No More Learning

XVII.

"Hear me forswear his roof by night,
His bread and salt by day,
His talkings at the wood-fire hearth,
His greetings by the way,
His answering looks, his systemed books,
All man, for aye and aye.


XVIII.

"That so my purged, once human heart,
From all the human rent,
May gather strength to pledge and drink
Your wine of wonderment,
While you pardon me all blessingly
The woe mine Adam sent.


XIX.

"And I shall feel your unseen looks
Innumerous, constant, deep
And soft as haunted Adam once,
Though sadder, round me creep,--
As slumbering men have mystic ken
Of watchers on their sleep.


XX.

"And ever, when I lift my brow
At evening to the sun,
No voice of woman or of child
Recording 'Day is done. '
Your silences shall a love express,
More deep than such an one. "


PART THE SECOND.

SHOWING TO WHOM THE VOW WAS DECLARED.


I.

The poet's vow was inly sworn,
The poet's vow was told.
He shared among his crowding friends
The silver and the gold,
They clasping bland his gift,--his hand
In a somewhat slacker hold.


II.
They wended forth, the crowding friends,
With farewells smooth and kind.
They wended forth, the solaced friends,
And left but twain behind:
One loved him true as brothers do,
And one was Rosalind.


III.

He said, "My friends have wended forth
With farewells smooth and kind;
Mine oldest friend, my plighted bride,
Ye need not stay behind:
Friend, wed my fair bride for my sake,
And let my lands ancestral make
A dower for Rosalind.


IV.

"And when beside your wassail board
Ye bless your social lot,
I charge you that the giver be
In all his gifts forgot,
Or alone of all his words recall
The last,--Lament me not. "


V.

She looked upon him silently
With her large, doubting eyes,
Like a child that never knew but love
Whom words of wrath surprise,
Till the rose did break from either cheek
And the sudden tears did rise.


VI.

She looked upon him mournfully,
While her large eyes were grown
Yet larger with the steady tears,
Till, all his purpose known,
She turned slow, as she would go--
The tears were shaken down.


VII.

She turned slow, as she would go,
Then quickly turned again,
And gazing in his face to seek
Some little touch of pain,
"I thought," she said,--but shook her head,--
She tried that speech in vain.


VIII.

"I thought--but I am half a child
And very sage art thou--
The teachings of the heaven and earth
Should keep us soft and low:
They have drawn _my_ tears in early years,
Or ere I wept--as now.


IX.

"But now that in thy face I read
Their cruel homily,
Before their beauty I would fain
Untouched, unsoftened be,--
If I indeed could look on even
The senseless, loveless earth and heaven
As thou canst look on me!