No More Learning

Which way? --which way? --his eyes grew dim
With the dizzying whirl,--which way to swim?
The thunderous downshoot deafened him;
Half he choked in the lashing spray:
Life is sweet, and the grave is grim,--
Which way? --which way?

A flash of light, a shout from the strand:
"This way,--this way; here lies the land! "
His phial clutched in one drowning hand;
He catches,--misses,--catches a rope;
His feet slip on the slipping sand:
Is there life? --is there hope?

Just saved, without pulse or breath,--
Scarcely saved from the gulp of death;
Laid where a willow shadoweth,--
Laid where a swelling turf is smooth.
(O Bride! but the Bridegroom lingereth
For all thy sweet youth. )

Kind hands do and undo,
Kind voices whisper and coo:
"I will chafe his hands,"--"and I,"--"and you
Raise his head, put his hair aside. "
(If many laugh, one well may rue:
Sleep on, thou Bride. )

So the Prince was tended with care:
One wrung foul ooze from his clustered hair;
Two chafed his hands, and did not spare;
But one propped his head that drooped awry
Till his eyes oped, and at unaware
They met eye to eye.

O, a moon face in a shadowy place,
And a light touch and a winsome grace,
And a thrilling tender voice which says:
"Safe from waters that seek the sea,--
Cold waters by rugged ways,--
Safe with me.
"

While overhead bird whistles to bird,
And round about plays a gamesome herd:
"Safe with us,"--some take up the word,--
"Safe with us, dear lord and friend:
All the sweeter if long deferred
Is rest in the end. "

Had he stayed to weigh and to scan,
He had been more or less than a man:
He did what a young man can,
Spoke of toil and an arduous way,--
Toil to-morrow, while golden ran
The sands of to-day.

Slip past, slip fast,
Uncounted hours from first to last,
Many hours till the last is past,
Many hours dwindling to one,--
One hour whose die is cast,
One last hour gone.

Come, gone,--gone forever,--
Gone as an unreturning river,--
Gone as to death the merriest liver,--
Gone as the year at the dying fall,--
To-morrow, to-day, yesterday, never,--
Gone once for all.

Came at length the starting-day,
With last words, and last, last words to say,
With bodiless cries from far away,--
Chiding wailing voices that rang
Like a trumpet-call to the tug and fray;
And thus they sang:

"Is there life? --the lamp burns low;
Is there hope? --the coming is slow:
The promise promised so long ago,
The long promise, has not been kept.
Does she live? --does she die? --she slumbers so
Who so oft has wept.

"Does she live? --does she die? --she languisheth
As a lily drooping to death,
As a drought-worn bird with failing breath,
As a lovely vine without a stay,
As a tree whereof the owner saith,
'Hew it down to-day. '"

Stung by that word the Prince was fain
To start on his tedious road again.
He crossed the stream where a ford was plain,
He clomb the opposite bank though steep,
And swore to himself to strain and attain
Ere he tasted sleep.

Huge before him a mountain frowned
With foot of rock on the valley ground,
And head with snows incessant crowned,
And a cloud mantle about its strength,
And a path which the wild goat hath not found
In its breadth and length.