sDbqfDuM

1Success is counted sweetest
2By those who ne'er succeed.
3To comprehend a nectar
4Requires sorest need.
5
6Not one of all the purple host
7Who took the flag to-day
8Can tell the definition,
9So clear, of victory,
10
11As he, defeated, dying,
12On whose forbidden ear
13The distant strains of triumph
14Break, agonized and clear!
15
16Our share of night to bear,
17Our share of morning,
18Our blank in bliss to fill,
19Our blank in scorning.
20
21Here a star, and there a star,
22Some lose their way.
23Here a mist, and there a mist,
24Afterwards -- day!
25
26
27Soul, wilt thou toss again?
28By just such a hazard
29Hundreds have lost, indeed,
30But tens have won an all.
31
32Angels' breathless ballot
33Lingers to record thee;
34Imps in eager caucus
35Raffle for my soul.
36
37
38'T is so much joy! 'T is so much joy!
39If I should fail, what poverty!
40And yet, as poor as I
41Have ventured all upon a throw;
42Have gained! Yes! Hesitated so
43This side the victory!
44
45Life is but life, and death but death!
46Bliss is but bliss, and breath but breath!
47And if, indeed, I fail,
48At least to know the worst is sweet.
49Defeat means nothing but defeat,
50No drearier can prevail!
51
52And if I gain, -- oh, gun at sea,
53Oh, bells that in the steeples be,
54At first repeat it slow!
55For heaven is a different thing
56Conjectured, and waked sudden in,
57And might o'erwhelm me so!
58
59
60
61
62Glee! The great storm is over!
63Four have recovered the land;
64Forty gone down together
65Into the boiling sand.
66
67Ring, for the scant salvation!
68Toll, for the bonnie souls, --
69Neighbor and friend and bridegroom,
70Spinning upon the shoals!
71
72How they will tell the shipwreck
73When winter shakes the door,
74Till the children ask, 'But the forty?
75Did they come back no more?'
76
77Then a silence suffuses the story,
78And a softness the teller's eye;
79And the children no further question,
80And only the waves reply.
81
82
83
84
85
86If I can stop one heart from breaking,
87I shall not live in vain;
88If I can ease one life the aching,
89Or cool one pain,
90Or help one fainting robin
91Unto his nest again,
92I shall not live in vain.
93
94
95
96
97
98Within my reach!
99I could have touched!
100I might have chanced that way!
101Soft sauntered through the village,
102Sauntered as soft away!
103So unsuspected violets
104Within the fields lie low,
105Too late for striving fingers
106That passed, an hour ago.
107
108
109
110
111A wounded deer leaps highest,
112I've heard the hunter tell;
113'T is but the ecstasy of death,
114And then the brake is still.
115
116The smitten rock that gushes,
117The trampled steel that springs;
118A cheek is always redder
119Just where the hectic stings!
120
121Mirth is the mail of anguish,
122In which it cautions arm,
123Lest anybody spy the blood
124And 'You're hurt' exclaim!
125
126
127
128
129
130The heart asks pleasure first,
131And then, excuse from pain;
132And then, those little anodynes
133That deaden suffering;
134
135And then, to go to sleep;
136And then, if it should be
137The will of its Inquisitor,
138The liberty to die.
139
140
141
142
143
144A precious, mouldering pleasure 't is
145To meet an antique book,
146In just the dress his century wore;
147A privilege, I think,
148
149His venerable hand to take,
150And warming in our own,
151A passage back, or two, to make
152To times when he was young.
153
154His quaint opinions to inspect,
155His knowledge to unfold
156On what concerns our mutual mind,
157The literature of old;
158
159What interested scholars most,
160What competitions ran
161When Plato was a certainty.
162And Sophocles a man;
163
164When Sappho was a living girl,
165And Beatrice wore
166The gown that Dante deified.
167Facts, centuries before,
168
169He traverses familiar,
170As one should come to town
171And tell you all your dreams were true;
172He lived where dreams were sown.
173
174His presence is enchantment,
175You beg him not to go;
176Old volumes shake their vellum heads
177And tantalize, just so.
