No More Learning

Among the beds of lilies I
Have sought it oft where it should lie,
Yet could not, till itself would rise,
Find it, although before mine eyes.
For in the flaxen lilies' shade
It like a bank of lilies laid;
Upon the roses it would feed
Until its lips even seemed to bleed,
And then to me 'twould boldly trip,
And print those roses on my lip,
But all its chief delight was still
With roses thus itself to fill,
And its pure virgin limbs to fold
In whitest sheets of lilies cold.
Had it lived long, it would have been
Lilies without, roses within. "

How truthful an air of lamentations hangs here upon every syllable!
It pervades all. . It comes over the sweet melody of the words-over the
gentleness and grace which we fancy in the little maiden herself-even
over the half-playful, half-petulant air with which she lingers on the
beauties and good qualities of her favorite-like the cool shadow of a
summer cloud over a bed of lilies and violets, "and all sweet flowers. "
The whole is redolent with poetry of a very lofty order. Every line is
an idea conveying either the beauty and playfulness of the fawn, or the
artlessness of the maiden, or her love, or her admiration, or her
grief, or the fragrance and warmth and _appropriateness _of the little
nest-like bed of lilies and roses which the fawn devoured as it lay upon
them, and could scarcely be distinguished from them by the once happy
little damsel who went to seek her pet with an arch and rosy smile on
her face. Consider the great variety of truthful and delicate thought
in the few lines we have quoted the _wonder _of the little maiden at the
fleetness of her favorite-the "little silver feet"--the fawn challenging
his mistress to a race with "a pretty skipping grace," running on
before, and then, with head turned back, awaiting her approach only to
fly from it again-can we not distinctly perceive all these things? How
exceedingly vigorous, too, is the line,

"And trod as if on the four winds! "

A vigor apparent only when we keep in mind the artless character of
the speaker and the four feet of the favorite, one for each wind. Then
consider the garden of "my own," so overgrown, entangled with roses and
lilies, as to be "a little wilderness"--the fawn loving to be there,
and there "only"--the maiden seeking it "where it _should _lie"--and
not being able to distinguish it from the flowers until "itself would
rise"--the lying among the lilies "like a bank of lilies"--the loving to
"fill itself with roses,"

"And its pure virgin limbs to fold
In whitest sheets of lilies cold,"

and these things being its "chief" delights-and then the pre-eminent
beauty and naturalness of the concluding lines, whose very hyperbole
only renders them more true to nature when we consider the innocence,
the artlessness, the enthusiasm, the passionate girl, and more
passionate admiration of the bereaved child--

"Had it lived long, it would have been Lilies without, roses within. "

* "Book of Gems," Edited by S. C.
Hall




POEMS

TO

THE NOBLEST OF HER SEX

THE AUTHOR OF

"THE DRAMA OF EXILE"--

TO

MISS ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING

OF ENGLAND

_I DEDICATE THIS VOLUME_

WITH THE MOST ENTHUSIASTIC ADMIRATION AND WITH

THE MOST SINCERE ESTEEM

1845 E. A. P.

PREFACE

THESE trifles are collected and republished chiefly with a view to their
redemption from the many improvements to which they have been subjected
while going at random the "rounds of the press. " I am naturally anxious
that what I have written should circulate as I wrote it, if it circulate
at all. In defence of my own taste, nevertheless, it is incumbent upon
me to say that I think nothing in this volume of much value to the
public, or very creditable to myself. Events not to be controlled have
prevented me from making, at any time, any serious effort in what, under
happier circumstances, would have been the field of my choice. With me
poetry has been not a purpose, but a passion; and the passions should be
held in reverence: they must not-they can not at will be excited, with
an eye to the paltry compensations, or the more paltry commendations, of
man-kind.

E. A. P.

1845




POEMS OF LATER LIFE




THE RAVEN.

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
"'Tis some visiter," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door--
Only this, and nothing more. "

Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December,
And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.
Eagerly I wished the morrow;--vainly I had sought to borrow
From my books surcease of sorrow--sorrow for the lost Lenore--
For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore--
Nameless here for evermore.