No More Learning

When she goes forth, clad in white,
Day-cloud touched by first moonlight,
With her fair hair, amber-hued
As vapor by the moon imbued
With burning brown, that round her clings,
See, she sudden silence brings
On the gloomy whisperers
Who would make the wrong all hers.
So, Helen, in thy silent room,
Labor at the storied loom;
(Thread, run on; and shuttle, shake! )
Let thy aching sorrow make
Something strangely beautiful
Of this fabric; since the wool
Comes so tinted from the Fates,
Dyed with loves, hopes, fears, and hates.
Thou shalt work with subtle force
All thy deep shade of remorse
In the texture of the weft,
That no stain on thee be left;--
Ay, false queen, shalt fashion grief,
Grief and wrong, to soft relief.
Speed the garment! It may chance,
Long hereafter, meet the glance,
Of Oenone; when her lord,
Now thy Paris, shall go tow'rd
Ida, at his last sad end,
Seeking her, his early friend,
Who alone can cure his ill,
Of all who love him, if she will.
It were fitting she should see
In that hour thine artistry,
And her husband's speechless corse
In the garment of remorse!

But take heed that in thy work
Naught unbeautiful may lurk.
Ah, how little signifies
Unto thee what fortunes rise,
What others fall! Thou still shall rule,
Still shalt twirl the colored spool.
Though thy yearning woman's eyes
Burn with glorious agonies,
Pitying the waste and woe,
And the heroes falling low
In the war around thee, here,
Yet the least, quick-trembling tear
'Twixt thy lids shall dearer be
Than life, to friend or enemy.

There are people on the earth
Doomed with doom of too great worth.
Look on Helen not with hate,
Therefore, but compassionate.
If she suffer not too much,
Seldom does she feel the touch
Of that fresh, auroral joy
Lighter spirits may decoy
To their pure and sunny lives.
Heavy honey 'tis she hives.
To her sweet but burdened soul
All that here she may control--
What of bitter memories,
What of coming fate's surmise,
Paris' passion, distant din
Of the war now drifting in
To her quiet--idle seems;
Idle as the lazy gleams
Of some stilly water's reach,
Seen from where broad vine-leaves pleach
A heavy arch; and, looking through,
Far away the doubtful blue
Glimmers, on a drowsy day,
Crowded with the sun's rich gray;--
As she stands within her room,
Weaving, weaving at the loom.






THE CASKET OF OPALS


I

Deep, smoldering colors of the land and sea
Burn in these stones, that, by some mystery,
Wrap fire in sleep and never are consumed.
Scarlet of daybreak, sunset gleams half spent
In thick white cloud; pale moons that may have lent
Light to love's grieving; rose-illumined snows,
And veins of gold no mine depth ever gloomed;
All these, and green of thin-edged waves, are there.
I think a tide of feeling through them flows
With blush and pallor, as if some being of air,--
Some soul once human,--wandering, in the snare
Of passion had been caught, and henceforth doomed
In misty crystal here to lie entombed.

And so it is, indeed. Here prisoned sleep
The ardors and the moods and all the pain
That once within a man's heart throbbed. He gave
These opals to the woman whom he loved;
And now, like glinting sunbeams through the rain,
The rays of thought that through his spirit moved
Leap out from these mysterious forms again.

The colors of the jewels laugh and weep
As with his very voice. In them the wave
Of sorrow and joy that, with a changing sweep,
Bore him to misery or else made him blest
Still surges in melodious, wild unrest.
So when each gem in place I touch and take,
It murmurs what he thought or what he spake.


FIRST OPAL

My heart is like an opal
Made to lie upon your breast
In dreams of ardor, clouded o'er
By endless joy's unrest.

And forever it shall haunt you
With its mystic, changing ray:
Its light shall live when we lie dead,
With hearts at the heart of day!


SECOND OPAL

If, from a careless hold,
One gem of these should fall,
No power of art or gold
Its wholeness could recall:
The lustrous wonder dies
In gleams of irised rain,
As light fades out from the eyes
When a soul is crushed by pain.
Take heed that from your hold
My love you do not cast:
Dim, shattered, vapor-cold--
That day would be its last.


II


THIRD OPAL

_He won her love; and so this opal sings
With all its tints in maze, that seem to quake
And leap in light, as if its heart would break:_

Gleam of the sea,
Translucent air,
Where every leaf alive with glee
Glows in the sun without shadow of grief--
You speak of spring,
When earth takes wing
And sunlight, sunlight is everywhere!
Radiant life,
Face so fair--
Crowned with the gracious glory of wife--
Your glance lights all this happy day,
Your tender glow
And murmurs low
Make miracle, miracle, everywhere.