No More Learning

Existence would I barter
For a dream so dear as thine,
And smile to die a martyr
On affection's bloodless shrine. _20
Nor would I change for pleasure
That withered hand and ashy cheek,
If my heart enshrined a treasure
Such as forces thine to break.

***


A TALE OF SOCIETY AS IT IS: FROM FACTS, 1811.

[Published (from Esdaile manuscript with title as above) by Rossetti,
"Complete Poetical Works of P. B. S. ", 1870. Rossetti's title is "Mother
and Son". ]

1.
She was an aged woman; and the years
Which she had numbered on her toilsome way
Had bowed her natural powers to decay.
She was an aged woman; yet the ray
Which faintly glimmered through her starting tears, _5
Pressed into light by silent misery,
Hath soul's imperishable energy.
She was a cripple, and incapable
To add one mite to gold-fed luxury:
And therefore did her spirit dimly feel _10
That poverty, the crime of tainting stain,
Would merge her in its depths, never to rise again.

2.
One only son's love had supported her.
She long had struggled with infirmity,
Lingering to human life-scenes; for to die, _15
When fate has spared to rend some mental tie,
Would many wish, and surely fewer dare.
But, when the tyrant's bloodhounds forced the child
For his cursed power unhallowed arms to wield--
Bend to another's will--become a thing _20
More senseless than the sword of battlefield--
Then did she feel keen sorrow's keenest sting;
And many years had passed ere comfort they would bring.

3.
For seven years did this poor woman live
In unparticipated solitude. _25
Thou mightst have seen her in the forest rude
Picking the scattered remnants of its wood.
If human, thou mightst then have learned to grieve.
The gleanings of precarious charity
Her scantiness of food did scarce supply. _30
The proofs of an unspeaking sorrow dwelt
Within her ghastly hollowness of eye:
Each arrow of the season's change she felt.
Yet still she groans, ere yet her race were run,
One only hope: it was--once more to see her son. _35

4.
It was an eve of June, when every star
Spoke peace from Heaven to those on earth that live.
She rested on the moor. 'Twas such an eve
When first her soul began indeed to grieve:
Then he was here; now he is very far. _40
The sweetness of the balmy evening
A sorrow o'er her aged soul did fling,
Yet not devoid of rapture's mingled tear:
A balm was in the poison of the sting.
This aged sufferer for many a year _45
Had never felt such comfort. She suppressed
A sigh--and turning round, clasped William to her breast!

5.