No More Learning

And thou wert wedded to another,[586]
And I at last another wedded:
I am a father, thou a mother,
To Strangers vowed, with strangers bedded.
For land to land, even blood to blood--
Since leagued of yore our fathers were--
Our manors and our birthright stood;
And not unequal had I wooed,
If to have wooed thee I could dare.
But this I never dared--even yet
When naught is left but to forget.
I feel that I could only love:
To sue was never meant for me,
And least of all to sue to thee;
For many a bar, and many a feud,
Though never told, well understood
Rolled like a river wide between--
And then there was the Curse of blood,
Which even my Heart's can not remove.
Alas! how many things have been!
Since we were friends; for I alone
Feel more for thee than can be shown.

4.

How many things! I loved thee--thou
Loved'st me not: another was
The Idol of thy virgin vow,
And I was, what I am, Alas!
And what he is, and what thou art,
And what we were, is like the rest:
We must endure it as a test,
And old Ordeal of the Heart. [587]

Venice, _Dec_. 29, 1818.




STANZAS TO THE PO. [588]

1.
River, that rollest by the ancient walls,
Where dwells the Lady of my love, when she
Walks by thy brink, and there perchance recalls
A faint and fleeting memory of me:

2.

What if thy deep and ample stream should be
A mirror of my heart, where she may read
The thousand thoughts I now betray to thee,
Wild as thy wave, and headlong as thy speed!

3.

What do I say--a mirror of my heart?
Are not thy waters sweeping, dark, and strong?
Such as my feelings were and are, thou art;
And such as thou art were my passions long.

4.

Time may have somewhat tamed them,--not for ever;
Thou overflow'st thy banks, and not for aye
Thy bosom overboils, congenial river!
Thy floods subside, and mine have sunk away:

5.

But left long wrecks behind, and now again,[ib]
Borne in our old unchanged career, we move:
Thou tendest wildly onwards to the main,
And I--to loving _one_ I should not love.

6.

The current I behold will sweep beneath
Her native walls, and murmur at her feet;
Her eyes will look on thee, when she shall breathe
The twilight air, unharmed by summer's heat.

7.

She will look on thee,--I have looked on thee,
Full of that thought: and, from that moment, ne'er
Thy waters could I dream of, name, or see,
Without the inseparable sigh for her!

8.

Her bright eyes will be imaged in thy stream,--
Yes!