178
179
180
181
182
183Much madness is divinest sense
184To a discerning eye;
185Much sense the starkest madness.
186'T is the majority
187In this, as all, prevails.
188Assent, and you are sane;
189Demur, -- you're straightway dangerous,
190And handled with a chain.
191
192
193I asked no other thing,
194No other was denied.
195I offered Being for it;
196The mighty merchant smiled.
197
198Brazil? He twirled a button,
199Without a glance my way:
200'But, madam, is there nothing else
201That we can show to-day?'
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211The soul selects her own society,
212Then shuts the door;
213On her divine majority
214Obtrude no more.
215
216Unmoved, she notes the chariot's pausing
217At her low gate;
218Unmoved, an emperor is kneeling
219Upon her mat.
220
221I've known her from an ample nation
222Choose one;
223Then close the valves of her attention
224Like stone.
225
226
227
228Some things that fly there be, --
229Birds, hours, the bumble-bee:
230Of these no elegy.
231
232Some things that stay there be, --
233Grief, hills, eternity:
234Nor this behooveth me.
235
236There are, that resting, rise.
237Can I expound the skies?
238How still the riddle lies!
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248I know some lonely houses off the road
249A robber 'd like the look of, --
250Wooden barred,
251And windows hanging low,
252Inviting to
253A portico,
254Where two could creep:
255One hand the tools,
256The other peep
257To make sure all's asleep.
258Old-fashioned eyes,
259Not easy to surprise!
260
261How orderly the kitchen 'd look by night,
262With just a clock, --
263But they could gag the tick,
264And mice won't bark;
265And so the walls don't tell,
266None will.
267
268A pair of spectacles ajar just stir --
269An almanac's aware.
270Was it the mat winked,
271Or a nervous star?
272The moon slides down the stair
273To see who's there.
274
275There's plunder, -- where?
276Tankard, or spoon,
277Earring, or stone,
278A watch, some ancient brooch
279To match the grandmamma,
280Staid sleeping there.
281
282Day rattles, too,
283Stealth's slow;
284The sun has got as far
285As the third sycamore.
286Screams chanticleer,
287'Who's there?'
288And echoes, trains away,
289Sneer -- 'Where?'
290While the old couple, just astir,
291Fancy the sunrise left the door ajar!
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299To fight aloud is very brave,
300But gallanter, I know,
301Who charge within the bosom,
302The cavalry of woe.
303
304Who win, and nations do not see,
305Who fall, and none observe,
306Whose dying eyes no country
307Regards with patriot love.
308
309We trust, in plumed procession,
310For such the angels go,
311Rank after rank, with even feet
312And uniforms of snow.
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321
322When night is almost done,
323And sunrise grows so near
324That we can touch the spaces,
325It 's time to smooth the hair
326
327And get the dimples ready,
328And wonder we could care
329For that old faded midnight
330That frightened but an hour.
331
332
333
334
335
336
337
338
339
340Read, sweet, how others strove,
341Till we are stouter;
342What they renounced,
343Till we are less afraid;
344How many times they bore
345The faithful witness,
346Till we are helped,
347As if a kingdom cared!
348
349Read then of faith
350That shone above the fagot;
351Clear strains of hymn
352The river could not drown;
353Brave names of men
354And celestial women,
355Passed out of record
356Into renown!
357
358
359
360
361
362
363
364
365
366Pain has an element of blank;
367It cannot recollect
368When it began, or if there were
369A day when it was not.
370
371It has no future but itself,
372Its infinite realms contain
373Its past, enlightened to perceive
374New periods of pain.
375
376
377
378
379
380
381
382I taste a liquor never brewed,
383From tankards scooped in pearl;
384Not all the vats upon the Rhine
385Yield such an alcohol!
386
387Inebriate of air am I,
388And debauchee of dew,
389Reeling, through endless summer days,
390From inns of molten blue.
391
392When landlords turn the drunken bee
393Out of the foxglove's door,
394When butterflies renounce their drams,
395I shall but drink the more!
