perchance. 
 
 Of that wild number :
 
 116 LEARN AND TEACH. 
 
 And in his bosom's deptlis tliere lurk'd a gloom, 
 
 Not yet defeated, 
 Which must be master'd ere a happier doom 
 
 Might be completed ; 
 A gloom of twofold source ; — blighted affection. 
 Whereof to extinguish the wild recollection, 
 
 He plung'd in riot ; 
 Fatal resource, dark thouglit, disastrous sin. 
 That gave to grief's tumultuous tide within 
 
 A new disquiet : 
 
 Now whether this, or some strange bodemcnt left 
 
 From that dread tale 
 Told by the hermit of the haunted cleft. 
 
 Might most avail 
 Darkly to sway a soul all-apt as his, 
 'T were vain to seek ; — yet, as from some abyss 
 llemote, falls in successive plunge the breaker 
 
 On some lone shore, 
 SeemM thus to come the voice of a dark speaker 
 
 The mountains o'er : — 
 
 " Home again, liomc again, reft one. 
 
 That o'er blighted hopes art mourning ! 
 Home again ! — yet there is left one 
 Who waits thy returning ! 
 His prayer is still with thee, he speaks to thy soul, 
 Throui^h the voice of a warner thou can'st not control. 
 
 *o' 
 
 " What avails, what avails thy lamenting ? 
 
 The desert is deaf to thy moan ; 
 Complaining ne'er leads to repenting. 
 
 To amend is the way to atone.
 
 PART II. CANTO VI. I IT 
 
 If tlie throes of remembrance unblest 
 
 Bring despair, 
 Or the sting of remorse, like a thorn in thy breast. 
 
 Rankle there; 
 In thy years yet to come be thy refuge at last, 
 In the future, a balm for the pangs of the past i" — 
 
 With this, as dies upon the fitful wind 
 
 The sound of ocean. 
 That wonder went, filling the pilgrim's mind 
 
 With wild emotion ; 
 Soul-struck he stood, spoke not, nor look'd around,. 
 (For all within himself that viewless sound 
 
 In cadence died,) 
 Till, struggling to subdue the spell, and wrest 
 His spirit from the frenzy that possess' d. 
 
 He thus replied : 
 
 " The voices that speak from these heights sublime 
 
 Have their known fountains; 
 And are but the terrors of the time 
 
 In these their mountains; 
 I see their fury in the flash, 
 I hear their tumult in the crash 
 
 Of the thunder-ball ; 
 But thou hast not an earthly sound ; 
 Oh ! tell me where thou might'st be fouml, 
 
 Sha[)ed to ray call 1" —
 
 118 LEARN AND TEACH. 
 
 " Within the portals of thy shut breast 
 
 Turn but thine eye ! 
 There shalt thou iind an unquiet guest 
 
 Thou can'st not fly ! 
 He is there, — and thou must not disdain him. 
 To accuse, — and thou must entertain him 
 
 With full confession ; 
 For he comes to evoke all, and impugn all 
 Thy sins, before his dread tribunal, 
 
 In secret session I" — 
 
 " And art thou he, whose words of wonder. 
 
 Once gently spoken. 
 Return to rive my soul asunder 
 
 With louder token ? — 
 Oh, — for some blessed bribe to fee thee ! 
 For, though with eye I may not see thee, 
 
 I feel thee near ; 
 And vain all my efforts to control 
 Something that tells my secret soul, — 
 
 Thou art to fear !"— 
 
 " That blessed bribe is a debt. 
 
 Thou hast owed this many a day ; 
 
 Then faithfully score it, and let 
 A redeeming future pay ! 
 
 Or still one wild commotion 
 Shall sweep thy spirit o'er. 
 
 As the surge of the angry ocean 
 Sweeps the shore ! —
 
 PART II. CANTO VI. 119 
 
 I left thee at peace, in pleasure's bower, 
 
 In the sunny days of life ; 
 But shall set thee now, in my time of power. 
 
