No More Learning

You should have care
Of these young fellows; there's a devil in them.
Never you talk with a man on the seashore
Or on hill-tops or in woods and suchlike places,
Especially if he's one you think of marrying.

_Katrina_.
Marrying? I shall never be married!

_Grandmother_.
Pooh!
That's nonsense.

_Katrina_.
I should think 'twas horrible
Even to be in love and wanting to give
Yourself to another; but to be married too,
A man holding the very heart of you,--

_Grandmother_.
He never does, honey, he never does. --
We're late; come along home.

II

_In_ SYLVAN'S _house_. SYLVAN _and_ KATRINA _talking to
each other and betweenwhiles thinking to themselves_.

_Sylvan_.
How pleasant and beautiful it is to be
At last obedient to love! (_To know
Also, I've sold myself,--is that so pleasant_? )

_Katrina_.
I cannot think, why such a glorious wealth
As this of love on our hearts should be spent.
What have we done, that all this gain be ours?
(_Nor can I think why my life should be mixt,
Even its dearest secrecy, with another_. )

_Sylvan_.
Ay, there's the marvel! If to enter life
Needed some courage, 'twere a kind of wages,
As they let sacking soldiers take home loot:
But we are shuffled into life like puppets
Emptied out of a showman's bag; and then
Made spenders of the joys current in heaven!
(_Not such a marvel neither, if this love
Be but the price I'm paid for my free soul.
Who's the old trader that has lent this girl
The glittering cash of pleasure to pay me with?
Who is it,--the world, or the devil, or God--that wants
To buy me from myself? _)

_Katrina_.
And then how vain
To think we can hold back from being enricht!
It is not only offered--

_Sylvan_.
No, 'tis a need
As irresistible within our hearts
As body's need of breathing.