No More Learning

My vows untold receive,
All pure before thee laid;
Receive of all the days I live
The light or shade!

My hours with rapture fill'd,
Which no suspicion wrongs;
And all the blandishments distill'd
From all my songs.

My spirit, whose essay
Flies fearless, wild, and free,
And hath, and seeks, to guide its way
No star but thee.

No pensive, dreamy Muse,
Who, though all else should smile,
Oft as thou weep'st, with thee would choose,
To weep the while.

Oh, sweetest mine! this gift
Receive;--'tis throe alone;--
My heart, of which there's nothing left
When Love is gone!

_Fraser's Magazine. _





THE COW.

_("Devant la blanche ferme. ")_

[XV. , May, 1837. ]


Before the farm where, o'er the porch, festoon
Wild creepers red, and gaffer sits at noon,
Whilst strutting fowl display their varied crests,
And the old watchdog slumberously rests,
They half-attentive to the clarion of their king,
Resplendent in the sunshine op'ning wing--
There stood a cow, with neck-bell jingling light,
Superb, enormous, dappled red and white--
Soft, gentle, patient as a hind unto its young,
Letting the children swarm until they hung
Around her, under--rustics with their teeth
Whiter than marble their ripe lips beneath,
And bushy hair fresh and more brown
Than mossy walls at old gates of a town,
Calling to one another with loud cries
For younger imps to be in at the prize;
Stealing without concern but tremulous with fear
They glance around lest Doll the maid appear;--
Their jolly lips--that haply cause some pain,
And all those busy fingers, pressing now and 'gain,
The teeming udders whose small, thousand pores
Gush out the nectar 'mid their laughing roars,
While she, good mother, gives and gives in heaps,
And never moves. Anon there creeps
A vague soft shiver o'er the hide unmarred,
As sharp they pull, she seems of stone most hard.
Dreamy of large eye, seeks she no release,
And shrinks not while there's one still to appease.
Thus Nature--refuge 'gainst the slings of fate!
Mother of all, indulgent as she's great!
Lets us, the hungered of each age and rank,
Shadow and milk seek in the eternal flank;
Mystic and carnal, foolish, wise, repair,
The souls retiring and those that dare,
Sages with halos, poets laurel-crowned,
All creep beneath or cluster close around,
And with unending greed and joyous cries,
From sources full, draw need's supplies,
Quench hearty thirst, obtain what must eftsoon
Form blood and mind, in freest boon,
Respire at length thy sacred flaming light,
From all that greets our ears, touch, scent or sight--
Brown leaves, blue mountains, yellow gleams, green sod--
Thou undistracted still dost dream of God.

TORU DUTT.





MOTHERS.

_("Regardez: les enfants. ")_

[XX. , June, 1884. ]


See all the children gathered there,
Their mother near; so young, so fair,
An eider sister she might be,
And yet she hears, amid their games,
The shaking of their unknown names
In the dark urn of destiny.

She wakes their smiles, she soothes their cares,
On that pure heart so like to theirs,
Her spirit with such life is rife
That in its golden rays we see,
Touched into graceful poesy,
The dull cold commonplace of life.

Still following, watching, whether burn
The Christmas log in winter stern,
While merry plays go round;
Or streamlets laugh to breeze of May
That shakes the leaf to break away--
A shadow falling to the ground.

If some poor man with hungry eyes
Her baby's coral bauble spies,
She marks his look with famine wild,
For Christ's dear sake she makes with joy
An alms-gift of the silver toy--
A smiling angel of the child.

_Dublin University Magazine_





TO SOME BIRDS FLOWN AWAY.

_("Enfants! Oh! revenez! ")_

[XXII, April, 1837]


Children, come back--come back, I say--
You whom my folly chased away
A moment since, from this my room,
With bristling wrath and words of doom!