 With thyself at strife !"— 
 
 " That time, — oh, when ?" the youth bewilder'd said,- 
 
 " Great Power, thou warnest well ! — 
 When shall I come to fall within tliy dread 
 
 Yet righteous spell ?" — 
 
 " Not when the mist curls up from earth. 
 
 And the sun comes down adorning 
 Dale after dale, and the wild mountain-mirth 
 
 Wakes with tlie morning ; — 
 Bat when the torrent's path of spray 
 
 Stands out to sight. 
 And the murmur of life with the dying day 
 
 Takes flight ; 
 When the glacier peers like a field of spar 
 In the last sun-beam that gilds yet afar 
 
 The mountain-height ; 
 And the cliff with its cape of snow is seen 
 To wear a wild and ghastly mien 
 
 In the failing light ; — 
 Then come! then ! with the dark and the dew. 
 When the Alp assumes an unearthly hue. 
 
 As the shadows fall ; 
 And while light yet lingers on the peak, 
 'T will be thine to hear, and mine to speak. 
 
 And tell thee all ! — "
 
 120 LEARN AND TEACH. 
 
 With this the mission of that power was ended, 
 And the youth, struck to stone. 
 Or Hke the lightning-blasted, as he bended — 
 Left to his thoughts alone, — 
 On the receding sound his idle glance, — 
 Oaiue to himself again ; — the trance 
 
 Broke suddenly. 
 And straight invisibly went that wonder. 
 Like the voice of a distant-dying thunder, 
 
 Into the sky. 
 
 But the sound, as it died away. 
 Where that fearful listener was, 
 Seem'd not at once to ascend, but to stray. 
 Lingering in the pass ; — 
 And many-tongued echoes, awaking 
 From many a cavern around. 
 Took up the wild tone, yet seem'd to be taking 
 But to give back the sound. 
 
 And mute, and still, and stone-like all this time, 
 
 That listener stood. 
 Like one possess'd, or at some hideous crime 
 
 Seen, and subdued ; 
 Ghastly, like one to the verge of ruin taken. 
 Yet grand, — for, sudden-struck, he had forsaken 
 
 His sin and error ; 
 And bv distant Echo's falterincc tongue 
 
 * DO 
 
 Assured that the spell had broken, he flung 
 Aside his terror : 
 
 o>
 
 PART II. CANTO VI. 121 
 
 Yet deem ye not that spell was over 
 
 When the time of his travel ended ; 
 Or, untaught by that token, he fail'd to discover 
 
 Where its ceaseless warning tended : 
 The Spirit was with him, in good and ill. 
 And its voice, as the voice of conscience, sfill 
 
 With his visions blended ; 
 But he now shunn'd the ill, and cherishM the good, 
 Went to war with Iiimself, and no longer withstood 
 The Might he had so much oflFended ; — 
 
 So much, as his measure of guilt to fill. 
 
 Till its fulness begat in him a skill, 
 Hence to unlearn 
 
 The foul offence, through grace down-given. 
 And warning stern. 
 
 With the which he had vainly-wildly striven, — 
 
 And that mystical awful voice of Heaven : — 
 And he kept his ground, and went on to win 
 Through the portals of love many souls of sin, — 
 Those portals that lead to peace within : 
 
 And as his noble knowledy-e avew. 
 
 Even so he gave it 
 To each, for a holy largess, due. 
 
 As each would have it. 
 l'>efore him the course lay clear, and the goal, 
 Yov the Truth had shone upou his soul 
 
 In peerless beauty ; 
 And as he had learned, even so he tauaht. 
 And many a wandering spirit brought 
 
 Home to its duty. — 
 
 M
 
 122 LEARN AND TEACH. 
 
 Thus went and came lie, — went, and came with change ; 
 
 For, ever from that hour, 
 When first he walk'd within the influence strange 
 Of tliat dread Power, 
 A settled silent mystery, 
 Like a shadow passing from on higl), 
 Fell on his soul ; 
 And when that visitation's time was nigh, 
 He felt what he was little skilFd to fly. 
 Less, to control : 
 
 What was it but tlie certain presence still 
 
 Of one he saw not. 
 There to point out what he must all fulfil. 
 
