No More Learning

'Then, like the forests of some pathless mountain,
Which from remotest glens two warring winds
Involve in fire which not the loosened fountain
Of broadest floods might quench, shall all the kinds _1075
Of evil, catch from our uniting minds
The spark which must consume them;--Cythna then
Will have cast off the impotence that binds
Her childhood now, and through the paths of men
Will pass, as the charmed bird that haunts the serpent's den. _1080

47.
'We part! --O Laon, I must dare nor tremble,
To meet those looks no more! --Oh, heavy stroke!
Sweet brother of my soul! can I dissemble
The agony of this thought? '--As thus she spoke
The gathered sobs her quivering accents broke, _1085
And in my arms she hid her beating breast.
I remained still for tears--sudden she woke
As one awakes from sleep, and wildly pressed
My bosom, her whole frame impetuously possessed.

48.
'We part to meet again--but yon blue waste, _1090
Yon desert wide and deep, holds no recess,
Within whose happy silence, thus embraced
We might survive all ills in one caress:
Nor doth the grave--I fear 'tis passionless--
Nor yon cold vacant Heaven:--we meet again _1095
Within the minds of men, whose lips shall bless
Our memory, and whose hopes its light retain
When these dissevered bones are trodden in the plain. '

49.
I could not speak, though she had ceased, for now
The fountains of her feeling, swift and deep, _1100
Seemed to suspend the tumult of their flow;
So we arose, and by the starlight steep
Went homeward--neither did we speak nor weep,
But, pale, were calm with passion--thus subdued
Like evening shades that o'er the mountains creep, _1105
We moved towards our home; where, in this mood,
Each from the other sought refuge in solitude.


CANTO 3.

1.
What thoughts had sway o'er Cythna's lonely slumber
That night, I know not; but my own did seem
As if they might ten thousand years outnumber _1110
Of waking life, the visions of a dream
Which hid in one dim gulf the troubled stream
Of mind; a boundless chaos wild and vast,
Whose limits yet were never memory's theme:
And I lay struggling as its whirlwinds passed, _1115
Sometimes for rapture sick, sometimes for pain aghast.

2.
Two hours, whose mighty circle did embrace
More time than might make gray the infant world,
Rolled thus, a weary and tumultuous space:
When the third came, like mist on breezes curled, _1120
From my dim sleep a shadow was unfurled:
Methought, upon the threshold of a cave
I sate with Cythna; drooping briony, pearled
With dew from the wild streamlet's shattered wave,
Hung, where we sate to taste the joys which Nature gave. _1125

3.
We lived a day as we were wont to live,
But Nature had a robe of glory on,
And the bright air o'er every shape did weave
Intenser hues, so that the herbless stone,
The leafless bough among the leaves alone, _1130
Had being clearer than its own could be,
And Cythna's pure and radiant self was shown,
In this strange vision, so divine to me,
That if I loved before, now love was agony.

4.
Morn fled, noon came, evening, then night descended, _1135
And we prolonged calm talk beneath the sphere
Of the calm moon--when suddenly was blended
With our repose a nameless sense of fear;
And from the cave behind I seemed to hear
Sounds gathering upwards! --accents incomplete, _1140
And stifled shrieks,--and now, more near and near,
A tumult and a rush of thronging feet
The cavern's secret depths beneath the earth did beat.

5.
The scene was changed, and away, away, away!
Through the air and over the sea we sped, _1145
And Cythna in my sheltering bosom lay,
And the winds bore me--through the darkness spread
Around, the gaping earth then vomited
Legions of foul and ghastly shapes, which hung
Upon my flight; and ever, as we fled, _1150
They plucked at Cythna--soon to me then clung
A sense of actual things those monstrous dreams among.

6.
And I lay struggling in the impotence
Of sleep, while outward life had burst its bound,
Though, still deluded, strove the tortured sense _1155
To its dire wanderings to adapt the sound
Which in the light of morn was poured around
Our dwelling; breathless, pale and unaware
I rose, and all the cottage crowded found
With armed men, whose glittering swords were bare, _1160
And whose degraded limbs the tyrant's garb did wear.

7.
And, ere with rapid lips and gathered brow
I could demand the cause--a feeble shriek--
It was a feeble shriek, faint, far and low,
Arrested me--my mien grew calm and meek, _1165
And grasping a small knife, I went to seek
That voice among the crowd--'twas Cythna's cry!
Beneath most calm resolve did agony wreak
Its whirlwind rage:--so I passed quietly
Till I beheld, where bound, that dearest child did lie.