No More Learning

Yet--yet--one brief relapse, like the last beam _4585
Of dying flames, the stainless air around
Hung silent and serene--a blood-red gleam
Burst upwards, hurling fiercely from the ground
The globed smoke,--I heard the mighty sound
Of its uprise, like a tempestuous ocean; _4590
And through its chasms I saw, as in a swound,
The tyrant's child fall without life or motion
Before his throne, subdued by some unseen emotion. --

17.
And is this death? --The pyre has disappeared,
The Pestilence, the Tyrant, and the throng; _4595
The flames grow silent--slowly there is heard
The music of a breath-suspending song,
Which, like the kiss of love when life is young,
Steeps the faint eyes in darkness sweet and deep;
With ever-changing notes it floats along, _4600
Till on my passive soul there seemed to creep
A melody, like waves on wrinkled sands that leap.

18.
The warm touch of a soft and tremulous hand
Wakened me then; lo! Cythna sate reclined
Beside me, on the waved and golden sand _4605
Of a clear pool, upon a bank o'ertwined
With strange and star-bright flowers, which to the wind
Breathed divine odour; high above, was spread
The emerald heaven of trees of unknown kind,
Whose moonlike blooms and bright fruit overhead _4610
A shadow, which was light, upon the waters shed.

19.
And round about sloped many a lawny mountain
With incense-bearing forests and vast caves
Of marble radiance, to that mighty fountain;
And where the flood its own bright margin laves, _4615
Their echoes talk with its eternal waves,
Which, from the depths whose jagged caverns breed
Their unreposing strife, it lifts and heaves,--
Till through a chasm of hills they roll, and feed
A river deep, which flies with smooth but arrowy speed. _4620

20.
As we sate gazing in a trance of wonder,
A boat approached, borne by the musical air
Along the waves which sung and sparkled under
Its rapid keel--a winged shape sate there,
A child with silver-shining wings, so fair, _4625
That as her bark did through the waters glide,
The shadow of the lingering waves did wear
Light, as from starry beams; from side to side,
While veering to the wind her plumes the bark did guide.

21.
The boat was one curved shell of hollow pearl, _4630
Almost translucent with the light divine
Of her within; the prow and stern did curl
Horned on high, like the young moon supine,
When o'er dim twilight mountains dark with pine,
It floats upon the sunset's sea of beams, _4635
Whose golden waves in many a purple line
Fade fast, till borne on sunlight's ebbing streams,
Dilating, on earth's verge the sunken meteor gleams.

22.
Its keel has struck the sands beside our feet;--
Then Cythna turned to me, and from her eyes _4640
Which swam with unshed tears, a look more sweet
Than happy love, a wild and glad surprise,
Glanced as she spake: 'Ay, this is Paradise
And not a dream, and we are all united!
Lo, that is mine own child, who in the guise _4645
Of madness came, like day to one benighted
In lonesome woods: my heart is now too well requited! '

23.
And then she wept aloud, and in her arms
Clasped that bright Shape, less marvellously fair
Than her own human hues and living charms; _4650
Which, as she leaned in passion's silence there,
Breathed warmth on the cold bosom of the air,
Which seemed to blush and tremble with delight;
The glossy darkness of her streaming hair
Fell o'er that snowy child, and wrapped from sight _4655
The fond and long embrace which did their hearts unite.

24.
Then the bright child, the plumed Seraph came,
And fixed its blue and beaming eyes on mine,
And said, 'I was disturbed by tremulous shame
When once we met, yet knew that I was thine _4660
From the same hour in which thy lips divine
Kindled a clinging dream within my brain,
Which ever waked when I might sleep, to twine
Thine image with HER memory dear--again
We meet; exempted now from mortal fear or pain. _4665

25.
'When the consuming flames had wrapped ye round,
The hope which I had cherished went away;
I fell in agony on the senseless ground,
And hid mine eyes in dust, and far astray
My mind was gone, when bright, like dawning day, _4670
The Spectre of the Plague before me flew,
And breathed upon my lips, and seemed to say,
"They wait for thee, beloved! "--then I knew
The death-mark on my breast, and became calm anew.

26.
'It was the calm of love--for I was dying. _4675
I saw the black and half-extinguished pyre
In its own gray and shrunken ashes lying;
The pitchy smoke of the departed fire
Still hung in many a hollow dome and spire
Above the towers, like night,--beneath whose shade _4680
Awed by the ending of their own desire
The armies stood; a vacancy was made
In expectation's depth, and so they stood dismayed.

27.
'The frightful silence of that altered mood,
The tortures of the dying clove alone, _4685
Till one uprose among the multitude,
And said--"The flood of time is rolling on;
We stand upon its brink, whilst THEY are gone
To glide in peace down death's mysterious stream.
Have ye done well? They moulder, flesh and bone, _4690
Who might have made this life's envenomed dream
A sweeter draught than ye will ever taste, I deem.

28.