 And withdraw not ? — 
 A viewless, yet most potent monitor, 
 Still to forewarn, but to forewarn him for 
 
 A happier future ; 
 One that pursues the foe unto the end, 
 But speaks sweet comfort to the steadfast friend. 
 
 And faithful suitor. 
 
 But a cloud was ever o'er him ; human gladness 
 
 Fled at his coming ; 
 He was not like his kindred now ; the sadness 
 
 That sent him roaming. 
 Had led into this mystery, or madness. 
 
 That he came home in ; 
 He was as one who hath been with the dead, 
 
 Or seen some wonder. 
 Which from his thought — howe'er the form be fled, — 
 
 He cannot sunder.
 
 PART II. CANTO VI. 123 
 
 The ancient and familiar face of things 
 
 Became estrang'd, 
 For his eye was as a faithless glass that brings 
 
 Its aspects chang'd : 
 Forms which, in youth, his wanton fancy drew. 
 
 Frequent and vivid, 
 Had faded, and wore now a ghastly hue, 
 
 Loathsome and livid ; 
 For he had hence his own particular sphere, — 
 And that Spirit's voice was ever in his ear. 
 
 And thus, the vulgar fame went, — he was mad ; 
 
 Nor wonder is it ; — 
 For in spots, most like the haunt where he had had 
 That vocal visit. 
 He might be seen, — as through some doom, — 
 Nightly to seek congenial gloom. 
 And there to wander ; 
 As he the power might come to inlierit, 
 To work the spell of that mighty Spirit, 
 And dread Commander ; 
 
 Yet 't was not so : — he was chang'd ; for now 
 He felt all the power he could once disavow, 
 And in Conscience' school liad learn'd to bow- 
 To Heaven's high throne ; 
 And when Darkness rais'd her unearthly crew 
 Of apparitions to mortal view. 
 
 His walk was known. 
 Where the air-hung arch of some spectral ruin 
 Showeth what Time hath been mutely doing, — 
 And he walk'd— alone.
 
 LEARN AND TEACH. 
 
 NOTES.— PART II. 
 
 CANTO II. 
 
 Page 65. (1) — And answer each other's call: 
 
 " From cliff to cliff, the rattling crags among, 
 
 Leaps the live thunder ; not from one lone cloud, 
 But every mountain now hath found a tongue ; 
 And Jura answers from her misty shroud 
 Back to the joyous Alps, who call to her aloud." 
 
 BvaoN. 
 
 CANTO III. 
 
 Page 74. {\)—Till, wild Eomanche, upon thy bosom fair, 
 
 The charming river which gives its name to this valley rises in 
 the Col de Lauteret, about a league or so from the city of Brianyon ; 
 issuing from the stupendous glacier of Tabuchet, near the Villard 
 d'Arene, a wretched hut village, its course is at first terrific, through, 
 over, and round the rocks which close everywhere upon its waters, 
 and grand is the scene of conflict till it reaches La Grave, from 
 whence to its junction with the rivers Drac and Isere at Grenoble, it 
 is still wild, but peaceably so ; the scenery on and around its banks 
 must be seen to be felt. 
 
 Page 75. (2) — A passing scene of gray peaks in the air, 
 
 To all who have visited these regions, the occasional appearance, 
 at a moment when least expected, of these aerial groups of clilf will 
 be a familiar recollection ; as the clouds that roll about them break 
 away in huge blocks^ those gigantic spectres of stone come upon you, 
 as you look upwards, with sudden sublimity almost appalling. .
 
 126 NOTES. 
 
 Page 79. (3) — From scarce-reach' d slope, and tcondrons waterfall 
 
 In the wildest part of the upper valley of the Romanche there is a 
 beautiful cascade, which, issuing from some high point beyond sight, 
 tumbles over and sweeps the clilfsj alternately, for thousands of feet, 
 till it falls finally like a thunder-storm on the vale. Tradition says, 
 that a mountain -maiden, in order to escape the rude addresses of a 
 herdsman who closely pursued her, plunged into its waters from above, 
 and thus fearfully rescued herself; hence its name, — Le saut de la 
 Pacelle. 
 
