No More Learning

Respect an active spirit in the creature:

Each flower is a soul open to Nature;

In metal a mystery of love is sleeping;

'All is sentient! ' Has power over your being.

Fear the gaze in the blind wall that watches:

There is a verb attached to matter itself. . .

Do not let it serve some impious purpose!

Often a hidden god inhabits obscure being;

And like an eye, born, covered by its eyelids,

Pure spirit grows beneath the surface of stones!

Alfred de Musset (1810-1857)

Alfred de Musset

'Alfred de Musset'
Four men in the life of George Sand. Jules Sandeau. Chopin. Prosper Merimee. Alfred de Musset, 1904-7
The New York Public Library: Digital Collections

Song

I said to my heart, my feeble heart:

It's enough surely to love one's mistress?

And don't you see that changeableness,

Is to lose time's joy in heart's yearning?

My heart replied: It's never enough,

It's never enough to love one's mistress;

And don't you see that changeableness

Makes past delights dearer and sweeter?

I said to my heart, my feeble heart;

Haven't we had enough of sadness?
And don't you see that changeableness

Is to find new grief with every footstep?

My heart replied: It's never enough

We'll never have had enough of sadness:

And don't you see that changeableness

Makes past pain dearer to us, and sweeter?

Barbarina's Song

Going to the wars, Knight, so fair

What will you there

So far from home?

Don't you see that night is deep,

The world brings care

To those who roam?

You who believe love left behind

Flees the mind,

Alas, alas!

Seekers of fame, your living name,

Your smoke and flame

Will swiftly pass.

Going to the wars, Knight, so fair,

What will you there,

So far from home?

For this I'll weep, who was beguiled

And told my smile

Was sweeter so.

On a Dead Lady

She was beautiful, if Night

Who sleeps in the darkened chapel

Where Michelangelo made light,

Unmoving, can be beautiful.

She was good, if it suffice

For hand to open, give in passing,

Without God seeing anything,

If coins are alms: as cold as ice.

She thought, if the empty noise

Of a sweet harmonious voice

Like a murmuring stream, untaught,

Could make one believe in thought.

She prayed, if two lovely eyes,

Now fixed on earth

Now on the skies

Can claim a prayer's birth.

She would have smiled, if the flower

That never bloomed, to please,

Could open to the coolest hour

Of passing and forgetful breeze.

She might have wept if that hand

Coldly placed against her heart,

Had ever felt dew's heavenly wand

Touch human clay with subtle art.

She might have loved, if pride

Like the light that uselessly

Is lit beside the one who died,

Lit not her heart's sterility.

She is dead who never lived,

She who made pretence of being:

From her hands the book has slipped

In which her eyes read nothing.