No More Learning

"

"_I_," softly said the child; and then
"_I_," said he louder, once again:
"His son, my rank is among men:

"And now that men exalt his name
I come to gather palms with them,
That holy love may hallow fame.

"He did not die alone, nor should
His memory live so, 'mid these rude
World-praisers--a worse solitude.

"Me, a voice calleth to that tomb
Where these are strewing branch and bloom
Saying, 'Come nearer:' and I come.

"Glory to God! " resumed he,
And his eyes smiled for victory
O'er their own tears which I could see

Fallen on the palm, down cheek and chin--
"That poet now has entered in
The place of rest which is not sin.

"And while he rests, his songs in troops
Walk up and down our earthly slopes,
Companioned by diviner hopes. "

"But _thou_," I murmured to engage
The child's speech farther--"hast an age
Too tender for this orphanage. "

"Glory to God--to God! " he saith:
"KNOWLEDGE BY SUFFERING ENTERETH,
AND LIFE IS PERFECTED BY DEATH. "




THE POET'S VOW


O be wiser thou,
Instructed that true knowledge leads to love.

WORDSWORTH.




THE POET'S VOW.


PART THE FIRST.

SHOWING WHEREFORE THE VOW WAS MADE.


I.
Eve is a twofold mystery;
The stillness Earth doth keep,
The motion wherewith human hearts
Do each to either leap
As if all souls between the poles
Felt "Parting comes in sleep. "


II.

The rowers lift their oars to view
Each other in the sea;
The landsmen watch the rocking boats
In a pleasant company;
While up the hill go gladlier still
Dear friends by two and three.


III.

The peasant's wife hath looked without
Her cottage door and smiled,
For there the peasant drops his spade
To clasp his youngest child
Which hath no speech, but its hand can reach
And stroke his forehead mild.


IV.

A poet sate that eventide
Within his hall alone,
As silent as its ancient lords
In the coffined place of stone,
When the bat hath shrunk from the praying monk,
And the praying monk is gone.


V.

Nor wore the dead a stiller face
Beneath the cerement's roll:
His lips refusing out in words
Their mystic thoughts to dole,
His steadfast eye burnt inwardly,
As burning out his soul.


VI.

You would not think that brow could e'er
Ungentle moods express,
Yet seemed it, in this troubled world,
Too calm for gentleness,
When the very star that shines from far
Shines trembling ne'ertheless.


VII.

It lacked, all need, the softening light
Which other brows supply:
We should conjoin the scathed trunks
Of our humanity,
That each leafless spray entwining may
Look softer 'gainst the sky.


VIII.

None gazed within the poet's face,
The poet gazed in none;
He threw a lonely shadow straight
Before the moon and sun,
Affronting nature's heaven-dwelling creatures
With wrong to nature done:


IX.

Because this poet daringly,
--The nature at his heart,
And that quick tune along his veins
He could not change by art,--
Had vowed his blood of brotherhood
To a stagnant place apart.