No More Learning

She was motherless,
And I without a father. So from each
Of those two pillars which from earth uphold
Our childhood, one had fall'n away, and all
The careful burthen of our tender years
Trembled upon the other. He that gave
Her life, to me delightedly fulfill'd
All loving-kindnesses, all offices
Of watchful care and trembling tenderness.
He worked for both: he pray'd for both: he slept
Dreaming of both; nor was his love the less
Because it was divided, and shot forth
Boughs on each side, laden with wholesome shade,
Wherein we rested sleeping or awake,
And sung aloud the matin-song of life.

She was my foster-sister: on one arm
The flaxen ringlets of our infancies
Wander'd, the while we rested: one soft lap
Pillow'd us both: one common light of eyes
Was on us as we lay: our baby lips,
Kissing one bosom, ever drew from thence
The stream of life, one stream, one life, one blood,
One sustenance, which, still as thought grew large,
Still larger moulding all the house of thought,
Perchance assimilated all our tastes
And future fancies. 'Tis a beautiful
And pleasant meditation, what whate'er
Our general mother meant for me alone,
Our mutual mother dealt to both of us:
So what was earliest mine in earliest life,
I shared with her in whom myself remains.
As was our childhood, so our infancy,
They tell me, was a very miracle
Of fellow-feeling and communion.
They tell me that we would not be alone,--
We cried when we were parted; when I wept,
Her smile lit up the rainbow on my tears,
Stay'd on the clouds of sorrow; that we loved
The sound of one another's voices more
Than the grey cuckoo loves his name, and learn'd
To lisp in tune together; that we slept
In the same cradle always, face to face,
Heart beating time to heart, lip pressing lip,
Folding each other, breathing on each other,
Dreaming together (dreaming of each other
They should have added) till the morning light
Sloped thro' the pines, upon the dewy pane
Falling, unseal'd our eyelids, and we woke
To gaze upon each other. If this be true,
At thought of which my whole soul languishes
And faints, and hath no pulse, no breath, as tho'
A man in some still garden should infuse
Rich attar in the bosom of the rose,
Till, drunk with its own wine and overfull
Of sweetness, and in smelling of itself,
It fall on its own thorns--if this be true--
And that way my wish leaneth evermore
Still to believe it--'tis so sweet a thought,
Why in the utter stillness of the soul
Doth question'd memory answer not, nor tell,
Of this our earliest, our closest drawn,
Most loveliest, most delicious union?
Oh, happy, happy outset of my days!
Green springtide, April promise, glad new year
Of Being, which with earliest violets,
And lavish carol of clear-throated larks,
Fill'd all the march of life. --I will not speak of thee;
These have not seen thee, these can never know thee,
They cannot understand me. Pass on then
A term of eighteen years. Ye would but laugh
If I should tell ye how I heard in thought
Those rhymes, 'The Lion and the Unicorn'
'The Four-and-twenty Blackbirds' 'Banbury Cross,'
'The Gander' and 'The man of Mitylene,'
And all the quaint old scraps of ancient crones,
Which are as gems set in my memory,
Because she learn'd them with me. Or what profits it
To tell ye that her father died, just ere
The daffodil was blown; or how we found
The drowned seaman on the shore?
These things
Unto the quiet daylight of your minds
Are cloud and smoke, but in the dark of mine
Show traced with flame. Move with me to that hour,
Which was the hinge on which the door of Hope,
Once turning, open'd far into the outward,
And never closed again.

I well remember,
It was a glorious morning, such a one
As dawns but once a season. Mercury
On such a morning would have flung himself
From cloud to cloud, and swum with balanced wings
To some tall mountain. On that day the year
First felt his youth and strength, and from his spring
Moved smiling toward his summer. On that day,
Love working shook his wings (that charged the winds
With spiced May-sweets from bound to bound) and blew
Fresh fire into the sun, and from within
Burst thro' the heated buds, and sent his soul
Into the songs of birds, and touch'd far-off
His mountain-altars, his high hills, with flame
Milder and purer. Up the rocks we wound;
The great pine shook with lovely sounds of joy,
That came on the sea-wind. As mountain brooks
Our blood ran free: the sunshine seem'd to brood
More warmly on the heart than on the brow.
We often paused, and looking back, we saw
The clefts and openings in the hills all fill'd
With the blue valley and the glistening brooks,
And with the low dark groves--a land of Love;
Where Love was worshipp'd upon every height,
Where Love was worshipp'd under every tree--
A land of promise, flowing with the milk
And honey of delicious memories
Down to the sea, as far as eye could ken,
From verge to verge it was a holy land,
Still growing holier as you near'd the bay,
For where the temple stood. When we had reach'd
The grassy platform on some hill, I stoop'd,
I gather'd the wild herbs, and for her brows
And mine wove chaplets of the self-same flower,
Which she took smiling, and with my work there
Crown'd her clear forehead. Once or twice she told me
(For I remember all things), to let grow
The flowers that run poison in their veins.
She said, 'The evil flourish in the world';
Then playfully she gave herself the lie:
'Nothing in nature is unbeautiful,
So, brother, pluck and spare not. ' So I wove
Even the dull-blooded poppy, 'whose red flower
Hued with the scarlet of a fierce sunrise,
Like to the wild youth of an evil king,
Is without sweetness, but who crowns himself
Above the secret poisons of his heart
In his old age'--a graceful thought of hers
Graven on my fancy! As I said, with these
She crown'd her forehead. O how like a nymph,
A stately mountain-nymph, she look'd! how native
Unto the hills she trod on!