No More Learning

21

? THROUGH the casement a noble-child saw
In the spring-time golden and green,
As he harked to the swallow's lore,
And looked so rejoiced and keen.
A minstrel. --Minstrel here!
Come give me thy loveliest lay.
The child inclined his ear,
And then grew weary and gray.
Oh 1 why did he sing me that song,
I threw him the ring from my hand
Bitter and treacherous wrong
That sought me with fetters to brand.
No longer the flowers are gay,
The springtime hath lost its caress,
Alone I will dream to-day,
Weep in the silent recess.
22

? FROM
THE YEAR OF THE SOUL

?
? i
\
After Vintage
COMB in the death-foreboded park, to view
How yonder smiling bank in radiance shimmers,
The virgin cloudlets' unexpected blue
Upon the tarn and tinted pathway glimmers.
There, take the darkling gold, the gentle gray
From birches and from box--the zephyrs sway,
Few lingering roses yet their perfumes breathe,
Select them, kiss them and a crown enwreathe.
Do not forget these asters that remain,
The scarlet leafage round the tendrils twining,
And all the rests of verdant life combining,
Resolve them in the soft autumnal vein.
25

?
NEATH trembling tree tops to and fro we wander
Along the beech-grove, nearly to the bower,
And see within the silent meadow yonder,
The almond tree a second time in flower.
We search for seats by cooling shades deserted,
There, where never strangers' voices fluster,
Our arms entwined, our eyes in dreams averted,
We steep our souls in gentle lingering lustre.
We feel so grateful, when to soft discourses
Of tree-tops, slanting rays towards us travel,
And only look, and listen when in pauses,
The ripened fruit resounds upon the gravel.
26

? LET us surround the silent pool
Wherein the water ways commingle,
You seek my chary soul to kindle:
A breeze o'erwafts us chaste and cool.
Prom leaflets that bedeck the ground
Renewed and goodly scents arise,
The coloured volume I expound,
While you repeat the words I prize.
But can you glean the silent sorrows,
And unto deeper joys attain?
With shaded eyes your vision follows
The gentle swans' receding train.
TO-DAY we will not cross the garden railing,
For sometimes swiftly, yet in ways unclear,
This soft caressing or this sweet exhaling,
With long-forgotten joy again draws near:
And thus it brings us ghosts which goad and harass,
And anguish rendering weary and afraid.
Behold beneath the tree upon the terrace
The many corpses from the tempest's raid.
From off the gateway's rusting iron asters,
5The birds take flight to far sequestered greens,
? And others shiv'ring on the stone pilasters
* Drink raindrops from the hollow flower-steens,
27

? The Conquest of Summer
THE blue-toned campions and the blood-red poppies
Escape the murmuring and fleeting grain!
O wander without brooding through these valleys,
Through every oft-entwining path again.
Bestow no heed to signs upon the beeches,
The hand that carved them once now hangs effete,
And be not deaf to other names and speeches:
To young and fresher stems your steps entreat.
Forget the anguish and the ancient bleedings,
The wounds engendered by the thorny rind,
And leaves of arid hours, and empty pleadings,
O'ertrample them and leave them all behind.