No More Learning

"She saw you in the magic glass
The hour that she has might,
As you rode across the purple heath,
Honour and armour bright.
Step in, step in, my lover bold
And come to the West with me
Where the young nymphs play in the wave and lift
Their white arms from the sea;
And the Tritons chase the laughing rout
And swim by the vessel's side,
Blowing on horns confusedly,
Or shouting words of pride.
You hear it now, but the time will come
When you shall hear no more
The ceaseless wash of a dreaming sea,
Its ripples on the shore.
Oh! follow, follow the sinking sun
And the great white Evening Star,
A magic wind shall breathe behind
Our sail, and bear us far. "

He doffed his red-plumed casque of steel,
All flaxen was his hair,
And he was clad from throat to heel
In the armour princes wear,
From throat to heel in silver mail
Like a shining prince in a fairy-tale.

The witch Hegertha o'er him bent,
(Ah! God, her face was fair)
Her breath blew on him like a scent,
She touched him with her hair.
There was no stronger witch than this,
And she gave the Knight her first kiss.
And he was bound to her sword and hand,
To do whatever she might command.

Then up to her full height she drew,
Down poured her hair like wine,
Her pale, proud face looked sadly through
--A moon in a wood of pine--
She breathed a spell in a low, sweet tone
Which none of woman born could disown.
And he was bound to her side till death
By the spell just uttered above her breath.

She drew his soul forth with her eyes,
As a drinker slakes his drouth,
A little smile played sorrowful, wise,
About her rose-red mouth.
She stooped down and called his soul forth,
And left him naught but his body's earth.
And he was bound to her evermore
By the soul he lost and the word he swore.
For evermore and evermore
In the chamber by the sea,
Till death should break the spell-bound door
And end his slavery;
In the chamber strewn with flowers in bloom
With a heavy scent like death,
Echoing ever the song of doom
Which the sad sea moaned beneath.
For evermore and evermore
Till life ceased in his side,
Bound to the room and the rose-strewn floor
And the strange, unholy bride.

And naught could save him now, when once the spell
Had fallen on him, binding limbs and will,
Where he sat listening to the sad sea swell,
Amid the roses which no time could kill.
Naught could restore lost courage to his eyes,
The Knightly ardour that he used to feel,
Or make his heart the seat of high emprise,
Or nerve his hand to grasp the shining steel.
Whether she kept him fast by her enchantment,
Or drove him forth to roam death-pale and weeping,
Naught could remind him what his life's fair grant meant,
Now that his soul was in Hegertha's keeping.




The Dreamer.


This is the dream of the Dreamer
With the grave thought-sunken eyes,
Which he dreamed between sleeping and waking,
Between the night and the making
Of dawn . . . and he dreamed in this wise:

To the gate of the dawn came a chariot
Which four black stallions were drawing,
And a spirit charioteer,
With the burning eyes of a seer,
Held them impatiently pawing.

He mounted the floor of the chariot,
And the Spirit drew together
His reins, his strong grip tight'ning,
And his thong flashed out like a lightning,
And the horses rushed up to aether.

The Dreamer was caught into space
With a pang as of ending or birth,
And lo! clouds builded above him,
And beneath him soundless and moving
The sea of his own little earth.

They clove the walls of the clouds,
And snorted each coal black stallion
Nursed by the Spirit, whose hair
Streamed out like a banner, and bare
In the night was the moon--a medallion

And then an ice-sheathed corpse
With ancient glaciers and snouted
Craters of fires extinct,
Chain on chain of them linked.
And the Lord of the Chariot shouted

And shook out his hissing lash
Over the backs of the four
Till they whirled up faster and faster,
Till the sun became vaster and vaster,
And its flames leapt out with a roar

Of mountains, subsident, resurging,
Innumerable, ceaseless of action,
Years and years into space. .