No More Learning

I would wound thee by no touch
Which thy shyness feels as such.
Dost thou mind me, Dear, so much?

V.

Have I not been nigh a mother
To thy sweetness--tell me, Dear?
Have we not loved one another
Tenderly, from year to year,
Since our dying mother mild
Said with accents undefiled,
"Child, be mother to this child"!

VI.

Mother, mother, up in heaven,
Stand up on the jasper sea,
And be witness I have given
All the gifts required of me,--
Hope that blessed me, bliss that crowned,
Love that left me with a wound,
Life itself that turneth round!

VII.

Thou art standing in the room,
In a molten glory shrined
That rays off into the gloom!
But thy smile is bright and bleak
Like cold waves--I cannot speak,
I sob in it, and grow weak.

VIII.

Ghostly mother, keep aloof
One hour longer from my soul,
For I still am thinking of
Earth's warm-beating joy and dole!
On my finger is a ring
Which I still see glittering
When the night hides everything.

IX.

Little sister, thou art pale!
Ah, I have a wandering brain--
But I lose that fever-bale,
And my thoughts grow calm again.
Lean down closer--closer still!
I have words thine ear to fill,
And would kiss thee at my will.

X.

Dear, I heard thee in the spring,
Thee and Robert--through the trees,--
When we all went gathering
Boughs of May-bloom for the bees.
Do not start so! think instead
How the sunshine overhead
Seemed to trickle through the shade.

XI.

What a day it was, that day!
Hills and vales did openly
Seem to heave and throb away
At the sight of the great sky:
And the silence, as it stood
In the glory's golden flood,
Audibly did bud, and bud.

XII.

Through the winding hedgerows green,
How we wandered, I and you,
With the bowery tops shut in,
And the gates that showed the view!
How we talked there; thrushes soft
Sang our praises out, or oft
Bleatings took them from the croft:

XIII.

Till the pleasure grown too strong
Left me muter evermore,
And, the winding road being long,
I walked out of sight, before,
And so, wrapt in musings fond,
Issued (past the wayside pond)
On the meadow-lands beyond.

XIV.

I sate down beneath the beech
Which leans over to the lane,
And the far sound of your speech
Did not promise any pain;
And I blessed you full and free,
With a smile stooped tenderly
O'er the May-flowers on my knee.