No More Learning

I.

How joyously the young sea-mew
Lay dreaming on the waters blue
Whereon our little bark had thrown
A little shade, the only one,
But shadows ever man pursue.

II.

Familiar with the waves and free
As if their own white foam were he,
His heart upon the heart of ocean
Lay learning all its mystic motion,
And throbbing to the throbbing sea.

III.

And such a brightness in his eye
As if the ocean and the sky
Within him had lit up and nurst
A soul God gave him not at first,
To comprehend their majesty.

IV.

We were not cruel, yet did sunder
His white wing from the blue waves under,
And bound it, while his fearless eyes
Shone up to ours in calm surprise,
As deeming us some ocean wonder.

V.

We bore our ocean bird unto
A grassy place where he might view
The flowers that curtsey to the bees,
The waving of the tall green trees,
The falling of the silver dew.

VI.

But flowers of earth were pale to him
Who had seen the rainbow fishes swim;
And when earth's dew around him lay
He thought of ocean's winged spray,
And his eye waxed sad and dim.

VII.

The green trees round him only made
A prison with their darksome shade;
And drooped his wing, and mourned he
For his own boundless glittering sea--
Albeit he knew not they could fade.

VIII.
Then One her gladsome face did bring,
Her gentle voice's murmuring,
In ocean's stead his heart to move
And teach him what was human love:
He thought it a strange, mournful thing.

IX.

He lay down in his grief to die,
(First looking to the sea-like sky
That hath no waves) because, alas!
Our human touch did on him pass,
And, with our touch, our agony.




_FELICIA HEMANS_

TO L. E. L. ,

REFERRING TO HER MONODY ON THE POETESS.


I.

Thou bay-crowned living One that o'er the bay-crowned Dead art bowing,
And o'er the shadeless moveless brow the vital shadow throwing,
And o'er the sighless songless lips the wail and music wedding,
And dropping o'er the tranquil eyes the tears not of their shedding! --

II.

Take music from the silent Dead whose meaning is completer,
Reserve thy tears for living brows where all such tears are meeter,
And leave the violets in the grass to brighten where thou treadest,
No flowers for her! no need of flowers, albeit "bring flowers! " thou
saidest.

III.

Yes, flowers, to crown the "cup and lute," since both may come to
breaking,
Or flowers, to greet the "bride"--the heart's own beating works its
aching;
Or flowers, to soothe the "captive's" sight, from earth's free bosom
gathered,
Reminding of his earthly hope, then withering as it withered:

IV.