396
397Till seraphs swing their snowy hats,
398And saints to windows run,
399To see the little tippler
400Leaning against the sun!
401
402
403
404
405
406
407
408
409
410He ate and drank the precious words,
411His spirit grew robust;
412He knew no more that he was poor,
413Nor that his frame was dust.
414He danced along the dingy days,
415And this bequest of wings
416Was but a book. What liberty
417A loosened spirit brings!
418
419
420
421
422
423
424
425I had no time to hate, because
426The grave would hinder me,
427And life was not so ample I
428Could finish enmity.
429
430Nor had I time to love; but since
431Some industry must be,
432The little toil of love, I thought,
433Was large enough for me.
434
435
436
437
438
439
440
441
442
443'T was such a little, little boat
444That toddled down the bay!
445'T was such a gallant, gallant sea
446That beckoned it away!
447
448'T was such a greedy, greedy wave
449That licked it from the coast;
450Nor ever guessed the stately sails
451My little craft was lost!
452
453
454
455
456
457
458
459Whether my bark went down at sea,
460Whether she met with gales,
461Whether to isles enchanted
462She bent her docile sails;
463
464By what mystic mooring
465She is held to-day, --
466This is the errand of the eye
467Out upon the bay.
468
469
470
471
472
473
474
475Belshazzar had a letter, --
476He never had but one;
477Belshazzar's correspondent
478Concluded and begun
479In that immortal copy
480The conscience of us all
481Can read without its glasses
482On revelation's wall.
483
484
485
486
487
488
489
490The brain within its groove
491Runs evenly and true;
492But let a splinter swerve,
493'T were easier for you
494To put the water back
495When floods have slit the hills,
496And scooped a turnpike for themselves,
497And blotted out the mills!
498
499
500
501
502
503
504
505
506
507
508
509
510
511Mine by the right of the white election!
512Mine by the royal seal!
513Mine by the sign in the scarlet prison
514Bars cannot conceal!
515
516Mine, here in vision and in veto!
517Mine, by the grave's repeal
518Titled, confirmed, -- delirious charter!
519Mine, while the ages steal!
520
521
522
523
524
525
526
527
528
529You left me, sweet, two legacies, --
530A legacy of love
531A Heavenly Father would content,
532Had He the offer of;
533
534You left me boundaries of pain
535Capacious as the sea,
536Between eternity and time,
537Your consciousness and me.
538
539
540
541
542
543
544
545Alter? When the hills do.
546Falter? When the sun
547Question if his glory
548Be the perfect one.
549
550Surfeit? When the daffodil
551Doth of the dew:
552Even as herself, O friend!
553I will of you!
554
555
556
557
558
559
560
561
562
563Elysium is as far as to
564The very nearest room,
565If in that room a friend await
566Felicity or doom.
567
568What fortitude the soul contains,
569That it can so endure
570The accent of a coming foot,
571The opening of a door!
572
573
574
575
576
577
578
579
580
581Doubt me, my dim companion!
582Why, God would be content
583With but a fraction of the love
584Poured thee without a stint.
585The whole of me, forever,
586What more the woman can, --
587Say quick, that I may dower thee
588With last delight I own!
589
590It cannot be my spirit,
591For that was thine before;
592I ceded all of dust I knew, --
593What opulence the more
594Had I, a humble maiden,
595Whose farthest of degree
596Was that she might,
597Some distant heaven,
598Dwell timidly with thee!
599
600
601
602
603
604
605
606If you were coming in the fall,
607I'd brush the summer by
608With half a smile and half a spurn,
609As housewives do a fly.
610
611If I could see you in a year,
612I'd wind the months in balls,
613And put them each in separate drawers,
614Until their time befalls.
615
616If only centuries delayed,
617I'd count them on my hand,
618Subtracting till my fingers dropped
619Into Van Diemen's land.
620
621If certain, when this life was out,
622That yours and mine should be,
623I'd toss it yonder like a rind,
624And taste eternity.
625
626But now, all ignorant of the length
627Of time's uncertain wing,
628It goads me, like the goblin bee,
629That will not state its sting.
