No More Learning

Then the great joys of the Lord
Do not last? Then all this paint
Runs off nature? leaves a board?

XXI.

Who's dead here? No, not she:
Rather I! or whence this damp
Cold corruption's misery?
While my very mourners stamp
Closer in the clods on me.

XXII.

And my mouth is full of dust
Till I cannot speak and curse--
Speak and damn him . . . "Blame's unjust"?
Sin blots out the universe,
All because she would and must?

XXIII.
She, my white rose, dropping off
The high rose-tree branch! and not
That the night-wind blew too rough,
Or the noon-sun burnt too hot,
But, that being a rose--'t was enough!

XXIV.

Then henceforth may earth grow trees!
No more roses! --hard straight lines
To score lies out! none of these
Fluctuant curves, but firs and pines,
Poplars, cedars, cypresses!




END OF THE FOURTH VOLUME.


PRINTED BY
SPOTTISWOODE AND CO. , NEW-STREET SQUARE
LONDON

* * * * *




Transcriber Notes

Archaic and variable spelling and hyphenation are preserved.

Passages in italics indicated by _underscores_.

Greek transliterations indicated by ~tildes~.






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Barrett Browning, Volume IV, by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

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