No More Learning

Had you fancies
From their glances,
That the grave would quickly screen
"Sweetest eyes were ever seen"?

IX.

No reply. The fountain's warble
In the courtyard sounds alone.
As the water to the marble
So my heart falls with a moan
From love-sighing
To this dying.
Death forerunneth Love to win
"Sweetest eyes were ever seen. "

X.

_Will_ you come? When I'm departed
Where all sweetnesses are hid,
Where thy voice, my tender-hearted,
Will not lift up either lid.
Cry, O lover,
Love is over!
Cry, beneath the cypress green,
"Sweetest eyes were ever seen! "

XI.

When the angelus is ringing,
Near the convent will you walk,
And recall the choral singing
Which brought angels down our talk?
Spirit-shriven
I viewed Heaven,
Till you smiled--"Is earth unclean,
Sweetest eyes were ever seen? "

XII.
When beneath the palace-lattice
You ride slow as you have done,
And you see a face there that is
Not the old familiar one,--
Will you oftly
Murmur softly,
"Here ye watched me morn and e'en,
Sweetest eyes were ever seen! "

XIII.

When the palace-ladies, sitting
Round your gittern, shall have said,
"Poet, sing those verses written
For the lady who is dead,"
Will you tremble
Yet dissemble,--
Or sing hoarse, with tears between,
"Sweetest eyes were ever seen"?

XIV.

"Sweetest eyes! " how sweet in flowings
The repeated cadence is!
Though you sang a hundred poems,
Still the best one would be this.
I can hear it
'Twixt my spirit
And the earth-noise intervene--
"Sweetest eyes were ever seen! "

XV.

But the priest waits for the praying,
And the choir are on their knees,
And the soul must pass away in
Strains more solemn-high than these.
_Miserere_
For the weary!
Oh, no longer for Catrine
"Sweetest eyes were ever seen! "

XVI.

Keep my riband, take and keep it,
(I have loosed it from my hair)[1]
Feeling, while you overweep it,
Not alone in your despair,
Since with saintly
Watch unfaintly
Out of heaven shall o'er you lean
"Sweetest eyes were ever seen. "

XVII.

But--but _now_--yet unremoved
Up to heaven, they glisten fast;
You may cast away, Beloved,
In your future all my past:
Such old phrases
May be praises
For some fairer bosom-queen--
"Sweetest eyes were ever seen!