No More Learning

And this morning as I sat alone within the inner chamber
With the great saloon beyond it, lost in pleasant thought serene,
For I had been reading Camoens, that poem you remember,
Which his lady's eyes are praised in as the sweetest ever seen.

LVIII.

And the book lay open, and my thought flew from it, taking from it
A vibration and impulsion to an end beyond its own,
As the branch of a green osier, when a child would overcome it,
Springs up freely from his claspings and goes swinging in the sun.

LIX.

As I mused I heard a murmur; it grew deep as it grew longer,
Speakers using earnest language--"Lady Geraldine, you _would_! "
And I heard a voice that pleaded, ever on in accents stronger,
As a sense of reason gave it power to make its rhetoric good.

LX.

Well I knew that voice; it was an earl's, of soul that matched his
station,
Soul completed into lordship, might and right read on his brow;
Very finely courteous; far too proud to doubt his domination
Of the common people, he atones for grandeur by a bow.

LXI.

High straight forehead, nose of eagle, cold blue eyes of less
expression
Than resistance, coldly casting off the looks of other men,
As steel, arrows; unelastic lips which seem to taste possession
And be cautious lest the common air should injure or distrain.

LXII.

For the rest, accomplished, upright,--ay, and standing by his order
With a bearing not ungraceful; fond of art and letters too;
Just a good man made a proud man,--as the sandy rocks that border
A wild coast, by circumstances, in a regnant ebb and flow.

LXIII.

Thus, I knew that voice, I heard it, and I could not help the
hearkening:
In the room I stood up blindly, and my burning heart within
Seemed to seethe and fuse my senses till they ran on all sides
darkening,
And scorched, weighed like melted metal round my feet that stood
therein.

LXIV.
And that voice, I heard it pleading, for love's sake, for wealth,
position,
For the sake of liberal uses and great actions to be done:
And she interrupted gently, "Nay, my lord, the old tradition
Of your Normans, by some worthier hand than mine is, should be won. "

LXV.

"Ah, that white hand! " he said quickly,--and in his he either drew it
Or attempted--for with gravity and instance she replied,
"Nay, indeed, my lord, this talk is vain, and we had best eschew it
And pass on, like friends, to other points less easy to decide. "

LXVI.

What he said again, I know not: it is likely that his trouble
Worked his pride up to the surface, for she answered in slow scorn,
"And your lordship judges rightly. Whom I marry shall be noble,
Ay, and wealthy. I shall never blush to think how he was born. "

LXVII.

There, I maddened! her words stung me. Life swept through me into
fever,
And my soul sprang up astonished, sprang full-statured in an hour.
Know you what it is when anguish, with apocalyptic NEVER,
To a Pythian height dilates you, and despair sublimes to power?

LXVIII.

From my brain the soul-wings budded, waved a flame about my body,
Whence conventions coiled to ashes. I felt self-drawn out, as man,
From amalgamate false natures, and I saw the skies grow ruddy
With the deepening feet of angels, and I knew what spirits can.