No More Learning

Shall I say?
What tragedy of petty care and sorrow?
Ye all know, who have lived and loved: if nay,
Then those will know who live and love tomorrow.
But here at least is what this opal said,
The fifth in number: and the next two bore
My fancy toward that dim world of the dead,
Where waiting spirits muse the past life o'er_:


FIFTH OPAL

I dreamed my kisses on your hair
Turned into roses. Circling bloom
Crowned the loose-lifted tresses there.
"O Love," I cried, "forever
Dwell wreathed, and perfume-haunted
By my heart's deep honey-breath! "
But even as I bending looked, I saw
The roses were not; and, instead, there lay
Pale, feathered flakes and scentless
Ashes upon your hair!


SIXTH OPAL

The love I gave, the love I gave,
Wherewith I sought to win you--
Ah, long and close to you it clave
With life and soul and sinew!
My gentleness with scorn you cursed:
You knew not what I gave.
The strongest man may die of thirst:
My love is in its grave!


SEVENTH OPAL

You say these jewels were accurst--
With evil omen fraught.
You should have known it from the first!
This was the truth they taught:

No treasured thing in heaven or earth
Holds potency more weird
Than our hearts hold, that throb from birth
With wavering flames insphered.

And when from me the gems you took,
On that strange April day,
My nature, too, I gave, that shook
With passion's fateful play.

The mingled fate my love should give
In these mute emblems shone,
That more intensely burn and live--
While I am turned to stone.
V

_Listen now to what is said
By the eighth opal, flashing red
And pale, by turns, with every breath--
The voice of the lover after death. _


EIGHTH OPAL

I did not know before
That we dead could rise and walk;
That our voices, as of yore,
Would blend in gentle talk.

I did not know her eyes
Would so haunt mine after death,
Or that she could hear my sighs,
Low as the harp-string's breath.

But, ah, last night we met!
From our stilly trance we rose,
Thrilled with all the old regret--
The grieving that God knows.

She asked: "Am I forgiven? "--
"And dost thou forgive? " I said,
Ah! how long for joy we'd striven!
But now our hearts were dead.

Alas, for the lips I kissed
And the sweet hope, long ago!
On her grave chill hangs the mist;
On mine, white lies the snow.


VI

_Hearkening still, I hear this strain
From the ninth opal's varied vein:_


NINTH OPAL

In the mountains of Mexico,
Where the barren volcanoes throw
Their fierce peaks high to the sky,
With the strength of a tawny brute
That sees heaven but to defy,
And the soft, white hand of the snow
Touches and makes them mute,--

Firm in the clasp of the ground
The opal is found.
By the struggle of frost and fire
Created, yet caught in a spell
From which only human desire
Can free it, what passion profound
In its dim, sweet bosom may dwell!

So was it with us, I think,
Whose souls were formed on the brink
Of a crater, where rain and flame
Had mingled and crystallized.
One venturous day Love came;
Found us; and bound with a link
Of gold the jewels he prized.