No More Learning

--"O maiden lithe and lone, what may
Thy name and lineage be,
Who so resemblest by this ray
My darling? --Art thou she? "

The Shape: "Thy bride remains within
Her father's grange and grove. "
--"Thou speakest rightly," I broke in,
"Thou art not she I love. "

--"Nay: though thy bride remains inside
Her father's walls," said she,
"The one most dear is with thee here,
For thou dost love but me. "

Then I: "But she, my only choice,
Is now at Kingsbere Grove? "
Again her soft mysterious voice:
"I am thy only Love. "

Thus still she vouched, and still I said,
"O sprite, that cannot be! " . . .
It was as if my bosom bled,
So much she troubled me.

The sprite resumed: "Thou hast transferred
To her dull form awhile
My beauty, fame, and deed, and word,
My gestures and my smile.

"O fatuous man, this truth infer,
Brides are not what they seem;
Thou lovest what thou dreamest her;
I am thy very dream! "

--"O then," I answered miserably,
Speaking as scarce I knew,
"My loved one, I must wed with thee
If what thou say'st be true!
"

She, proudly, thinning in the gloom:
"Though, since troth-plight began,
I've ever stood as bride to groom,
I wed no mortal man! "

Thereat she vanished by the Cross
That, entering Kingsbere town,
The two long lanes form, near the fosse
Below the faneless Down.

--When I arrived and met my bride,
Her look was pinched and thin,
As if her soul had shrunk and died,
And left a waste within.



HER REPROACH


CON the dead page as 'twere live love: press on!
Cold wisdom's words will ease thy track for thee;
Aye, go; cast off sweet ways, and leave me wan
To biting blasts that are intent on me.

But if thy object Fame's far summits be,
Whose inclines many a skeleton o'erlies
That missed both dream and substance, stop and see
How absence wears these cheeks and dims these eyes!

It surely is far sweeter and more wise
To water love, than toil to leave anon
A name whose glory-gleam will but advise
Invidious minds to quench it with their own,

And over which the kindliest will but stay
A moment, musing, "He, too, had his day! "

WESTBOURNE PARK VILLAS,
1867.



THE INCONSISTENT


I SAY, "She was as good as fair,"
When standing by her mound;
"Such passing sweetness," I declare,
"No longer treads the ground. "
I say, "What living Love can catch
Her bloom and bonhomie,
And what in newer maidens match
Her olden warmth to me! "

--There stands within yon vestry-nook
Where bonded lovers sign,
Her name upon a faded book
With one that is not mine.
To him she breathed the tender vow
She once had breathed to me,
But yet I say, "O love, even now
Would I had died for thee! "



A BROKEN APPOINTMENT


YOU did not come,
And marching Time drew on, and wore me numb. --
Yet less for loss of your dear presence there
Than that I thus found lacking in your make
That high compassion which can overbear
Reluctance for pure lovingkindness' sake
Grieved I, when, as the hope-hour stroked its sum,
You did not come.

You love not me,
And love alone can lend you loyalty;
--I know and knew it. But, unto the store
Of human deeds divine in all but name,
Was it not worth a little hour or more
To add yet this: Once, you, a woman, came
To soothe a time-torn man; even though it be
You love not me?