No More Learning

Days, weeks, months, years
Afterwards, when both were wives
With children of their own;
Their mother-hearts beset with fears,
Their lives bound up in tender lives;
Laura would call the little ones
And tell them of her early prime,
Those pleasant days long gone 550
Of not-returning time:
Would talk about the haunted glen,
The wicked, quaint fruit-merchant men,
Their fruits like honey to the throat
But poison in the blood;
(Men sell not such in any town:)
Would tell them how her sister stood
In deadly peril to do her good,
And win the fiery antidote:
Then joining hands to little hands 560
Would bid them cling together,
'For there is no friend like a sister
In calm or stormy weather;
To cheer one on the tedious way,
To fetch one if one goes astray,
To lift one if one totters down,
To strengthen whilst one stands. '




IN THE ROUND TOWER AT JHANSI

June 8, 1857


A hundred, a thousand to one; even so;
Not a hope in the world remained:
The swarming howling wretches below
Gained and gained and gained.

Skene looked at his pale young wife:--
'Is the time come? '--'The time is come! '--
Young, strong, and so full of life:
The agony struck them dumb.

Close his arm about her now,
Close her cheek to his, 10
Close the pistol to her brow--
God forgive them this!

'Will it hurt much? '--'No, mine own:
I wish I could bear the pang for both. '
'I wish I could bear the pang alone:
Courage, dear, I am not loth. '

Kiss and kiss: 'It is not pain
Thus to kiss and die.
One kiss more. '--'And yet one again. '--
'Good-bye. '--'Good-bye. ' 20




DREAM LAND


Where sunless rivers weep
Their waves into the deep,
She sleeps a charmed sleep:
Awake her not.
Led by a single star,
She came from very far
To seek where shadows are
Her pleasant lot.

She left the rosy morn,
She left the fields of corn, 10
For twilight cold and lorn
And water springs.
Through sleep, as through a veil,
She sees the sky look pale,
And hears the nightingale
That sadly sings.

Rest, rest, a perfect rest
Shed over brow and breast;
Her face is toward the west,
The purple land. 20
She cannot see the grain
Ripening on hill and plain;
She cannot feel the rain
Upon her hand.

Rest, rest, for evermore
Upon a mossy shore;
Rest, rest at the heart's core
Till time shall cease:
Sleep that no pain shall wake;
Night that no morn shall break 30
Till joy shall overtake
Her perfect peace.




AT HOME


When I was dead, my spirit turned
To seek the much-frequented house:
I passed the door, and saw my friends
Feasting beneath green orange boughs;
From hand to hand they pushed the wine,
They sucked the pulp of plum and peach;
They sang, they jested, and they laughed,
For each was loved of each.

I listened to their honest chat:
Said one: 'To-morrow we shall be 10
Plod plod along the featureless sands,
And coasting miles and miles of sea. '
Said one: 'Before the turn of tide
We will achieve the eyrie-seat. '
Said one: 'To-morrow shall be like
To-day, but much more sweet. '

'To-morrow,' said they, strong with hope,
And dwelt upon the pleasant way:
'To-morrow,' cried they, one and all,
While no one spoke of yesterday. 20
Their life stood full at blessed noon;
I, only I, had passed away:
'To-morrow and to-day,' they cried;
I was of yesterday.

I shivered comfortless, but cast
No chill across the tablecloth;
I, all-forgotten, shivered, sad
To stay, and yet to part how loth:
I passed from the familiar room,
I who from love had passed away, 30
Like the remembrance of a guest
That tarrieth but a day.




A TRIAD

Sonnet


Three sang of love together: one with lips
Crimson, with cheeks and bosom in a glow,
Flushed to the yellow hair and finger-tips;
And one there sang who soft and smooth as snow
Bloomed like a tinted hyacinth at a show;
And one was blue with famine after love,
Who like a harpstring snapped rang harsh and low
The burden of what those were singing of.
One shamed herself in love; one temperately
Grew gross in soulless love, a sluggish wife;
One famished died for love. Thus two of three
Took death for love and won him after strife;
One droned in sweetness like a fattened bee:
All on the threshold, yet all short of life.