No More Learning

Dear the boon to Fancy given,
Retracted whilst it's granted:
Sweet the rose which lives in Heaven, _10
Although on earth 'tis planted,
Where its honours blow,
While by earth's slaves the leaves are riven
Which die the while they glow.

3.
Age cannot Love destroy, _15
But perfidy can blast the flower,
Even when in most unwary hour
It blooms in Fancy's bower.
Age cannot Love destroy,
But perfidy can rend the shrine _20
In which its vermeil splendours shine.

NOTES:
Love's Rose--The title is Rossetti's, 1870.
_2 not through Esdaile manuscript; they this, 1858.

***


EYES: A FRAGMENT.

[Published by Rossetti, "Complete Poetical Works of P. B. S. ", 1870;
dated 1810. Included (four unpublished eight-line stanzas) in the
Esdaile manuscript book. )]

How eloquent are eyes!
Not the rapt poet's frenzied lay
When the soul's wildest feelings stray
Can speak so well as they.
How eloquent are eyes!
_5
Not music's most impassioned note
On which Love's warmest fervours float
Like them bids rapture rise.

Love, look thus again,--
That your look may light a waste of years, _10
Darting the beam that conquers cares
Through the cold shower of tears.
Love, look thus again!

***


ORIGINAL POETRY BY VICTOR AND CAZIRE.

[Published by Shelley, 1810. A Reprint, edited by Richard Garnett, C. B. ,
LL. D. , was issued by John Lane, in 1898. The punctuation of the original
edition is here retained. ]

A Person complained that whenever he began to write, he never could
arrange his ideas in grammatical order. Which occasion suggested the
idea of the following lines:

1.
Here I sit with my paper, my pen and my ink,
First of this thing, and that thing, and t'other thing think;
Then my thoughts come so pell-mell all into my mind,
That the sense or the subject I never can find:
This word is wrong placed,--no regard to the sense,
The present and future, instead of past tense,
Then my grammar I want; O dear! what a bore,
I think I shall never attempt to write more,
With patience I then my thoughts must arraign,
Have them all in due order like mutes in a train, _10
Like them too must wait in due patience and thought,
Or else my fine works will all come to nought.
My wit too's so copious, it flows like a river,
But disperses its waters on black and white never;
Like smoke it appears independent and free, _15
But ah luckless smoke!