No More Learning

Love the gift is Love the debt.
Even so.
Love is hurt with jar and fret.
Love is made a vague regret.
Eyes with idle tears are wet.
Idle habit links us yet.
What is love? for we forget:
Ah, no! no! [34]

Look thro' mine eyes with thine. True wife,
Round my true heart thine arms entwine;
My other dearer life in life,
Look thro' my very soul with thine!
Untouch'd with any shade of years,
May those kind eyes for ever dwell!
They have not shed a many tears,
Dear eyes, since first I knew them well.

Yet tears they shed: they had their part
Of sorrow: for when time was ripe,
The still affection of the heart
Became an outward breathing type,
That into stillness past again,
And left a want unknown before;
Although the loss that brought us pain,
That loss but made us love the more.

With farther lookings on.
The kiss,
The woven arms, seem but to be
Weak symbols of the settled bliss,
The comfort, I have found in thee:
But that God bless thee, dear--who wrought
Two spirits to one equal mind--
With blessings beyond hope or thought,
With blessings which no words can find.

Arise, and let us wander forth,
To yon old mill across the wolds;
For look, the sunset, south and north, [35]
Winds all the vale in rosy folds,
And fires your narrow casement glass,
Touching the sullen pool below:
On the chalk-hill the bearded grass
Is dry and dewless. Let us go.



[Footnote 1: 1833. Scarce makes me. ]

[Footnote 2: 1833. Darling. ]

[Footnote 3: 1833. Own sweet wife. ]

[Footnote 4: This stanza was added in 1842. ]

[Footnote 5: 1833.

My father's mansion, mounted high
Looked down upon the village spire.
I was a long and listless boy,
And son and heir unto the squire. ]


[Footnote 6: 1833. In these dear walls. ]

[Footnote 7: 1833.