Leave we the unlettered plain its herd and crop;
      Seek we sepulture
On a tall mountain, citied to the top,
      Crowded with culture! 
All the peaks soar, but one the rest excels;
      Clouds overcome it;
No! yonder sparkle is the citadel’s
      Circling its summit. 20
Thither our path lies; wind we up the heights: 
      Wait ye the warning? 
Our low life deg. was the level’s and the night’s:  deg.23
      He’s for the morning. 
Step to a tune, square chests, erect each head,
      ’Ware the beholders! 
This is our master, famous calm and dead,
      Borne on our shoulders.

Sleep, crop and herd! sleep, darkling thorpe and croft,
      Safe from the weather! 30
He, whom we convoy to his grave aloft,
      Singing together,
He was a man born with thy face and throat,
      Lyric Apollo! 
Long he lived nameless:  how should spring take note
      Winter would follow? 
Till lo, the little touch, and youth was gone! 
      Cramped and diminished,
Moaned he, “New measures, other feet anon! 
      My dance is finished?” 40
No, that’s the world’s way; (keep the mountain-side,
      Make for the city!)
He knew the signal, and stepped on with pride
      Over men’s pity;
Left play for work, and grappled with the world
      Bent on escaping deg.:  deg.46
“What’s in the scroll,” quoth he, “thou keepest furled? 
      Show me their shaping, deg. deg.48
Theirs who most studied man, the bard and sage,—­
      Give!”—­So, he gowned him, 50
Straight got by heart that book to its last page: 
      Learned, we found him. 
Yea, but we found him bald too, eyes like lead,
      Accents uncertain: 
“Time to taste life,” another would have said,
      “Up with the curtain!”
This man said rather, “Actual life comes next? 
      Patience a moment! 
Grant I have mastered learning’s crabbed text,
      Still there’s the comment. 60

Let me know all!  Prate not of most or least,
      Painful or easy! 
Even to the crumbs I’d fain eat up the feast,
      Ay, nor feel queasy.” 
Oh, such a life as he resolved to live,
      When he had learned it,
When he had gathered all books had to give! 
      Sooner, he spurned it. 
Image the whole, then execute the parts—­
      Fancy the fabric 70
Quite, ere you build, ere steel strikes fire from quartz,
      Ere mortar dab brick.