No More Learning

You the plainings, faint and low,
From Misery's tortured soul that flow, _40
Shall usher to your fate.

Tremble, ye conquerors, at whose fell command
The war-fiend riots o'er a peaceful land!
You Desolation's gory throng
Shall bear from Victory along _45
To that mysterious strand.

NOTE:
_10 murderer Esdaile manuscript; murders 1858.

***


LOVE'S ROSE.

[Published (without title) by Hogg, "Life of Shelley", 1858; dated 1810.
Included in the Esdaile manuscript book. ]

1.
Hopes, that swell in youthful breasts,
Live not through the waste of time!
Love's rose a host of thorns invests;
Cold, ungenial is the clime,
Where its honours blow. _5
Youth says, 'The purple flowers are mine,'
Which die the while they glow.

2.
Dear the boon to Fancy given,
Retracted whilst it's granted:
Sweet the rose which lives in Heaven, _10
Although on earth 'tis planted,
Where its honours blow,
While by earth's slaves the leaves are riven
Which die the while they glow.

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 Included (four unpublished eight-line stanzas) in the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.