 CANTO IV. 
 
 Page 89. (1) — Where coils Durance atohile his serpent'winding 
 
 The Durance has his source somewhere above the city of Briancjon, 
 in the Mont Genevrc, and, after forming and passing out of a sweet 
 little lake, falls finally into the Rhone ; at and above Brianyon the 
 course of this river is through a gorge. 
 
 Page 89. (2) — High in a pass of stony solitude, 
 
 Leaving the Durance-valley at the small town of La Roche, two 
 or three leagues below Brianc^'on, you ascend a charming mountain- 
 path that leads to the sequestered village of Palons, at the outlet of 
 the Val Fressiniere ; and thence, after the passage of a torrent (the 
 Rimasse) across an awful bridge, you penetrate into the upper Pro- 
 testant villages of Violins, Minsas, and lastly Dormcilleuse, a place 
 principally of ice, stone, and snow. 
 
 Here it was that, centuries ago, a remnant of Protestants retired 
 from the fierce persecutions of Romanism, and here the Light has never 
 since been extinguished : hero it was that their great Pastor, Felix 
 Neff, took up his Cross, leaving a name which, as long as the granite 
 mountains around endure, will ever be honoured by a remnant yet 
 remaining. The name of this extraordinary man is indeed suiEciently 
 known and venerated; while his patient heroism, and astonishing 
 spiritual hardihood and enterprise amidst these snowy wastes, ought 
 to reconcile others whose lot lies in a less fearful field. 
 
 Dormcilleuse, with its little hamlets above mentioned, contains, 
 or did lately, about forty families, all Protestant, a primitive and 
 simple race, who subsist wholly upon the scanty produce of whatever 
 portion of the soil they can contrive to cultivate, varied by the 
 occasional venison of the chamois, and trout from the torrent ; they, 
 as well as their Pastor were clad in sheepskins, dyed and made into 
 garments, and, amidst all their trials and privations, appeared con- 
 tented and happj'. The Pastor himself is, or was some few years 
 since, a most gentlemanlike, interesting, and hospitable man, alto- 
 gether apostolical in his appearance and demeanour, and evincing in 
 his manner, which was yet cheerful withal, a kind of mysterious 
 and holy melancholy, and that entire resignation of himself and his 
 hopes to spiritual objects, which, when seen to be genuine, cannot be 
 too greatly revered. 
 
 A visit to these isolated flocks, with a repast at their Pastor's 
 unique abode, are memories not to be easily set aside.
 
 NOTES. 1:27 
 
 Page 89. (3)— 0/ thejlood's conjiict with an nrjed rock, 
 
 Near the bridge across the liimasso at Palons, a single rock of 
 huge dimensions juts forth from the centre of the torrent, which is 
 here a c&ntinuous cascade, broken only by monstrous projecting crags, 
 of which the one in question appears the greatest : the torrent, 
 tumbling upon tliis, has its waters rent asunder, and, as though in- 
 dignant at this stern obstruction to its course, rebounds till tlie split 
 spray sweeps your face as you cross the bridge which seems suspended 
 on its foam. 
 
 Page 90. {i)— Where loud Guil, wandering ihrough a maze of moun- 
 tains, 
 
 Rising in the Cottian Alps, this torrent takes a course, incon- 
 ceivably wild and tortuous, to the town and Spa of Guiliestre, im- 
 mediately below which it joins company with the Durance. 
 
 Page 90. {5)— Where Visa's spectral summit piere'd the ski/, 
 
 The white towering cone of Monte Vise shows itself here to great 
 advantage, and, when invested in black storm-clouds, looks grand and 
 ghostlike. 
 
