No More Learning

In the capital of Valladolid
There lived a highborn maiden
In a white house in a steep street
With green doors and shutters,
Her lips were like scarlet poppies
And her hair like a black waterfall,
And behind her ear she wore
A flower of red geranium.

And her Spanish lover sighed
And in his love he cried,
"Heaven were nearer
If she were dearer,
She is the most wonderful and beautiful thing
In the capital of Valladolid.

"If I could persuade her father,
That fierce and rich old Councillor,
Not to despise my suit
But let me speak to his daughter,
I would esteem it more
Than the rank of a Grandee of Spain,
A cargo of spices from Java
Or a galleon laden with silver. "

Under a brazen crucifix
And the outstretched arms of our Saviour
(And over her ivory shoulder
Her black hair poured like a waterfall)
To Mary, Mother of Heaven,
Prayed the foolish maiden,
"Mary, send me a lover,
Young and tender and handsome. "

It chanced on a day of festival
In the capital of Valladolid
That their eyes met at a crossing
And their two souls rushed together.
By the greed of a bought duenna
And the interchange of love-notes
And the help of a hempen ladder
They arranged a meeting at midnight.

Her father, the rich old Councillor,
Looked out of a second-floor window
And passed his sword thro' the body
Of one who climbed up a ladder.
His fingers loosed the rungs
And down he crashed to the pavement.
And out of his handsome body
His startled spirit departed.

And the Spanish maiden cried
And moaned until she died,
"My lover dead,
My honour sped. "
So ended a foolish tragedy
In the capital of Valladolid.




Alone!


I

Alone and built of a pallid stone
Across the levels looked her house
And tattered plot, where nought had grown
But withered trees which creaked their boughs.
No fruit or blossom or petal blown
Was there to gladden mournful eyes,
But all was drab and monotone
Beneath a reign of leaden skies.
A red, red weed was all the flower,
Which crawled serpiginous about
The marsh, unchanged from hour to hour
Until the evening blotted out
The landscape which she called her own.
And, save for a ridge of bent and sand,
Which rose between them and the sea,
The marshes stretched on either hand,
And, ever looking, wearied she
Of low sad purple and sombre brown
And, where the rivulets trickled down,
Moss-tracks of vivid green,
And stiff grey grasses which bend and sigh,
As the marsh wind wails and passes by,
And quagmires in between
The firmer ground--and over all
She heard the curlews' dreary call
As they piped eternally.


II

In the days of grace, in the good days gone,
She had set him up on a golden throne,
The face of a god and a heart of stone,
But now she must live alone,
Alone, alone, alone
In a little grey house of stone
Which stares o'er the marshes towards the sea
Where the great grey waves roll sullenly
Night and day for ever and aye
With mournful voices which seem to say
"Alone, alone, alone. "


III

She laid her down on a sandy ledge,
Alone,
And buried her face amid the sedge
And mourned till eve for a broken pledge,
Alone,
And the great grey sea began to moan
Gathering noise from depths unknown
And boomed with a hollow undertone
"Alone, alone, alone. "


IV

Up came the night with funeral wing
The ominous depths o'ershadowing,
But she lay a dumb insentient thing--
Alone with a heart of stone,
With neither tears nor hopes nor fears
And the booming swell like a monstrous knell
Tolled strongly in her ears.


V

Alone, alone, alone,
She who had loved and known
On other nights like this
Strong arms about her and many a kiss
And words of gentle tone.

Alone, alone, alone,
A woman she had known
Like a figure carved from stone
Held a letter in her hand
She scarce could understand
Of words which hardly could be read
"Goodbye--There is nothing to be said. "

* * * * *

Ah! God, if she had known.

Alone, alone, alone,
She who had longed for love by stealth
As a gold-mad miser longs for wealth
Or a poet longs for fame,
Her seared numb body had just an ache
For a pitiful pitiless last mistake
And the smirch upon her name.


VI

A shrill chill wind blew out of the West
As a young child wails for a Mother's breast,
It broke the swell and whitened each crest
And moaned "I come with a strange behest;
The dead are happier. They are at rest
Alone, alone, alone,
Each under a graven stone,
Where the poppies are red
In the homes of the dead
And their scarlet petals spill
And the seabirds scream
As they wheel and gleam
And the seawinds whistle shrill.
The dead are happy, for they are free
They have said farewell to misery,
Alone
Each under a stone;
But the hearts which mourn for a faithless friend
Can never, never, never mend,
And so they break for friendship's sake
Alone, alone, alone. "


VII

The sea wind blew like a wild lament
For loved ones dying or love mis-spent
And still in her hollow of sand and bent
She lay alone, alone,
And stared out into the keening blast
Not heeding the future or mourning the past,
For past and future were one.


VIII

Ah! pity her, who needed it most--
But in the village along the coast
Are those who tremble and moan,
Seeming to wait alone
For a dreadful something unknown,
As the tempest travels gathering force
And sobs and howls and raves and roars
And laughs like a demon band,
And the great waves clamber into the bay
With voices triumphant which seem to say
"Hurrah! Hurrah!