Analysis of A Grammarian's Funeral Shortly after the Revival of Learnin

Let us begin and carry up this corpse,
       Singing together.
   Leave we the common crofts, the vulgar thorpes
       Each in its tether
   Sleeping safe on the bosom of the plain,
       Cared-for till cock-crow:
   Look out if yonder be not day again
      Rimming the rock-row!
   That's the appropriate country; there, man's thought,
      Rarer, intenser,
  Self-gathered for an outbreak, as it ought,
      Chafes in the censer.
  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.
  Thither our path lies; wind we up the heights:
      Wait ye the warning?
  Our low life was the level's and the night's;
      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!
  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"?
  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:
  "What's in the scroll," quoth he, "thou keepest furled
      Show me their shaping,
  Theirs who most studied man, the bard and sage,--
      Give!"--So, he gowned him,
  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.
  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
  Quite, ere you build, ere steel strike fire from quartz,
      Ere mortar dab brick!

(Here's the town-gate reached: there's the market-place
      Gaping before us.)
  Yea, this in him was the peculiar grace
      (Hearten our chorus!)
  That before living he'd learn how to live--
      No end to learning:
  Earn the means first--God surely will contrive
      Use for our earning.
  Others mistrust and say, "But time escapes:
      Live now or never!"
  He said, "What's time? Leave Now for dogs and apes!
      Man has Forever."
  Back to his book then: deeper drooped his head:
      Calculus racked him:
  Leaden before, his eyes grew dross of lead:
      Tussis attacked him.
  "Now, master, take a little rest!"--not he!
      (Caution redoubled
  Step two abreast, the way winds narrowly!)
      Not a whit troubled,
  Back to his studies, fresher than at first,
      Fierce as a dragon
  He (soul-hydroptic with a sacred thirst)
      Sucked at the flagon.
  Oh, if we draw a circle premature,
      Heedless of far gain,
  Greedy for quick returns of profit, sure
      Bad is our bargain!
  Was it not great? did not he throw on God,
      (He loves the burthen)--
  God's task to make the heavenly period
      Perfect the earthen?
  Did not he magnify the mind, show clear
      Just what it all meant?
  He would not discount life, as fools do here,
      Paid by instalment.
  He ventured neck or nothing--heaven's success
      Found, or earth's failure:
  "Wilt thou trust death or not?" He answered "Yes:
      Hence with life's pale lure!"
  That low man seeks a little thing to do,
      Sees it and does it:
  This high man, with a great thing to pursue,<