No More Learning

_ Then seek it in the habitable world,
Or leap into that sea and end a journey
That has no other end.

_Forgael. _ I cannot answer.
I can see nothing plain; all's mystery.
Yet, sometimes there's a torch inside my head
That makes all clear, but when the light is gone
I have but images, analogies,
The mystic bread, the sacramental wine,
The red rose where the two shafts of the cross,
Body and soul, waking and sleep, death, life,
Whatever meaning ancient allegorists
Have settled on, are mixed into one joy.
For what's the rose but that? miraculous cries,
Old stories about mystic marriages,
Impossible truths? But when the torch is lit
All that is impossible is certain,
I plunge in the abyss.

[Sailors _come in_. ]

_First Sailor. _ Look there! There in the mist! A ship of spices.

_Second Sailor. _ We would not have noticed her but for the sweet smell
through the air.
Ambergris and sandalwood, and all the herbs the
witches bring from the sunrise.

_First Sailor. _ No; but opoponax and cinnamon.

_Forgael_ [_taking the tiller from AIBRIC_]. The ever-living have kept
my bargain; they have paid you on the nail.

_Aibric. _ Take up that rope to make her fast while we are plundering
her.

_First Sailor. _ There is a king on her deck, and a queen. Where there
is one woman it is certain there will be others.

_Aibric. _ Speak lower or they'll hear.

_First Sailor. _ They cannot hear; they are too much taken up with one
another. Look! he has stooped down and kissed her on the lips.