No More Learning

My light of Life! ah, tell me why
That pouting lip, and altered eye?
My bird of Love! my beauteous mate!
And art thou changed, and canst thou hate?

8.

Mine eyes like wintry streams o'erflow:
What wretch with me would barter woe?
My bird! relent: one note could give
A charm to bid thy lover live.

9.

My curdling blood, my madd'ning brain,
In silent anguish I sustain;
And still thy heart, without partaking
One pang, exults--while mine is breaking.

10.

Pour me the poison; fear not thou!
Thou canst not murder more than now:
I've lived to curse my natal day,
And Love, that thus can lingering slay.

11.
My wounded soul, my bleeding breast,
Can patience preach thee into rest?
Alas! too late, I dearly know
That Joy is harbinger of Woe.

[First published, _Childe Harold_, 1814 (Seventh Edition). ]



THOU ART NOT FALSE, BUT THOU ART FICKLE. [bu][50]

1.

Thou art not false, but thou art fickle,
To those thyself so fondly sought;
The tears that thou hast forced to trickle
Are doubly bitter from that thought:
'Tis this which breaks the heart thou grievest,
_Too well_ thou lov'st--_too soon_ thou leavest.

2.

The wholly false the _heart_ despises,
And spurns deceiver and deceit;
But she who not a thought disguises,[bv]
Whose love is as sincere as sweet,--
When _she_ can change who loved so truly,
It _feels_ what mine has _felt_ so newly.

3.

To dream of joy and wake to sorrow
Is doomed to all who love or live;
And if, when conscious on the morrow,
We scarce our Fancy can forgive,
That cheated us in slumber only,
To leave the waking soul more lonely,

4.

What must they feel whom no false vision
But truest, tenderest Passion warmed?
Sincere, but swift in sad transition:
As if a dream alone had charmed?
Ah! sure such _grief_ is _Fancy's_ scheming,
And all thy _Change_ can be but _dreaming! _

[MS.