No More Learning

In the morning, horn of huntsman, hoof of steed and laugh of rider,
Spread out cheery from the courtyard till we lost them in the hills,
While herself and other ladies, and her suitors left beside her,
Went a-wandering up the gardens through the laurels and abeles.

XXIV.

Thus, her foot upon the new-mown grass, bareheaded, with the flowing
Of the virginal white vesture gathered closely to her throat,
And the golden ringlets in her neck just quickened by her going,
And appearing to breathe sun for air, and doubting if to float,--

XXV.

With a bunch of dewy maple, which her right hand held above her,
And which trembled a green shadow in betwixt her and the skies,
As she turned her face in going, thus, she drew me on to love her,
And to worship the divineness of the smile hid in her eyes.

XXVI.

For her eyes alone smile constantly; her lips have serious sweetness,
And her front is calm, the dimple rarely ripples on the cheek;
But her deep blue eyes smile constantly, as if they in discreetness
Kept the secret of a happy dream she did not care to speak.

XXVII.

Thus she drew me the first morning, out across into the garden,
And I walked among her noble friends and could not keep behind.
Spake she unto all and unto me--"Behold, I am the warden
Of the song-birds in these lindens, which are cages to their mind.

XXVIII.

"But within this swarded circle into which the lime-walk brings us,
Whence the beeches, rounded greenly, stand away in reverent fear,
I will let no music enter, saving what the fountain sings us
Which the lilies round the basin may seem pure enough to hear.

XXIX.

"The live air that waves the lilies waves the slender jet of water
Like a holy thought sent feebly up from soul of fasting saint:
Whereby lies a marble Silence, sleeping (Lough the sculptor wrought
her),
So asleep she is forgetting to say Hush! --a fancy quaint.

XXX.
"Mark how heavy white her eyelids! not a dream between them lingers;
And the left hand's index droppeth from the lips upon the cheek:
While the right hand,--with the symbol-rose held slack within the
fingers,--
Has fallen backward in the basin--yet this Silence will not speak!

XXXI.

"That the essential meaning growing may exceed the special symbol,
Is the thought as I conceive it: it applies more high and low.
Our true noblemen will often through right nobleness grow humble,
And assert an inward honour by denying outward show. "

XXXII.

"Nay, your Silence," said I, "truly, holds her symbol-rose but slackly,
Yet _she holds it_, or would scarcely be a Silence to our ken:
And your nobles wear their ermine on the outside, or walk blackly
In the presence of the social law as mere ignoble men.

XXXIII.

"Let the poets dream such dreaming! madam, in these British islands
'T is the substance that wanes ever, 't is the symbol that exceeds.
Soon we shall have nought but symbol: and, for statues like this
Silence,
Shall accept the rose's image--in another case, the weed's. "

XXXIV.

"Not so quickly," she retorted,--"I confess, where'er you go, you
Find for things, names--shows for actions, and pure gold for honour
clear:
But when all is run to symbol in the Social, I will throw you
The world's book which now reads dryly, and sit down with Silence
here. "

XXXV.

Half in playfulness she spoke, I thought, and half in indignation;
Friends, who listened, laughed her words off, while her lovers deemed
her fair:
A fair woman, flushed with feeling, in her noble-lighted station
Near the statue's white reposing--and both bathed in sunny air!

XXXVI.