No More Learning

Alas! 'tis cold--I shiver in the sunshine--
What can this mean? There is a psalm that speaks
Of God's parental mercies--with Idonea
I used to sing it. --Listen! --what foot is there?


[Enter MARMADUKE]


MARMADUKE (aside--looking at HERBERT)
And I have loved this Man! and _she_ hath loved him!
And I loved her, and she loves the Lord Clifford!
And there it ends;--if this be not enough
To make mankind merry for evermore,
Then plain it is as day, that eyes were made
For a wise purpose--verily to weep with!
[Looking round. ]
A pretty prospect this, a masterpiece
Of Nature, finished with most curious skill!
(To HERBERT. ) Good Baron, have you ever practised tillage?
Pray tell me what this land is worth by the acre?


HERBERT How glad I am to hear your voice!
I know not
Wherein I have offended you;--last night
I found in you the kindest of Protectors;
This morning, when I spoke of weariness,
You from my shoulder took my scrip and threw it
About your own; but for these two hours past
Once only have you spoken, when the lark
Whirred from among the fern beneath our feet,
And I, no coward in my better days,
Was almost terrified.


MARMADUKE That's excellent! --
So, you bethought you of the many ways
In which a man may come to his end, whose crimes
Have roused all Nature up against him--pshaw! --


HERBERT For mercy's sake, is nobody in sight?
No traveller, peasant, herdsman?


MARMADUKE Not a soul:
Here is a tree, ragged, and bent, and bare,
That turns its goat's-beard flakes of pea-green moss
From the stern breathing of the rough sea-wind;
This have we, but no other company:
Commend me to the place. If a man should die
And leave his body here, it were all one
As he were twenty fathoms underground.


HERBERT Where is our common Friend?


MARMADUKE A ghost, methinks--
The Spirit of a murdered man, for instance--
Might have fine room to ramble about here,
A grand domain to squeak and gibber in.


HERBERT Lost Man! if thou have any close-pent guilt
Pressing upon thy heart, and this the hour
Of visitation--


MARMADUKE A bold word from _you_!


HERBERT Restore him, Heaven!


MARMADUKE The desperate Wretch! --A Flower,
Fairest of all flowers, was she once, but now
They have snapped her from the stem--Poh! let her lie
Besoiled with mire, and let the houseless snail
Feed on her leaves. You knew her well--ay, there,
Old Man!