No More Learning

"
"As He shall please, who dwelleth in the heaven
And rules on earth, such portion must be given
To me, as others from thy hand receive,"
She answered then; afar we might perceive
Millions of dead heap'd on th' adjacent plain;
No verse nor prose may comprehend the slain
Did on Death's triumph wait, from India,
From Spain, and from Morocco, from Cathay,
And all the skirts of th' earth they gather'd were;
Who had most happy lived, attended there:
Popes, Emperors, nor Kings, no ensigns wore
Of their past height, but naked show'd and poor.
Where be their riches, where their precious gems,
Their mitres, sceptres, robes, and diadems?
O miserable men, whose hopes arise
From worldly joys, yet be there few so wise
As in those trifling follies not to trust;
And if they be deceived, in end 'tis just:
Ah! more than blind, what gain you by your toil?
You must return once to your mother's soil,
And after-times your names shall hardly know,
Nor any profit from your labour grow;
All those strange countries by your warlike stroke
Submitted to a tributary yoke;
The fuel erst of your ambitious fire,
What help they now? The vast and bad desire
Of wealth and power at a bloody rate
Is wicked,--better bread and water eat
With peace; a wooden dish doth seldom hold
A poison'd draught; glass is more safe than gold;
But for this theme a larger time will ask,
I must betake me to my former task.
The fatal hour of her short life drew near,
That doubtful passage which the world doth fear;
Another company, who had not been
Freed from their earthy burden there were seen,
To try if prayers could appease the wrath,
Or stay th' inexorable hand, of Death.
That beauteous crowd convened to see the end
Which all must taste; each neighbour, every friend
Stood by, when grim Death with her hand took hold,
And pull'd away one only hair of gold,
Thus from the world this fairest flower is ta'en
To make her shine more bright, not out of spleen
How many moaning plaints, what store of cries
Were utter'd there, when Fate shut those fair eyes
For which so oft I sung; whose beauty burn'd
My tortured heart so long; while others mourn'd,
She pleased, and quiet did the fruit enjoy
Of her blest life: "Farewell," without annoy,
"True saint on earth," said they; so might she be
Esteem'd, but nothing bates Death's cruelty.
What shall become of others, since so pure
A body did such heats and colds endure,
And changed so often in so little space?
Ah, worldly hopes, how blind you be, how base!
If since I bathe the ground with flowing tears
For that mild soul, who sees it, witness bears;
And thou who read'st mayst judge she fetter'd me
The sixth of April, and did set me free
On the same day and month. Oh! how the way
Of fortune is unsure; none hates the day
Of slavery, or of death, so much as I
Abhor the time which wrought my liberty,
And my too lasting life; it had been just
My greater age had first been turn'd to dust,
And paid to time, and to the world, the debt
I owed, then earth had kept her glorious state:
Now at what rate I should the sorrow prize
I know not, nor have heart that can suffice
The sad affliction to relate in verse
Of these fair dames, that wept about her hearse;
"Courtesy, Virtue, Beauty, all are lost;
What shall become of us? None else can boast
Such high perfection; no more we shall
Hear her wise words, nor the angelical
Sweet music of her voice. " While thus they cried,
The parting spirit doth itself divide
With every virtue from the noble breast,
As some grave hermit seeks a lonely rest:
The heavens were clear, and all the ambient air
Without a threatening cloud; no adversaire
'Durst once appear, or her calm mind affright;
Death singly did herself conclude the fight;
After, when fear, and the extremest plaint
Were ceased, th' attentive eyes of all were bent
On that fair face, and by despair became
Secure; she who was spent, not like a flame
By force extinguish'd, but as lights decay,
And undiscerned waste themselves away:
Thus went the soul in peace; so lamps are spent,
As the oil fails which gave them nourishment;
In sum, her countenance you still might know
The same it was, not pale, but white as snow,
Which on the tops of hills in gentle flakes
Falls in a calm, or as a man that takes
Desir'ed rest, as if her lovely sight
Were closed with sweetest sleep, after the sprite
Was gone.
If this be that fools call to die,
Death seem'd in her exceeding fair to be.

ANNA HUME.


[LINES 103 TO END. ]


And now closed in the last hour's narrow span
Of that so glorious and so brief career,
Ere the dark pass so terrible to man!
And a fair troop of ladies gather'd there,
Still of this earth, with grace and honour crown'd,
To mark if ever Death remorseful were.
This gentle company thus throng'd around,
In her contemplating the awful end
All once must make, by law of nature bound;
Each was a neighbour, each a sorrowing friend.
Then Death stretch'd forth his hand, in that dread hour,
From her bright head a golden hair to rend,
Thus culling of this earth the fairest flower;
Nor hate impell'd the deed, but pride, to dare
Assert o'er highest excellence his power.
What tearful lamentations fill the air
The while those beauteous eyes alone are dry,
Whose sway my burning thoughts and lays declare!
And while in grief dissolved all weep and sigh,
She, in meek silence, joyous sits secure,
Gathering already virtue's guerdon high.
"Depart in peace, O mortal goddess pure! "
They said; and such she was: although it nought
'Gainst mightier Death avail'd, so stern--so sure!
Alas for others! if a few nights wrought
In her each change of suffering dust below!
Oh! Hope, how false! how blind all human thought!