No More Learning

THOSE WHO LOVE


Those who love the most
Do not talk of their love;
Francesca, Guenevere,
Dierdre, Iseult, Heloise
In the fragrant gardens of heaven
Are silent, or speak, if at all,
Of fragile, inconsequent things.

And a woman I used to know
Who loved one man from her youth,
Against the strength of the fates
Fighting in lonely pride,
Never spoke of this thing,
But hearing his name by chance,
A light would pass over her face.




TWO SONGS FOR SOLITUDE


I

~The Crystal Gazer~

I shall gather myself into myself again,
I shall take my scattered selves and make them one,
I shall fuse them into a polished crystal ball
Where I can see the moon and the flashing sun.

I shall sit like a sibyl, hour after hour intent,
Watching the future come and the present go--
And the little shifting pictures of people rushing
In tiny self-importance to and fro.


II

~The Solitary~

My heart has grown rich with the passing of years,
I have less need now than when I was young
To share myself with every comer,
Or shape my thoughts into words with my tongue.

It is one to me that they come or go
If I have myself and the drive of my will,
And strength to climb on a summer night
And watch the stars swarm over the hill.

Let them think I love them more than I do,
Let them think I care, though I go alone,
If it lifts their pride, what is it to me
Who am self-complete as a flower or a stone?




LOUIS UNTERMEYER




MONOLOG FROM A MATTRESS

_Heinrich Heine aetat 56, loquitur:_


Can that be you, _la mouche? _ Wait till I lift
This palsied eye-lid and make sure. . . . Ah, true.
Come in, dear fly, and pardon my delay
In thus existing; I can promise you
Next time you come you'll find no dying poet--
Without sufficient spleen to see me through,
The joke becomes too tedious a jest.
I am afraid my mind is dull to-day;
I have that--something--heavier on my chest
And then, you see, I've been exchanging thoughts
With Doctor Franz.
He talked of Kant and Hegel
As though he'd nursed them both through whooping cough
And, as he left, he let his finger shake
Too playfully, as though to say, "Now off
With that long face--you've years and years to live. "
I think he thinks so. But, for Heaven's sake,
Don't credit it--and never tell Mathilde.
Poor dear, she has enough to bear already. . . .

This _was_ a month! During my lonely weeks
One person actually climbed the stairs
To seek a cripple. It was Berlioz--
But Berlioz always was original.
Meissner was also here; he caught me unawares,
Scribbling to my old mother. "What! " he cried,
"Is the old lady of the _Dammthor_ still alive?
And do you write her still? " "Each month or so. "
"And is she not unhappy then, to find
How wretched you must be?