No More Learning

permit it not
That the tyrant of my thought
Be another soul that still
Holds dominion o'er the will,
That would refuse, but can no more, _5
To bend, to tremble, and adore.
Vain idolatry! --I saw,
And gazing, became blind with error;
Weak ambition, which the awe
Of her presence bound to terror! _10
So beautiful she was--and I,
Between my love and jealousy,
Am so convulsed with hope and fear,
Unworthy as it may appear;--
So bitter is the life I live, _15
That, hear me, Hell! I now would give
To thy most detested spirit
My soul, for ever to inherit,
To suffer punishment and pine,
So this woman may be mine. _20
Hear'st thou, Hell! dost thou reject it?
My soul is offered!

DAEMON (UNSEEN):
I accept it.

[TEMPEST, WITH THUNDER AND LIGHTNING. ]

CYPRIAN:
What is this? ye heavens for ever pure,
At once intensely radiant and obscure!
Athwart the aethereal halls _25
The lightning's arrow and the thunder-balls
The day affright,
As from the horizon round,
Burst with earthquake sound,
In mighty torrents the electric fountains;-- _30
Clouds quench the sun, and thunder-smoke
Strangles the air, and fire eclipses Heaven.
Philosophy, thou canst not even
Compel their causes underneath thy yoke:
From yonder clouds even to the waves below _35
The fragments of a single ruin choke
Imagination's flight;
For, on flakes of surge, like feathers light,
The ashes of the desolation, cast
Upon the gloomy blast, _40
Tell of the footsteps of the storm;
And nearer, see, the melancholy form
Of a great ship, the outcast of the sea,
Drives miserably!
And it must fly the pity of the port, _45
Or perish, and its last and sole resort
Is its own raging enemy.
The terror of the thrilling cry
Was a fatal prophecy
Of coming death, who hovers now _50
Upon that shattered prow,
That they who die not may be dying still.
And not alone the insane elements
Are populous with wild portents,
But that sad ship is as a miracle _55
Of sudden ruin, for it drives so fast
It seems as if it had arrayed its form
With the headlong storm.
It strikes--I almost feel the shock,--
It stumbles on a jagged rock,-- _60
Sparkles of blood on the white foam are cast.

[A TEMPEST. ]

ALL EXCLAIM [WITHIN]:
We are all lost!

DAEMON [WITHIN]:
Now from this plank will I
Pass to the land and thus fulfil my scheme.

CYPRIAN:
As in contempt of the elemental rage
A man comes forth in safety, while the ship's _65
Great form is in a watery eclipse
Obliterated from the Oceans page,
And round its wreck the huge sea-monsters sit,
A horrid conclave, and the whistling wave
Is heaped over its carcase, like a grave. _70

[THE DAEMON ENTERS, AS ESCAPED FROM THE SEA. ]

DAEMON [ASIDE]:
It was essential to my purposes
To wake a tumult on the sapphire ocean,
That in this unknown form I might at length
Wipe out the blot of the discomfiture
Sustained upon the mountain, and assail _75
With a new war the soul of Cyprian,
Forging the instruments of his destruction
Even from his love and from his wisdom. --O
Beloved earth, dear mother, in thy bosom
I seek a refuge from the monster who _80
Precipitates itself upon me.

CYPRIAN:
Friend,
Collect thyself; and be the memory
Of thy late suffering, and thy greatest sorrow
But as a shadow of the past,--for nothing
Beneath the circle of the moon, but flows _85
And changes, and can never know repose.

DAEMON:
And who art thou, before whose feet my fate
Has prostrated me?

CYPRIAN:
One who, moved with pity,
Would soothe its stings.

DAEMON:
Oh, that can never be!
No solace can my lasting sorrows find. _90

CYPRIAN:
Wherefore?