 Pago 91. (()) — Ui'f, sivift as thought, kenn'd he that fairest realm 
 
 A very unenviable temper of mind must be his who can look 
 down, unmoved, on the deep and distant fields of Italy, as they first 
 meet his eye on the Piedmontcse Alps : from the Col de la Croix the 
 prospect over the plains of the Po, when tiie atmosphere will permit, 
 is most ample and stupendous ; the clouds, as they appear from these 
 elevated regions, rolling majestically one way, while the distant 
 lands seem to be careering the other, conceal alternately and display 
 an apparently limitless tract of verdure which seems a profusion of 
 beauty and fertility. 
 
 Page 92. (7) — Fertile of fame! oh thou, tvhose greatness u-rought 
 
 The sentiments of a late lamented poet, almost prophetic of tlie 
 hopes of this h)ng-degraded land, will be remembered with enthusiasm 
 at the present crisis in her fortunes. 
 
 "The hour sl;all come, 
 When they who think to bind the ethei-eal spirit. 
 Who, like the eagle cowering o'er liis prey, 
 Watch with quick eye, and strike aiul strike again, 
 If but a sinew vibrate, shall confess 
 Their wisdom folly. Even now the flamo 
 Bursts fortli where once it burnt so gloriously, 
 And, dying, left a splendour like the day, 
 That, like the day, diffused itself, and still 
 Blesses the earth — * « * « 
 • * * * « The dead. 
 They of that sacred shore, have heard the call,
 
 128 NOTES, 
 
 And through the ranks, from \ring to wing, arc seen, 
 IMoving as once they were, instead of rage, 
 Breathing deliberate valour." 
 
 ROGEKS. 
 
 Page 93. (8) — Tliou lovely valley of Lucerne, 
 
 In descending the Col de la Croix you traverse a sweet valley 
 down which struggles the Pelice, sometimes a ])caceful and poetic 
 stream, and then suddenly a tumult of waters. The Val Lucerne is 
 that of the Pelice, amplified as it spreads into the plains below, and 
 is surprisingly rich and gorgeous. 
 
 Page 96. (9) — Yet from him no peak of majesty 
 
 Many travellers must have hecn struck at the ahsence in Mont 
 Pjlanc of those towering peaks which frequently distinguish ranges of 
 less elevation ; but the solid and ample i;randeur of this " monarch of 
 mountains" will engross sufficiently the admiration of all, and secure 
 at once the palm of greatness. 
 
 The Jungfrau (Maiden) is one of the northern chain of .Alps, 
 flanked on all sides by frightfid precipices, and closed up and covered 
 with enormous masses of ice and snow, inaccessible. 
 
 Page 97. (10) — Led to a laJce, ivhere a great flood delivers 
 
 The lake of Geneva is, as is well knon-n, supplied from the Rhone, 
 who rolls tumultuously into its bosom, but quickly loses his im- 
 petuosity in expansion, and the waters become as clear as the sky. 
 The rocks which close over the course of the Rhone, above tliis 
 charming lake, give to the scenery a wild and imposing character; 
 these rocks are the bases of lofty mountains, which are parted by tlie 
 torrent, that rushes through the gorge, foul and foaming, into the 
 lake. The valley of the upper Rhone is very grand and deep, the 
 deepest, perhaps, in the world ; many of the peaks at its side rise 
 from 10,000 to 14,000 feet above the sea-level. The Rhone issues 
 in the Pennine Alps, from beautiful glaciers, about GOOO feet above 
 the sea, clustered on the western side of the huge mountain-mass of 
 St. Gothard. 
 
 Page 97. (1 1) — While Blanc came, spell- stritck, from his distant throne, 
 
 At one particular hour of the day, and state of the atmosphere, 
 Mont Blanc from a distance of (I think) sixty miles, casts his shadow 
 on this lake, whose inviting beauty might, perhaps, be thought 
 poetically to exercise a charm upon him. 
 
 CANTO V. 
 Page 110. (1) — Lveit lo the grealcit oj the great dcwn-caat, 
 Rome. 
 
 THE K.ND. 
 
 PUlNTJiU »Y J. M\LLlilT, WA.KDOUU STUEET, LOSDUS.
 
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