No More Learning

You lead me to the withering balustrade,
The gardens' sesame has become so strange.
From the forgotten you call forth dreams; the
child
Reposing on the ground in the corn-clad fields,
In harvest-glow beside the naked mowers.
Beside the shining scythe and exhausted jug.
Sleepily lull the wasps in the noon-day song,
And through the meagre shelter of the blades
Upon his sunburnt forehead slowly trickle
The poppy-petals: large red drops of blood.
Transience ne'er can rob me of aught that
has been,
Languishing just as erewhile on the languish-
ing field,
I lie: from languid lips there sighs " how weary
Am I of all the flowers--the lovely flowers. "
42

? Thrill of the Dawn
CAN such a pain be branded?
And such an haze and such a light?
The morning be commanded,
That breaks within us blest and bright?
As through the spirit paling,
The pathways--then across the weald
Caressing breezes sailing
Respond themselves o'er fence and field.
Dim, as through tears o'erflowing,
The tree--the house that offers rest;
A silver saint's-day glowing,
The cherry-branch that waves its crest.
A rustling and a flitter
Torments and charms, makes sad and free.
A swaying sweet and bitter,
A singing without melody. .
43

?
Throbbing
THIS throbbing shows what we abandoned,
Which through the vacant chamber wells,
Wherein our joys, in parting, beckoned,
No longer hour nor pathway tells 1
How oft in sleep we wander, straying!
How shrill at every word it quells,
Resounding like those joys' last echoes I
How sorely every stone retells.
That we perceived ourselves erst only . . . .
How all around, it chokes and swells
When we approach the things they cherished.
Against it how the heart rebels.
--Since, chides and asks our solemn action,
For such an end what rage compels ? --
Yet silenced cannot be this throbbing
Which dolefulness alone dispels.
44

? Day Song
BY the waters that make faint moan,
Yonder where the poplar tree sways,
Sits a songful bird, whose quaint tone
T'wards us softly o'er the lea strays.
And the warbler's voice resounds clear :?
"Bloom is in the garden-close dead,
All within its season rounds fair,
See how yonder summit glows red.
Only memory leaves him prize-dreams,
Who to happier ones the way treads,
Golden glory from his eyes beams,
Which in flight he on the way sheds.
Lift thy tired head that fain bends,
Should a visage from the night rise,
And thus wait until my strain ends,
And thus tarry until the light dies.