No More Learning

XX.

"I have sinned," quoth he, "I have sinned, I wot"--
And the tears ran adown his old cheeks at the thought:
They dropped fast on the book, but he read on the same,
And aye was the silence where should be the NAME,--
As the choristers told it.

XXI.

The rite-book is closed, and the rite being done
They, who knelt down together, arise up as one:
Fair riseth the bride--Oh, a fair bride is she,
But, for all (think the maidens) that brown rosary,
No saint at her praying!

XXII.

What aileth the bridegroom? He glares blank and wide;
Then suddenly turning he kisseth the bride;
His lips stung her with cold; she glanced upwardly mute:
"Mine own wife," he said, and fell stark at her foot
In the word he was saying.

XXIII.

They have lifted him up, but his head sinks away,
And his face showeth bleak in the sunshine and grey.
Leave him now where he lieth--for oh, never more
Will he kneel at an altar or stand on a floor!
Let his bride gaze upon him.

XXIV.

Long and still was her gaze while they chafed him there
And breathed in the mouth whose last life had kissed her,
But when they stood up--only _they_! with a start
The shriek from her soul struck her pale lips apart:
She has lived, and forgone him!

XXV.
And low on his body she droppeth adown--
"Didst call me thine own wife, beloved--thine own?
Then take thine own with thee! thy coldness is warm
To the world's cold without thee! Come, keep me from harm
In a calm of thy teaching! "

XXVI.

She looked in his face earnest-long, as in sooth
There were hope of an answer, and then kissed his mouth,
And with head on his bosom, wept, wept bitterly,--
"Now, O God, take pity--take pity on me!
God, hear my beseeching! "

XXVII.

She was 'ware of a shadow that crossed where she lay,
She was 'ware of a presence that withered the day:
Wild she sprang to her feet,--"I surrender to _thee_
The broken vow's pledge, the accursed rosary,--
I am ready for dying! "

XXVIII.

She dashed it in scorn to the marble-paved ground
Where it fell mute as snow, and a weird music-sound
Crept up, like a chill, up the aisles long and dim,--
As the fiends tried to mock at the choristers' hymn
And moaned in the trying.


FOURTH PART.


Onora looketh listlessly adown the garden walk:
"I am weary, O my mother, of thy tender talk.
I am weary of the trees a-waving to and fro,
Of the steadfast skies above, the running brooks below.
All things are the same, but I,--only I am dreary,
And, mother, of my dreariness behold me very weary.

"Mother, brother, pull the flowers I planted in the spring
And smiled to think I should smile more upon their gathering:
The bees will find out other flowers--oh, pull them, dearest mine,
And carry them and carry me before Saint Agnes' shrine.