No More Learning

--
O my love, but your ears played you falsely
When they were taken by Death's wily tunes!

* * * * *

Am I so hardly done to, who have seen
My lover's face, been near enough to worship
The very writing of his spirit in flesh?
For having that in my ken, I am not far
From loving with my eyes all his body.
What a set would his shoulders have, and neck,
To bear his goodly-purposed head; what gait
And usage of his limbs! --Ah, do you smile?
Why, even so I knew your smile would be,
Just such an over-brimming of your soul.
O love, love, love, then you have come to me!
How I have stayed aching for you! Come close,
Here's where you should have been long time, long time.
It is your rightful place. And I had left
Thinking you'ld come and kiss me over my heart!
Ah lad, my lad, they told me you were dead.


IV

_At Dawn. The Scottish Gate_.

_Mary (on her way to the gate, singing to herself)_.
As a wind that has run all day
Among the fragrant clover,
At evening to a valley comes;
So comes to me my lover.

And as all night a honey'd warmth
Stays where the wind did lie,
So when my lover leaves my arms
My heart's all honey.

But what have I to do with this? And when
Was that song put in hiding 'mid my thought?
I might be on my way to meet and give
Good morrow to my--Ah! last night, last night!
O fie! I must not dream so.

[_At the Gate_.
It _was_ I!
I am the girl whose lover they have killed,
Who never saw him until out of death
He lookt into my soul. I was to meet
Somewhere in life my lover, and behold,
He has turned into an inn I dare not enter,
And gazes through a window at my soul
Going on labour'd with this loving body. --
Did I not sleep last night with you in my arms?
I could have sworn it. Why should body have
So large a part in love? For if 'twere only
Spirit knew how to love, an easy road
My feet had down to death.