No More Learning

And let the fool still prone to range,[ek]
And sneer on all who cannot change,
Partake his jest with boasting boys;
I envy not his varied joys,
But deem such feeble, heartless man,
Less than yon solitary swan;
Far, far beneath the shallow maid[el]
He left believing and betrayed.
Such shame at least was never mine-- 1180
Leila! each thought was only thine!
My good, my guilt, my weal, my woe,
My hope on high--my all below.
Each holds no other like to thee,
Or, if it doth, in vain for me:
For worlds I dare not view the dame
Resembling thee, yet not the same.
The very crimes that mar my youth,
This bed of death--attest my truth!
'Tis all too late--thou wert, thou art 1190
The cherished madness of my heart! [em]

"And she was lost--and yet I breathed,
But not the breath of human life:
A serpent round my heart was wreathed,
And stung my every thought to strife.
Alike all time, abhorred all place,[en]
Shuddering I shrank from Nature's face,
Where every hue that charmed before
The blackness of my bosom wore.
The rest thou dost already know, 1200
And all my sins, and half my woe.
But talk no more of penitence;
Thou seest I soon shall part from hence:
And if thy holy tale were true,
The deed that's done canst _thou_ undo?
Think me not thankless--but this grief
Looks not to priesthood for relief. [eo][121]
My soul's estate in secret guess:
But wouldst thou pity more, say less.
When thou canst bid my Leila live, 1210
Then will I sue thee to forgive;
Then plead my cause in that high place
Where purchased masses proffer grace. [ep]
Go, when the hunter's hand hath wrung
From forest-cave her shrieking young,
And calm the lonely lioness:
But soothe not--mock not _my_ distress!
"In earlier days, and calmer hours,
When heart with heart delights to blend,
Where bloom my native valley's bowers,[eq] 1220
I had--Ah! have I now? --a friend! [er]
To him this pledge I charge thee send,[es]
Memorial of a youthful vow;
I would remind him of my end:
Though souls absorbed like mine allow
Brief thought to distant Friendship's claim,
Yet dear to him my blighted name.
'Tis strange--he prophesied my doom,
And I have smiled--I then could smile--
When Prudence would his voice assume, 1230
And warn--I recked not what--the while:
But now Remembrance whispers o'er[et]
Those accents scarcely marked before.
Say--that his bodings came to pass,
And he will start to hear their truth,
And wish his words had not been sooth:
Tell him--unheeding as I was,
Through many a busy bitter scene
Of all our golden youth had been,
In pain, my faltering tongue had tried 1240
To bless his memory--ere I died;
But Heaven in wrath would turn away,
If Guilt should for the guiltless pray.
I do not ask him not to blame,
Too gentle he to wound my name;
And what have I to do with Fame?
I do not ask him not to mourn,
Such cold request might sound like scorn;
And what than Friendship's manly tear
May better grace a brother's bier? 1250
But bear this ring, his own of old,
And tell him--what thou dost behold!
The withered frame, the ruined mind,
The wrack by passion left behind,
A shrivelled scroll, a scattered leaf,
Seared by the autumn blast of Grief!

* * * * *

"Tell me no more of Fancy's gleam,
No, father, no,'twas not a dream;
Alas! the dreamer first must sleep,
I only watched, and wished to weep; 1260
But could not, for my burning brow
Throbbed to the very brain as now:
I wished but for a single tear,
As something welcome, new, and dear:
I wished it then, I wish it still;
Despair is stronger than my will.
Waste not thine orison, despair[eu]
Is mightier than thy pious prayer:
I would not, if I might, be blest;
I want no Paradise, but rest. 1270
'Twas then--I tell thee--father! then
I saw her; yes, she lived again;
And shining in her white symar[122]
As through yon pale gray cloud the star
Which now I gaze on, as on her,
Who looked and looks far lovelier;
Dimly I view its trembling spark;[ev]
To-morrow's night shall be more dark;
And I, before its rays appear,
That lifeless thing the living fear. 1280
I wander--father!