No More Learning

But if we, with spring-days mellow,
Wake to woeful wrecks of change,
And the sparrow's ritornello
Scaling still its old sweet range;
Can we do a better thing
Than, with him, still build and sing?

Oh, my sparrow, thou dost breed
Thought in me beyond all telling;
Shootest through me sunlight, seed,
And fruitful blessing, with that welling
Ripple of ecstatic rest
Gurgling ever from thy breast!

And thy breezy carol spurs
Vital motion in my blood,
Such as in the sap-wood stirs,
Swells and shapes the pointed bud
Of the lilac; and besets
The hollow thick with violets.

Yet I know not any charm
That can make the fleeting time
Of thy sylvan, faint alarm
Suit itself to human rhyme:
And my yearning rhythmic word
Does thee grievous wrong, blithe bird.

So, however thou hast wrought
This wild joy on heart and brain,
It is better left untaught.
Take thou up the song again:
There is nothing sad afloat
On the tide that swells thy throat!






I LOVED YOU, ONCE--


And did you think my heart
Could keep its love unchanging,
Fresh as the buds that start
In spring, nor know estranging?
Listen! The buds depart:
I loved you once, but now--
I love you more than ever.

'T is not the early love;
With day and night it alters,
And onward still must move
Like earth, that never falters
For storm or star above.
I loved you once; but now--
I love you more than ever.

With gifts in those glad days
How eagerly I sought you!
Youth, shining hope, and praise:
These were the gifts I brought you.
In this world little stays:
I loved you once, but now--
I love you more than ever.

A child with glorious eyes
Here in our arms half sleeping--
So passion wakeful lies;
Then grows to manhood, keeping
Its wistful, young surprise:
I loved you once, but now--
I love you more than ever.
When age's pinching air
Strips summer's rich possession,
And leaves the branches bare,
My secret in confession
Still thus with you I'll share:
I loved you once, but now--
I love you more than ever.








II








THE BRIDE OF WAR

(ARNOLD'S MARCH TO CANADA, 1775)


I

The trumpet, with a giant sound,
Its harsh war-summons wildly sings;
And, bursting forth like mountain-springs,
Poured from the hillside camping-ground,
Each swift battalion shouting flings
Its force in line; where you may see
The men, broad-shouldered, heavily
Sway to the swing of the march; their heads
Dark like the stones in river-beds.

Lightly the autumn breezes
Play with the shining dust-cloud
Rising to the sunset rays
From feet of the moving column.
Soft, as you listen, comes
The echo of iterant drums,
Brought by the breezes light
From the files that follow the road.
A moment their guns have glowed
Sun-smitten: then out of sight
They suddenly sink,
Like men who touch a new grave's brink!

II

So it was the march began,
The march of Morgan's riflemen,
Who like iron held the van
In unhappy Arnold's plan
To win Wolfe's daring fame again.
With them, by her husband's side,
Jemima Warner, nobly free,
Moved more fair than when, a bride,
One year since, she strove to hide
The blush it was a joy to see.

III

O distant, terrible forests of Maine,
With huge trees numberless as the rain
That falls on your lonely lakes!
(It falls and sings through the years, but wakes
No answering echo of joy or pain. )

Your tangled wilderness was tracked
With struggle and sorrow and vengeful act
'Gainst Puritan, pagan, and priest.
Where wolf and panther and serpent ceased,
Man added the horrors your dark maze lacked.

The land was scarred with deeds not good,
Like the fretting of worms on withered wood.
What if its venomous spell
Breathed into Arnold a prompting of Hell,
With slow empoisoning force indued?

IV

As through that dreary realm he went,
Followed a shape of dark portent:--
Pard-like, of furtive eye, with brain
To treason narrowing, Aaron Burr,
Moved loyal-seeming in the train,
Led by the arch-conspirator.
And craven Enos closed the rear,
Whose honor's flame died out in fear.
Not sooner does the dry bough burn
And into fruitless ashes turn,
Than he with whispered, false command
Drew back the hundreds in his hand;
Fled like a shade; and all forsook.