No More Learning

VENUS' LOOKING-GLASS.


I marked where lovely Venus and her court
With song and dance and merry laugh went by;
Weightless, their wingless feet seemed made to fly,
Bound from the ground and in mid air to sport.
Left far behind I heard the dolphins snort,
Tracking their goddess with a wistful eye,
Around whose head white doves rose, wheeling high
Or low, and cooed after their tender sort.
All this I saw in spring. Through summer heat
I saw the lovely Queen of Love no more.
But when flushed autumn through the woodlands went
I spied sweet Venus walk amid the wheat:
Whom seeing, every harvester gave o'er
His toil, and laughed and hoped and was content.



LOVE LIES BLEEDING.


Love that is dead and buried, yesterday
Out of his grave rose up before my face,
No recognition in his look, no trace
Of memory in his eyes dust-dimmed and grey.
While I, remembering, found no word to say,
But felt my quickened heart leap in its place;
Caught afterglow thrown back from long set days,
Caught echoes of all music passed away.
Was this indeed to meet? --I mind me yet
In youth we met when hope and love were quick,
We parted with hope dead, but love alive:
I mind me how we parted then heart sick,
Remembering, loving, hopeless, weak to strive:--
Was this to meet? Not so, we have not met.



BIRD RAPTURES.


The sunrise wakes the lark to sing,
The moonrise wakes the nightingale.
Come darkness, moonrise, every thing
That is so silent, sweet, and pale:
Come, so ye wake the nightingale.
Make haste to mount, thou wistful moon,
Make haste to wake the nightingale:
Let silence set the world in tune
To hearken to that wordless tale
Which warbles from the nightingale

O herald skylark, stay thy flight
One moment, for a nightingale
Floods us with sorrow and delight.
To-morrow thou shalt hoist the sail;
Leave us to-night the nightingale.



MY FRIEND.


Two days ago with dancing glancing hair,
With living lips and eyes:
Now pale, dumb, blind, she lies;
So pale, yet still so fair.

We have not left her yet, not yet alone;
But soon must leave her where
She will not miss our care,
Bone of our bone.

Weep not; O friends, we should not weep:
Our friend of friends lies full of rest;
No sorrow rankles in her breast,
Fallen fast asleep.

She sleeps below,
She wakes and laughs above;
To-day, as she walked, let us walk in love,
To-morrow follow so.



TWILIGHT NIGHT.


I.

We met, hand to hand,
We clasped hands close and fast,
As close as oak and ivy stand;
But it is past:
Come day, come night, day comes at last.

We loosed hand from hand,
We parted face from face;
Each went his way to his own land
At his own pace:
Each went to fill his separate place.

If we should meet one day,
If both should not forget.
We shall clasp hands the accustomed way,
As when we met
So long ago, as I remember yet.

II.

Where my heart is (wherever that may be)
Might I but follow!
If you fly thither over heath and lea,
O honey-seeking bee,
O careless swallow!