No More Learning

Children whose life is made of hope,
Whose joy, within its mystic scope,
Owes all to ignorance of ill,
You have not suffered, and you still
Know not what gloomy thoughts weigh down
The poet-writer weary grown.
What warmth is shed by your sweet smile!
How much he needs to gaze awhile
Upon your shining placid brow,
When his own brow its ache doth know;
With what delight he loves to hear
Your frolic play 'neath tree that's near,
Your joyous voices mixing well
With his own song's all-mournful swell!
Come back then, children! come to me,
If you wish not that I should be
As lonely now that you're afar
As fisherman of Etretat,
Who listless on his elbow leans
Through all the weary winter scenes,
As tired of thought--as on Time flies--
And watching only rainy skies!

MRS. NEWTON CROSLAND.





MY THOUGHTS OF YE.

_("A quoi je songe? ")_

[XXIII. , July, 1836. ]


What do I dream of? Far from the low roof,
Where now ye are, children, I dream of you;
Of your young heads that are the hope and crown
Of my full summer, ripening to its fall.
Branches whose shadow grows along my wall,
Sweet souls scarce open to the breath of day,
Still dazzled with the brightness of your dawn.
I dream of those two little ones at play,
Making the threshold vocal with their cries,
Half tears, half laughter, mingled sport and strife,
Like two flowers knocked together by the wind.
Or of the elder two--more anxious thought--
Breasting already broader waves of life,
A conscious innocence on either face,
My pensive daughter and my curious boy.
Thus do I dream, while the light sailors sing,
At even moored beneath some steepy shore,
While the waves opening all their nostrils breathe
A thousand sea-scents to the wandering wind,
And the whole air is full of wondrous sounds,
From sea to strand, from land to sea, given back
Alone and sad, thus do I dream of you.
Children, and house and home, the table set,
The glowing hearth, and all the pious care
Of tender mother, and of grandsire kind;
And while before me, spotted with white sails,
The limpid ocean mirrors all the stars,
And while the pilot, from the infinite main,
Looks with calm eye into the infinite heaven,
I dreaming of you only, seek to scan
And fathom all my soul's deep love for you--
Love sweet, and powerful, and everlasting--
And find that the great sea is small beside it.

_Dublin University Magazine. _





THE BEACON IN THE STORM.

_("Quels sont ces bruits sourds? ")_

[XXIV. , July 17, 1836. ]


Hark to that solemn sound!
It steals towards the strand. --
Whose is that voice profound
Which mourns the swallowed land,
With moans,
Or groans,
New threats of ruin close at hand?
It is Triton--the storm to scorn
Who doth wind his sonorous horn.

How thick the rain to-night!
And all along the coast
The sky shows naught of light
Is it a storm, my host?
Too soon
The boon
Of pleasant weather will be lost
Yes, 'tis Triton, etc.

Are seamen on that speck
Afar in deepening dark?