No More Learning

We often paused, and looking back, we saw
The clefts and openings in the hills all fill'd
With the blue valley and the glistening brooks,
And with the low dark groves--a land of Love;
Where Love was worshipp'd upon every height,
Where Love was worshipp'd under every tree--
A land of promise, flowing with the milk
And honey of delicious memories
Down to the sea, as far as eye could ken,
From verge to verge it was a holy land,
Still growing holier as you near'd the bay,
For where the temple stood. When we had reach'd
The grassy platform on some hill, I stoop'd,
I gather'd the wild herbs, and for her brows
And mine wove chaplets of the self-same flower,
Which she took smiling, and with my work there
Crown'd her clear forehead. Once or twice she told me
(For I remember all things), to let grow
The flowers that run poison in their veins.
She said, 'The evil flourish in the world';
Then playfully she gave herself the lie:
'Nothing in nature is unbeautiful,
So, brother, pluck and spare not. ' So I wove
Even the dull-blooded poppy, 'whose red flower
Hued with the scarlet of a fierce sunrise,
Like to the wild youth of an evil king,
Is without sweetness, but who crowns himself
Above the secret poisons of his heart
In his old age'--a graceful thought of hers
Graven on my fancy! As I said, with these
She crown'd her forehead. O how like a nymph,
A stately mountain-nymph, she look'd! how native
Unto the hills she trod on! What an angel!
How clothed with beams! My eyes, fix'd upon hers,
Almost forgot even to move again.
My spirit leap'd as with those thrills of bliss
That shoot across the soul in prayer, and show us
That we are surely heard. Methought a light
Burst from the garland I had woven, and stood
A solid glory on her bright black hair:
A light, methought, broke from her dark, dark eyes,
And shot itself into the singing winds;
A light, methought, flash'd even from her white robe,
As from a glass in the sun, and fell about
My footsteps on the mountains.

About sunset
We came unto the hill of woe, so call'd
Because the legend ran that, long time since,
One rainy night, when every wind blew loud,
A woful man had thrust his wife and child
With shouts from off the bridge, and following, plunged
Into the dizzy chasm below. Below,
Sheer thro' the black-wall'd cliff the rapid brook
Shot down his inner thunders, built above
With matted bramble and the shining gloss
Of ivy-leaves, whose low-hung tresses, dipp'd
In the fierce stream, bore downward with the wave.
The path was steep and loosely strewn with crags
We mounted slowly: yet to both of us
It was delight, not hindrance: unto both
Delight from hardship to be overcome,
And scorn of perilous seeming: unto me
Intense delight and rapture that I breathed,
As with a sense of nigher Deity,
With her to whom all outward fairest things
Were by the busy mind referr'd, compared,
As bearing no essential fruits of excellence.
Save as they were the types and shadowings
Of hers--and then that I became to her
A tutelary angel as she rose,
And with a fearful self-impelling joy
Saw round her feet the country far away,
Beyond the nearest mountain's bosky brows,
Burst into open prospect--heath and hill,
And hollow lined and wooded to the lips--
And steep down walls of battlemented rock
Girded with broom or shiver'd into peaks--
And glory of broad waters interfused,
Whence rose as it were breath and steam of gold;
And over all the great wood rioting
And climbing, starr'd at slender intervals
With blossom tufts of purest white; and last,
Framing the mighty landskip to the West,
A purple range of purple cones, between
Whose interspaces gush'd, in blinding bursts,
The incorporate light of sun and sea.

At length,
Upon the tremulous bridge, that from beneath
Seemed with a cobweb firmament to link
The earthquake-shattered chasm, hung with shrubs,
We passed with tears of rapture. All the West,
And even unto the middle South, was ribb'd
And barr'd with bloom on bloom. The sun beneath,
Held for a space 'twixt cloud and wave, shower'd down
Rays of a mighty circle, weaving over
That varied wilderness a tissue of light
Unparallel'd. On the other side the moon,
Half-melted into thin blue air, stood still
And pale and fibrous as a wither'd leaf,
Nor yet endured in presence of his eyes
To imbue his lustre; most unloverlike;
Since in his absence full of light and joy
And giving light to others. But this chiefest,
Next to her presence whom I loved so well,
Spoke loudly, even into my inmost heart,
As to my outward hearing: the loud stream,
Forth issuing from his portals in the crag
(A visible link unto the home of my heart),
Ran amber toward the West, and nigh the sea,
Parting my own loved mountains, was received
Shorn of its strength, into the sympathy
Of that small bay, which into open main
Glow'd intermingling close beneath the sun
Spirit of Love! That little hour was bound,
Shut in from Time, and dedicate to thee;
Thy fires from heav'n had touch'd it, and the earth
They fell on became hallow'd evermore.

We turn'd: our eyes met: her's were bright, and mine
Were dim with floating tears, that shot the sunset,
In light rings round me; and my name was borne
Upon her breath. Henceforth my name has been
A hallow'd memory, like the names of old;
A center'd, glory-circled memory,
And a peculiar treasure, brooking not
Exchange or currency; and in that hour
A hope flow'd round me, like a golden mist
Charm'd amid eddies of melodious airs,
A moment, ere the onward whirlwind shatter it,
Waver'd and floated--which was less than Hope,
Because it lack'd the power of perfect Hope;
But which was more and higher than all Hope,
Because all other Hope hath lower aim;
Even that this name to which her seraph lips
Did lend such gentle utterance, this one name
In some obscure hereafter, might inwreathe
(How lovelier, nobler then! ) her life, her love,
With my life, love, soul, spirit and heart and strength.

'Brother,' she said, 'let this be call'd henceforth
The Hill of Hope'; and I replied: 'O sister,
My will is one with thine; the Hill of Hope. '
Nevertheless, we did not change the name.

Love lieth deep; Love dwells not in lip-depths:
Love wraps her wings on either side the heart,
Constraining it with kisses close and warm,
Absorbing all the incense of sweet thoughts
So that they pass not to the shrine of sound.
Else had the life of that delighted hour
Drunk in the largeness of the utterance
Of Love; but how should earthly measure mete
The heavenly unmeasured or unlimited Love,
Which scarce can tune his high majestic sense
Unto the thunder-song that wheels the spheres;
Scarce living in the Aeolian harmony,
And flowing odour of the spacious air;
Scarce housed in the circle of this earth:
Be cabin'd up in words and syllables,
Which waste with the breath that made 'em.
Sooner earth
Might go round heaven, and the straight girth of Time
Inswathe the fullness of Eternity,
Than language grasp the infinite of Love.