No More Learning

And do you write her still? " "Each month or so. "
"And is she not unhappy then, to find
How wretched you must be? " "How can she know?
You see," I laughed, "she thinks I am as well
As when she saw me last. She is too blind
To read the papers--some one else must tell
What's in my letters, merely signed by me.
Thus she is happy. For the rest--
That any son should be as sick as I,
No mother could believe. "
_Ja_, so it goes.

Come here, my lotus-flower. It is best
I drop the mask to-day; the half-cracked shield
Of mockery calls for younger hands to wield.
Laugh--or I'll hug it closer to my breast.
So . . .
I can be as mawkish as I choose
And give my thoughts an airing, let them loose
For one last rambling stroll before--Now look!
Why tears? You never heard me say "the end. "
Before . . . before I clap them in a book
And so get rid of them once and for all.
This is their holiday--we'll let them run--
Some have escaped already. There goes one . . .
What, I have often mused, did Goethe mean?
So many years ago at Weimar, Goethe said
"Heine has all the poet's gifts but love. "
Good God! But that is all I ever had.
More than enough!