No More Learning

We sang our songs together by the way,
Calls and recalls and echoes of delight;
So communed we together all the day,
And so in dreams by night.

I have no words to tell what way we walked,
What unforgotten path now closed and sealed;
I have no words to tell all things we talked,
All things that he revealed:

This only can I tell: that hour by hour
I waxed more feastful, lifted up and glad;
I felt no thorn-prick when I plucked a flower,
Felt not my friend was sad.

"To-morrow," once I said to him with smiles:
"To-night," he answered gravely and was dumb,
But pointed out the stones that numbered miles
And miles and miles to come.

"Not so," I said: "to-morrow shall be sweet;
To-night is not so sweet as coming days. "
Then first I saw that he had turned his feet,
Had turned from me his face:

Running and flying miles and miles he went,
But once looked back to beckon with his hand
And cry: "Come home, O love, from banishment:
Come to the distant land. "

That night destroyed me like an avalanche;
One night turned all my summer back to snow:
Next morning not a bird upon my branch,
Not a lamb woke below,--

No bird, no lamb, no living breathing thing;
No squirrel scampered on my breezy lawn,
No mouse lodged by his hoard: all joys took wing
And fled before that dawn.

Azure and sun were starved from heaven above,
No dew had fallen, but biting frost lay hoar:
O love, I knew that I should meet my love,
Should find my love no more.

"My love no more," I muttered, stunned with pain:
I shed no tear, I wrung no passionate hand,
Till something whispered: "You shall meet again,
Meet in a distant land. "

Then with a cry like famine I arose,
I lit my candle, searched from room to room,
Searched up and down; a war of winds that froze
Swept through the blank of gloom.

I searched day after day, night after night;
Scant change there came to me of night or day:
"No more," I wailed, "no more"; and trimmed my light,
And gnashed, but did not pray,

Until my heart broke and my spirit broke:
Upon the frost-bound floor I stumbled, fell,
And moaned: "It is enough: withhold the stroke.
Farewell, O love, farewell. "

Then life swooned from me. And I heard the song
Of spheres and spirits rejoicing over me:
One cried: "Our sister, she hath suffered long. "--
One answered: "Make her see. "--

One cried: "O blessed she who no more pain,
Who no more disappointment shall receive.
"--
One answered: "Not so: she must live again;
Strengthen thou her to live. "

So, while I lay entranced, a curtain seemed
To shrivel with crackling from before my face,
Across mine eyes a waxing radiance beamed
And showed a certain place.

I saw a vision of a woman, where
Night and new morning strive for domination;
Incomparably pale, and almost fair,
And sad beyond expression.

Her eyes were like some fire-enshrining gem,
Were stately like the stars, and yet were tender,
Her figure charmed me like a windy stem
Quivering and drooped and slender.

I stood upon the outer barren ground,
She stood on inner ground that budded flowers;
While circling in their never-slackening round
Danced by the mystic hours.

But every flower was lifted on a thorn,
And every thorn shot upright from its sands
To gall her feet; hoarse laughter pealed in scorn
With cruel clapping hands.

She bled and wept, yet did not shrink; her strength
Was strung up until daybreak of delight:
She measured measureless sorrow toward its length,
And breadth, and depth, and height.

Then marked I how a chain sustained her form,
A chain of living links not made nor riven:
It stretched sheer up through lightning, wind, and storm,
And anchored fast in heaven.

One cried: "How long? yet founded on the Rock
She shall do battle, suffer, and attain. "--
One answered: "Faith quakes in the tempest shock:
Strengthen her soul again. "

I saw a cup sent down and come to her
Brimful of loathing and of bitterness:
She drank with livid lips that seemed to stir
The depth, not make it less.

But as she drank I spied a hand distil
New wine and virgin honey; making it
First bitter-sweet, then sweet indeed, until
She tasted only sweet.

Her lips and cheeks waxed rosy-fresh and young;
Drinking she sang: "My soul shall nothing want";
And drank anew: while soft a song was sung,
A mystical slow chant.

One cried: "The wounds are faithful of a friend:
The wilderness shall blossom as a rose. "--
One answered: "Rend the veil, declare the end,
Strengthen her ere she goes.