No More Learning

By such wrong and woe exhausted--what I suffered and occasioned,--
As a wild horse through a city runs with lightning in his eyes,
And then dashing at a church's cold and passive wall, impassioned,
Strikes the death into his burning brain, and blindly drops and dies--

LXXXVIII.

So I fell, struck down before her--do you blame me, friend, for
weakness?
'T was my strength of passion slew me! --fell before her like a stone;
Fast the dreadful world rolled from me on its roaring wheels of
blackness:
When the light came I was lying in this chamber and alone.

LXXXIX.

Oh, of course she charged her lacqueys to bear out the sickly burden,
And to cast it from her scornful sight, but not _beyond_ the gate;
She is too kind to be cruel, and too haughty not to pardon
Such a man as I; 't were something to be level to her hate.

XC.

But for me--you now are conscious why, my friend, I write this letter,
How my life is read all backward, and the charm of life undone.
I shall leave her house at dawn; I would to-night, if I were better--
And I charge my soul to hold my body strengthened for the sun.

XCI.

When the sun has dyed the oriel, I depart, with no last gazes,
No weak moanings (one word only, left in writing for her hands),
Out of reach of all derision, and some unavailing praises,
To make front against this anguish in the far and foreign lands.

XCII.

Blame me not. I would not squander life in grief--I am abstemious.
I but nurse my spirit's falcon that its wing may soar again.
There's no room for tears of weakness in the blind eyes of a Phemius:
Into work the poet kneads them, and he does not die _till then_.


CONCLUSION.

I.

Bertram finished the last pages, while along the silence ever
Still in hot and heavy splashes fell the tears on every leaf.
Having ended, he leans backward in his chair, with lips that quiver
From the deep unspoken, ay, and deep unwritten thoughts of grief.

II.

Soh! how still the lady standeth! 'T is a dream--a dream of mercies!
'Twixt the purple lattice-curtains how she standeth still and pale!
'T is a vision, sure, of mercies, sent to soften his self curses,
Sent to sweep a patient quiet o'er the tossing of his wail.

III.

"Eyes," he said, "now throbbing through me! are ye eyes that did undo
me?
Shining eyes, like antique jewels set in Parian statue-stone!
Underneath that calm white forehead are ye ever burning torrid
O'er the desolate sand-desert of my heart and life undone?