No More Learning

. . . step by step and stair by stair, _55
That withered woman, gray and white and brown--
More like a trunk by lichens overgrown
Than anything which once could have been human.
And ever as she goes the palsied woman

. . .

'How slow and painfully you seem to walk, _60
Poor Media! you tire yourself with talk. '
'And well it may,
Fiordispina, dearest--well-a-day!
You are hastening to a marriage-bed;
I to the grave! '--'And if my love were dead, _65
Unless my heart deceives me, I would lie
Beside him in my shroud as willingly
As now in the gay night-dress Lilla wrought. '
'Fie, child! Let that unseasonable thought
Not be remembered till it snows in June; _70
Such fancies are a music out of tune
With the sweet dance your heart must keep to-night.
What!
would you take all beauty and delight
Back to the Paradise from which you sprung,
And leave to grosser mortals? -- _75
And say, sweet lamb, would you not learn the sweet
And subtle mystery by which spirits meet?
Who knows whether the loving game is played,
When, once of mortal [vesture] disarrayed,
The naked soul goes wandering here and there _80
Through the wide deserts of Elysian air?
The violet dies not till it'--

NOTES:
_11 to 1824; two editions 1839.
_20 e'er 1862; ever editions 1824, 1839.
_25 sea edition 1862; sense editions 1824, 1839.

***


TIME LONG PAST.

[Published by Rossetti, "Complete Poetical Works of P. B. S. ", 1870.
This is one of three poems (cf. "Love's Philosophy" and "Good-Night")
transcribed by Shelley in a copy of Leigh Hunt's "Literary Pocket-Book"
for 1819 presented by him to Miss Sophia Stacey, December 29, 1820. ]

1.
Like the ghost of a dear friend dead
Is Time long past.
A tone which is now forever fled,
A hope which is now forever past,
A love so sweet it could not last, _5
Was Time long past.