No More Learning

3.
Age cannot Love destroy, _15
But perfidy can blast the flower,
Even when in most unwary hour
It blooms in Fancy's bower.
Age cannot Love destroy,
But perfidy can rend the shrine _20
In which its vermeil splendours shine.

NOTES:
Love's Rose--The title is Rossetti's, 1870.
_2 not through Esdaile manuscript; they this, 1858.

***


EYES: A FRAGMENT.

[Published by Rossetti, "Complete Poetical Works of P. B. S. ", 1870;
dated 1810. Included (four unpublished eight-line stanzas) in the
Esdaile manuscript book. )]

How eloquent are eyes!
Not the rapt poet's frenzied lay
When the soul's wildest feelings stray
Can speak so well as they.
How eloquent are eyes! _5
Not music's most impassioned note
On which Love's warmest fervours float
Like them bids rapture rise.
Love, look thus again,--
That your look may light a waste of years, _10
Darting the beam that conquers cares
Through the cold shower of tears.
Love, look thus again!

***


ORIGINAL POETRY BY VICTOR AND CAZIRE.

[Published by Shelley, 1810. A Reprint, edited by Richard Garnett, C. B. ,
LL. D. , was issued by John Lane, in 1898. The punctuation of the original
edition is here retained. ]

A Person complained that whenever he began to write, he never could
arrange his ideas in grammatical order. Which occasion suggested the
idea of the following lines:

1.
Here I sit with my paper, my pen and my ink,
First of this thing, and that thing, and t'other thing think;
Then my thoughts come so pell-mell all into my mind,
That the sense or the subject I never can find:
This word is wrong placed,--no regard to the sense,
The present and future, instead of past tense,
Then my grammar I want; O dear! what a bore,
I think I shall never attempt to write more,
With patience I then my thoughts must arraign,
Have them all in due order like mutes in a train, _10
Like them too must wait in due patience and thought,
Or else my fine works will all come to nought.
My wit too's so copious, it flows like a river,
But disperses its waters on black and white never;
Like smoke it appears independent and free, _15
But ah luckless smoke! it all passes like thee--
Then at length all my patience entirely lost,
My paper and pens in the fire are tossed;
But come, try again--you must never despair,
Our Murray's or Entick's are not all so rare, _20
Implore their assistance--they'll come to your aid,
Perform all your business without being paid,
They'll tell you the present tense, future and past,
Which should come first, and which should come last,
This Murray will do--then to Entick repair, _25
To find out the meaning of any word rare.