No More Learning

In visioned slumber for awhile
I seem again to share thy smile, _40
I seem to hang upon thy tone.
Again you say, 'Confide in me,
For I am thine, and thine alone,
And thine must ever, ever be. '
But oh! awak'ning still anew, _45
Athwart my enanguished senses flew
A fiercer, deadlier agony!

[End of "Posthumous Fragments of Margaret Nicholson". ]

***


STANZA FROM A TRANSLATION OF THE MARSEILLAISE HYMN.

[Published by Forman, "Poetical Works of P. B. S. ", 1876; dated 1810. ]

Tremble, Kings despised of man!
Ye traitors to your Country,
Tremble! Your parricidal plan
At length shall meet its destiny. . .
We all are soldiers fit to fight, _5
But if we sink in glory's night
Our mother Earth will give ye new
The brilliant pathway to pursue
Which leads to Death or Victory. . .

***


BIGOTRY'S VICTIM.

[Published (without title) by Hogg, "Life of Shelley", 1858; dated
1809-10. The title is Rossetti's (1870). ]

1.
Dares the lama, most fleet of the sons of the wind,
The lion to rouse from his skull-covered lair?
When the tiger approaches can the fast-fleeting hind
Repose trust in his footsteps of air?
No! Abandoned he sinks in a trance of despair, _5
The monster transfixes his prey,
On the sand flows his life-blood away;
Whilst India's rocks to his death-yells reply,
Protracting the horrible harmony.

2.
Yet the fowl of the desert, when danger encroaches, _10
Dares fearless to perish defending her brood,
Though the fiercest of cloud-piercing tyrants approaches
Thirsting--ay, thirsting for blood;
And demands, like mankind, his brother for food;
Yet more lenient, more gentle than they; _15
For hunger, not glory, the prey
Must perish. Revenge does not howl in the dead.
Nor ambition with fame crown the murderer's head.

3.