No More Learning

Now all that faith, so free from care, hath vanished,
Now in the short respite I haste and gather
Of all remaining, binding leaf and blossoms;
Half withered marvels of my sorrowed hand.
My hand in dedicative worship lifts
In shame on high to thee the scattered off'ring,
No more a token of imagined glory,
--Although with many a precious tear-drop shining--
No more a choice of rare and wondrous jewels,
That fain from destiny for thee I'd conquer,
Than e'er the tale of hellish love and hatred
Can spread by this subdued and falt'ring voice.
41

? July Melancholy
BLOSSOMS of summer, rich is your fragrance
still,
Breezes blend with the bitter scent of seed.
You lead me to the withering balustrade,
The gardens' sesame has become so strange.
From the forgotten you call forth dreams; the
child
Reposing on the ground in the corn-clad fields,
In harvest-glow beside the naked mowers.
Beside the shining scythe and exhausted jug.
Sleepily lull the wasps in the noon-day song,
And through the meagre shelter of the blades
Upon his sunburnt forehead slowly trickle
The poppy-petals: large red drops of blood.
Transience ne'er can rob me of aught that
has been,
Languishing just as erewhile on the languish-
ing field,
I lie: from languid lips there sighs " how weary
Am I of all the flowers--the lovely flowers. "
42

? Thrill of the Dawn
CAN such a pain be branded?
And such an haze and such a light?
The morning be commanded,
That breaks within us blest and bright?
As through the spirit paling,
The pathways--then across the weald
Caressing breezes sailing
Respond themselves o'er fence and field.
Dim, as through tears o'erflowing,
The tree--the house that offers rest;
A silver saint's-day glowing,
The cherry-branch that waves its crest.
A rustling and a flitter
Torments and charms, makes sad and free.
A swaying sweet and bitter,
A singing without melody. .
43

? Throbbing
THIS throbbing shows what we abandoned,
Which through the vacant chamber wells,
Wherein our joys, in parting, beckoned,
No longer hour nor pathway tells 1
How oft in sleep we wander, straying!
How shrill at every word it quells,
Resounding like those joys' last echoes I
How sorely every stone retells.
That we perceived ourselves erst only . . . .
How all around, it chokes and swells
When we approach the things they cherished.
Against it how the heart rebels.
--Since, chides and asks our solemn action,
For such an end what rage compels ? --
Yet silenced cannot be this throbbing
Which dolefulness alone dispels.
44

? Day Song
BY the waters that make faint moan,
Yonder where the poplar tree sways,
Sits a songful bird, whose quaint tone
T'wards us softly o'er the lea strays.