No More Learning

thy, days have passed in peace,
'Mid counted beads, and countless prayer;
To bid the sins of others cease,
Thyself without a crime or care,
Save transient ills that all must bear,
Has been thy lot from youth to age;
And thou wilt bless thee from the rage
Of passions fierce and uncontrolled,
Such as thy penitents unfold,
Whose secret sins and sorrows rest 980
Within thy pure and pitying breast.
My days, though few, have passed below
In much of Joy, but more of Woe;
Yet still in hours of love or strife,
I've 'scaped the weariness of Life:
Now leagued with friends, now girt by foes,
I loathed the languor of repose.
Now nothing left to love or hate,
No more with hope or pride elate,
I'd rather be the thing that crawls 990
Most noxious o'er a dungeon's walls,[116]
Than pass my dull, unvarying days,
Condemned to meditate and gaze.
Yet, lurks a wish within my breast
For rest--but not to feel 'tis rest.
Soon shall my Fate that wish fulfil;
And I shall sleep without the dream
Of what I was, and would be still
Dark as to thee my deeds may seem:[eb]
My memory now is but the tomb 1000
Of joys long dead; my hope, their doom:
'Though better to have died with those
Than bear a life of lingering woes.
My spirit shrunk not to sustain
The searching throes of ceaseless pain;
Nor sought the self-accorded grave
Of ancient fool and modern knave:
Yet death I have not feared to meet;
And in the field it had been sweet,
Had Danger wooed me on to move 1010
The slave of Glory, not of Love.
I've braved it--not for Honour's boast;
I smile at laurels won or lost;
To such let others carve their way,
For high renown, or hireling pay:
But place again before my eyes
Aught that I deem a worthy prize--
The maid I love, the man I hate--
And I will hunt the steps of fate,
To save or slay, as these require, 1020
Through rending steel, and rolling fire:[ec]
Nor needst thou doubt this speech from one
Who would but do--what he _hath_ done.
Death is but what the haughty brave,
The weak must bear, the wretch must crave;
Then let life go to Him who gave:
I have not quailed to Danger's brow
When high and happy--need I _now_?

* * * * *

"I loved her, Friar! nay, adored--
But these are words that all can use-- 1030
I proved it more in deed than word;
There's blood upon that dinted sword,
A stain its steel can never lose:
'Twas shed for her, who died for me,
It warmed the heart of one abhorred:
Nay, start not--no--nor bend thy knee,
Nor midst my sin such act record;
Thou wilt absolve me from the deed,
For he was hostile to thy creed!
The very name of Nazarene 1040
Was wormwood to his Paynim spleen.
Ungrateful fool! since but for brands
Well wielded in some hardy hands,
And wounds by Galileans given--
The surest pass to Turkish heaven--
For him his Houris still might wait
Impatient at the Prophet's gate.
I loved her--Love will find its way
Through paths where wolves would fear to prey;
And if it dares enough,'twere hard 1050
If Passion met not some reward--
No matter how, or where, or why,
I did not vainly seek, nor sigh:
Yet sometimes, with remorse, in vain
I wish she had not loved again.
She died--I dare not tell thee how;
But look--'tis written on my brow!
There read of Cain the curse and crime,
In characters unworn by Time:
Still, ere thou dost condemn me, pause; 1060
Not mine the act, though I the cause.
Yet did he but what I had done
Had she been false to more than one.
Faithless to him--he gave the blow;
But true to me--I laid him low:
Howe'er deserved her doom might be,
Her treachery was truth to me;
To me she gave her heart, that all
Which Tyranny can ne'er enthrall;
And I, alas! too late to save! 1070
Yet all I then could give, I gave--
'Twas some relief--our foe a grave. [ed]
His death sits lightly; but her fate
Has made me--what thou well mayst hate.
His doom was sealed--he knew it well,
Warned by the voice of stern Taheer,
Deep in whose darkly boding ear[117]
The deathshot pealed of murder near,
As filed the troop to where they fell!
He died too in the battle broil, 1080
A time that heeds nor pain nor toil;
One cry to Mahomet for aid,
One prayer to Alla all he made:
He knew and crossed me in the fray--
I gazed upon him where he lay,
And watched his spirit ebb away:
Though pierced like pard by hunter's steel,
He felt not half that now I feel.
I searched, but vainly searched, to find
The workings of a wounded mind; 1090
Each feature of that sullen corse
Betrayed his rage, but no remorse. [118]
Oh, what had Vengeance given to trace
Despair upon his dying face!
The late repentance of that hour
When Penitence hath lost her power
To tear one terror from the grave,[ee]
And will not soothe, and cannot save.

* * * * *

"The cold in clime are cold in blood,
Their love can scarce deserve the name; 1100
But mine was like the lava flood
That boils in AEtna's breast of flame.
I cannot prate in puling strain
Of Ladye-love, and Beauty's chain:
If changing cheek, and scorching vein,[ef]
Lips taught to writhe, but not complain,
If bursting heart, and maddening brain,
And daring deed, and vengeful steel,
And all that I have felt, and feel,
Betoken love--that love was mine, 1110
And shown by many a bitter sign.
'Tis true, I could not whine nor sigh,
I knew but to obtain or die.
I die--but first I have possessed,
And come what may, I _have been_ blessed.
Shall I the doom I sought upbraid?