No More Learning

Ah, true.
Come in, dear fly, and pardon my delay
In thus existing; I can promise you
Next time you come you'll find no dying poet--
Without sufficient spleen to see me through,
The joke becomes too tedious a jest.
I am afraid my mind is dull to-day;
I have that--something--heavier on my chest
And then, you see, I've been exchanging thoughts
With Doctor Franz. He talked of Kant and Hegel
As though he'd nursed them both through whooping cough
And, as he left, he let his finger shake
Too playfully, as though to say, "Now off
With that long face--you've years and years to live. "
I think he thinks so. But, for Heaven's sake,
Don't credit it--and never tell Mathilde.
Poor dear, she has enough to bear already. . . .

This _was_ a month! During my lonely weeks
One person actually climbed the stairs
To seek a cripple. It was Berlioz--
But Berlioz always was original.
Meissner was also here; he caught me unawares,
Scribbling to my old mother. "What!
" he cried,
"Is the old lady of the _Dammthor_ still alive?
And do you write her still? " "Each month or so. "
"And is she not unhappy then, to find
How wretched you must be? " "How can she know?
You see," I laughed, "she thinks I am as well
As when she saw me last. She is too blind
To read the papers--some one else must tell
What's in my letters, merely signed by me.
Thus she is happy. For the rest--
That any son should be as sick as I,
No mother could believe. "
_Ja_, so it goes.

Come here, my lotus-flower. It is best
I drop the mask to-day; the half-cracked shield
Of mockery calls for younger hands to wield.
Laugh--or I'll hug it closer to my breast.
So . . .