No More Learning

The sweet creature left you all alone;
'Twas your own hand hung the cage door open,
Mother, and your pretty bird is flown.

BP. ALEXANDER.





EPITAPH.

_("Il vivait, il jouait. ")_

[Bk. III. xv. , May, 1843. ]


He lived and ever played, the tender smiling thing.
What need, O Earth, to have plucked this flower from blossoming?
Hadst thou not then the birds with rainbow-colors bright,
The stars and the great woods, the wan wave, the blue sky?
What need to have rapt this child from her thou hadst placed him by--
Beneath those other flowers to have hid this flower from sight?

Because of this one child thou hast no more of might,
O star-girt Earth, his death yields thee not higher delight!
But, ah!
the mother's heart with woe for ever wild,
This heart whose sovran bliss brought forth so bitter birth--
This world as vast as thou, even _thou_, O sorrowless Earth,
Is desolate and void because of this one child!

NELSON K. TYERMAN.





ST. JOHN.

_("Un jour, le morne esprit. ")_

[Bk. VI. vii. , Jersey, September, 1855. ]


One day, the sombre soul, the Prophet most sublime
At Patmos who aye dreamed,
And tremblingly perused, without the vast of Time,
Words that with hell-fire gleamed,

Said to his eagle: "Bird, spread wings for loftiest flight--
Needs must I see His Face! "
The eagle soared. At length, far beyond day and night,
Lo! the all-sacred Place!

And John beheld the Way whereof no angel knows
The name, nor there hath trod;
And, lo! the Place fulfilled with shadow that aye glows
Because of very God.