No More Learning

Sickly soul--I said to thee--but now in mourning
This fate is wrong and makes me deathly ill.
Pallid soul--thus didst thou ask--is dead the fire
Forever, that divinely in us burns?
Blinded soul--I said to thee--I'm full of fire;
My yearning is mine only grief that burns.
Harden'd soul--thus didst thou ask--can more be
given
Than youth can give? I gave mine every good. .
Has e'er a higher wish in any bosom thriven
Than this one: take unto thy weal my blood!
Flighty soul--I said to thee--what means "I love
thee " 1
A shade alone of that for thee I shed . . .
Sombre soul--thus didst thou say--I needs must love
thee
Although through thee my fairest dream be dead.
49

? Now let me call across the snow-clad meadows,
Wherein you threatened oft to sink away,
As you, oblivious, lead me through the shadows
Of time--my solace now--but erst in play.
You came amidst the show of flow'ry splendour,
Again I saw you at the aftermath,
And, 'mid the ruddy corn-blades' rustling tender,
Unto your cottage always wound my path.
Your speech resounded, as the foliage faded,
So gently, that my life in yours I laid.
And as you left, suspired confused and jaded
In sighful accents the deserted glade.
Thus did alone, with every wand'ring wended
As goal, the shimmer of two eyelets glow,
Thus your faint song as song of the year ascended,
And all befell, since you ordained it so.
50

? THERE were no ruins, neither fragments,
There was no chasm, nor grave nor pall,
There was no longing, was no wooing,
Where but one hour rendered all.
Prom thousand blossoms came a bubbling
'Mid purple sheen of sorcery,
The song of countless warblers singing
Broke through the Spring's first cry of glee.
Then such a rearing without bridle,
A raging which no arm could fend,
An opening of new fragrant spaces,
A thrill in which all senses blend.

? From Maximin
IN sorrow, day and night the disciple watched
Upon the mount where from the Lord ascended:
"Thus leaveth thou thy faithful to despair?
Thou think'st no more of earth in thy great glory?
Thy holy voice I never more shall hear,
Nor kiss thy feet, nor kiss thy garment hem?
I pray thae for a sign, yet thou art mute. "
Then came that way a stranger: "Brother speak,
Upon thy cheeks there burns so great a woe
That I must bear, if it I cannot quench. "
"In vain is all thy solace . . . .