No More Learning

CXVI.

To aid thy mind's developement,--to watch
Thy dawn of little joys,--to sit and see
Almost thy very growth,--to view thee catch
Knowledge of objects,--wonders yet to thee!
To hold thee lightly on a gentle knee,
And print on thy soft cheek a parent's kiss,--
This, it should seem, was not reserved for me--
Yet this was in my nature:--as it is,
I know not what is there, yet something like to this.

CXVII.

Yet, though dull Hate as duty should be taught,[353]
I know that thou wilt love me: though my name
Should be shut from thee, as a spell still fraught
With desolation, and a broken claim:
Though the grave closed between us,--'twere the same,
I know that thou wilt love me--though to drain[354]
_My_ blood from out thy being were an aim,
And an attainment,--all would be in vain,--
Still thou would'st love me, still that more than life retain.

CXVIII.

The child of Love! [355] though born in bitterness,
And nurtured in Convulsion! Of thy sire
These were the elements,--and thine no less.
As yet such are around thee,--but thy fire
Shall be more tempered, and thy hope far higher!
Sweet be thy cradled slumbers! O'er the sea
And from the mountains where I now respire,
Fain would I waft such blessing upon thee,
As--with a sigh--I deem thou might'st have been to me! [la]

CANTO THE FOURTH[375]

I.

I stood in Venice, on the "Bridge of Sighs;"[376][1. H.
]
A Palace and a prison on each hand:
I saw from out the wave her structures rise
As from the stroke of the Enchanter's wand:[377]
A thousand Years their cloudy wings expand
Around me, and a dying Glory smiles
O'er the far times, when many a subject land
Looked to the winged Lion's marble piles,
Where Venice sate in state, throned on her hundred isles! [lb]

II.

She looks a sea Cybele,[378] fresh from Ocean,
Rising with her tiara of proud towers
At airy distance, with majestic motion,
A Ruler of the waters and their powers:
And such she was;--her daughters had their dowers
From spoils of nations, and the exhaustless East[lc]
Poured in her lap all gems in sparkling showers. [379]
In purple was she robed,[380] and of her feast
Monarchs partook, and deemed their dignity increased. [ld]

III.

In Venice Tasso's echoes are no more,[2. H. ]
And silent rows the songless Gondolier;[381]
Her palaces are crumbling to the shore,
And Music meets not always now the ear:
Those days are gone--but Beauty still is here.
States fall--Arts fade--but Nature doth not die,
Nor yet forget how Venice once was dear,
The pleasant place of all festivity,[le]
The Revel of the earth--the Masque of Italy!

IV.

But unto us she hath a spell beyond
Her name in story, and her long array
Of mighty shadows, whose dim forms despond
Above the Dogeless city's vanished sway;
Ours is a trophy which will not decay
With the Rialto;[382] Shylock and the Moor,
And Pierre,[383] can not be swept or worn away--
The keystones of the Arch! though all were o'er,
For us repeopled were the solitary shore.

V.

The Beings of the Mind are not of clay:
Essentially immortal, they create
And multiply in us a brighter ray
And more beloved existence:[384] that which Fate
Prohibits to dull life in this our state[lf]
Of mortal bondage, by these Spirits supplied,
First exiles, then replaces what we hate;
Watering the heart whose early flowers have died,
And with a fresher growth replenishing the void.

VI.

Such is the refuge of our youth and age--
The first from Hope, the last from Vacancy;[385]
And this wan feeling peoples many a page--[lg]
And, may be, that which grows beneath mine eye:[lh]
Yet there are things whose strong reality
Outshines our fairy-land; in shape and hues[li]
More beautiful than our fantastic sky,
And the strange constellations which the Muse
O'er her wild universe is skilful to diffuse:

VII.