No More Learning

Still by the water's edge doth silent stand
The Infanta with the rose-flower in her hand,
Caresses it with eyes as blue as heaven;
Sudden a breeze, such breeze as panting even
From her full heart flings out to field and brake,
Ruffles the waters, bids the rushes shake,
And makes through all their green recesses swell
The massive myrtle and the asphodel.
To the fair child it comes, and tears away
On its strong wing the rose-flower from the spray.
On the wild waters casts it bruised and torn,
And the Infanta only holds a thorn.
Frightened, perplexed, she follows with her eyes
Into the basin where her ruin lies,
Looks up to heaven, and questions of the breeze
That had not feared her highness to displease;
But all the pond is changed; anon so clear,
Now back it swells, as though with rage and fear;
A mimic sea its small waves rise and fall,
And the poor rose is broken by them all.
Its hundred leaves tossed wildly round and round
Beneath a thousand waves are whelmed and drowned;
It was a foundering fleet you might have said;
And the duenna with her face of shade,--
"Madam," for she had marked her ruffled mind,
"All things belong to princes--but God's wind. "

BP. ALEXANDER





SEA-ADVENTURERS' SONG.

_("En partant du Golfe d'Otrante. ")_

[Bk. XXVIII. ]


We told thirty when we started
From port so taut and fine,
But soon our crew were parted,
Till now we number nine.

Tom Robbins, English, tall and straight,
Left us at Aetna light;
He left us to investigate
What made the mountain bright;
"I mean to ask Old Nick himself,
(And here his eye he rolls)
If I can't bring Newcastle pelf
By selling him some coals! "

In Calabree, a lass and cup
Drove scowling Spada wild:
She only held her finger up,
And there he drank and smiled;
And over in Gaeta Bay,
Ascanio--ashore
A fool! --must wed a widow gay
Who'd buried three or four.

At Naples, woe!
poor Ned they hanged--
Hemp neckcloth he disdained--
And prettily we all were banged--
And two more blades remained

To serve the Duke, and row in chains--
Thank saints! 'twas not my cast!
We drank deliverance from pains--
We who'd the ducats fast.

At Malta Dick became a monk--
(What vineyards have those priests! )
And Gobbo to quack-salver sunk,
To leech vile murrained beasts;
And lazy Andre, blown off shore,
Was picked up by the Turk,
And in some harem, you be sure,
Is forced at last to work.

Next, three of us whom nothing daunts,
Marched off with Prince Eugene,
To take Genoa! oh, it vaunts
Girls fit--each one--for queen!
Had they but promised us the pick,
Perchance we had joined, all;
But battering bastions built of brick--
Bah, give me wooden wall!

By Leghorn, twenty caravels
Came 'cross our lonely sail--
Spinoza's Sea-Invincibles!
But, whew! our shots like hail
Made shortish work of galley long
And chubby sailing craft--
Our making ready first to close
Sent them a-spinning aft.

Off Marseilles, ne'er by sun forsook
We friends fell-to as foes!
For Lucca Diavolo mistook
Angelo's wife for Rose,

And hang me! soon the angel slid
The devil in the sea,
And would of lass likewise be rid--
And so we fought it free!

At Palmas eight or so gave slip,
Pescara to pursue,
And more, perchance, had left the ship,
But Algiers loomed in view;
And here we cruised to intercept
Some lucky-laden rogues,
Whose gold-galleons but slowly crept,
So that we trounced the dogs!

And after making war out there,
We made love at "the Gib.