No More Learning

"Or who can say at the parting day
That he will see once more
His children's faces in happy places,
His true wife at the door? "

Snorro the Viking, his thigh striking,
Laughed in his big red beard.
"Some are bound by sight and sound.
While some have wished and feared.

"Their days dream as a droning stream
Or moonlight in a wood.
Now who can sate his love or hate,
And the tumult of his blood?

"Then cast the die for the open sky
When the great sun beats abroad,
For the foam-fleck and the narrow deck,
The life of oar and sword.

"Life and limb for the wind's hymn,
And all the fears that be,
The ghost-races with ghastly faces,
The phantoms of the sea.

"Mine is the morrow," shouted Snorro,
"I longed and have not feared. "
And his great laughter followed after
And rumbled in his beard.




The Island.


Once (was it long ago, dear?
Oh! hark to the sighing seas. )
We sailed to a wonderful Island
In the golden Antipodes,
Where the waves wore an azure mantle,
The winds were ever at rest,
For we'd left the Old World behind us
A thousand leagues to the West.
We came to that wonderful Island;
Girt by a ring of foam
It lay in the sea like a jewel
Under an azure dome.
The cliffs were all gold in the sunlight,
The strand was a floor of gold,
So we knew we'd come to the Island
We'd read of in tales of old.

Was it long we stayed in our Island?
(Dear, I can never say)
I know we walked on the mountains
Which looked far over the bay.
I know that we laughed for pleasure
(Were we wise or a couple of fools? )
As we gazed at the painted fishes
Which swam in the shallow pools.

And night drew over our Island
The purple pall of the skies,
The air was heavy with fragrance
And soft with the breath of sighs,
And voices out of the forest,
Voices out of the sea,
Told the eternal secret. . . .
Told it to you and me.

And the stars came down from the heavens,
And the magical tropic moon,
To dance a measure together
Over the still lagoon;
And the whisper of distant forests,
The noise of the surf in our ears,
Seemed like the song of the ages
Sung by the passing years.

But we said "farewell" to our Island
Which we had discovered alone. . . .