No More Learning

_Morris_.
I'm not in love; but altogether posed
I am by lovers.

_Hamish_.
They're a simple folk:
I'm one.

_Morris_.
It's you I'm mainly thinking of.

_Hamish_.
Why, that's an honour, surely.

_Morris_.
Now if I loved
The girl you love, your Jean, (look where she goes
Waiting on drinkers, hearing their loose tongues;
And yet her clean thought takes no more of soil
Than white-hot steel laid among dust can take! )--

_Hamish_.
You not in love, and talking this fine stuff?

_Morris_.
I say, if I loved Jean, I'ld do without
All these vile pleasures of the flesh, your mind
Seems running on for ever: I would think
A thought that was always tasting them would make
The fire a foul thing in me, as the flame
Of burning wood, which has a rare sweet smell,
Is turned to bitter stink when it scorches flesh.

_Hamish_.
Why specially Jean?

_Morris_.
Why Jean? The girl's all spirit!

_Hamish_.
She's a lithe burd, it's true; that, I suppose,
Is why you think her made of spirit,--unless
You've seen her angry: she has a blazing temper. --
But what's a girl's beauty meant for, but to rouse
Lust in a man? And where's the harm in that,--
In loving her because she's beautiful,
And in the way that drives me? --I dare say
My spirit loves her too. But if it does
I don't know what it loves.

_Morris_.
Why, man, her beauty
Is but the visible manners of her spirit;
And this you go to love by the filthy road
Which all the paws and hoofs in the world tread too!
God! And it's Jean whose lover runs with the herd
Of grunting, howling, barking lovers,--Jean! --

_Hamish_.
O spirit, spirit, spirit!