630
631
632
633
634
635
636
637
638
639I hide myself within my flower,
640That wearing on your breast,
641You, unsuspecting, wear me too --
642And angels know the rest.
643
644I hide myself within my flower,
645That, fading from your vase,
646You, unsuspecting, feel for me
647Almost a loneliness.
648
649
650
651
652
653
654
655
656
657That I did always love,
658I bring thee proof:
659That till I loved
660I did not love enough.
661
662That I shall love alway,
663I offer thee
664That love is life,
665And life hath immortality.
666
667This, dost thou doubt, sweet?
668Then have I
669Nothing to show
670But Calvary.
671
672
673
674
675
676
677
678Have you got a brook in your little heart,
679Where bashful flowers blow,
680And blushing birds go down to drink,
681And shadows tremble so?
682
683And nobody knows, so still it flows,
684That any brook is there;
685And yet your little draught of life
686Is daily drunken there.
687
688Then look out for the little brook in March,
689When the rivers overflow,
690And the snows come hurrying from the hills,
691And the bridges often go.
692
693And later, in August it may be,
694When the meadows parching lie,
695Beware, lest this little brook of life
696Some burning noon go dry!
697
698
699
700
701
702
703
704
705
706As if some little Arctic flower,
707Upon the polar hem,
708Went wandering down the latitudes,
709Until it puzzled came
710To continents of summer,
711To firmaments of sun,
712To strange, bright crowds of flowers,
713And birds of foreign tongue!
714I say, as if this little flower
715To Eden wandered in --
716What then? Why, nothing, only,
717Your inference therefrom!
718
719
720
721
722
723
724
725
726
727My river runs to thee:
728Blue sea, wilt welcome me?
729
730My river waits reply.
731Oh sea, look graciously!
732
733I'll fetch thee brooks
734From spotted nooks, --
735
736Say, sea,
737Take me!
738
739
740
741
742
743
744
745
746
747I cannot live with you,
748It would be life,
749And life is over there
750Behind the shelf
751
752The sexton keeps the key to,
753Putting up
754Our life, his porcelain,
755Like a cup
756
757Discarded of the housewife,
758Quaint or broken;
759A newer Sevres pleases,
760Old ones crack.
761
762I could not die with you,
763For one must wait
764To shut the other's gaze down, --
765You could not.
766
767And I, could I stand by
768And see you freeze,
769Without my right of frost,
770Death's privilege?
771
772Nor could I rise with you,
773Because your face
774Would put out Jesus',
775That new grace
776
777Glow plain and foreign
778On my homesick eye,
779Except that you, than he
780Shone closer by.
781
782They'd judge us -- how?
783For you served Heaven, you know,
784Or sought to;
785I could not,
786
787Because you saturated sight,
788And I had no more eyes
789For sordid excellence
790As Paradise.
791
792And were you lost, I would be,
793Though my name
794Rang loudest
795On the heavenly fame.
796
797And were you saved,
798And I condemned to be
799Where you were not,
800That self were hell to me.
801
802So we must keep apart,
803You there, I here,
804With just the door ajar
805That oceans are,
806And prayer,
807And that pale sustenance,
808Despair!
809
810
811
812
813
814
815
816
817
818There came a day at summer's full
819Entirely for me;
820I thought that such were for the saints,
821Where revelations be.
822
823The sun, as common, went abroad,
824The flowers, accustomed, blew,
825As if no soul the solstice passed
826That maketh all things new.
827
828The time was scarce profaned by speech;
829The symbol of a word
830Was needless, as at sacrament
831The wardrobe of our Lord.
832
833Each was to each the sealed church,
834Permitted to commune this time,
835Lest we too awkward show
836At supper of the Lamb.
837
838The hours slid fast, as hours will,
839Clutched tight by greedy hands;
840So faces on two decks look back,
841Bound to opposing lands.
842
843And so, when all the time had failed,
844Without external sound,
845Each bound the other's crucifix,
846We gave no other bond.
847
848Sufficient troth that we shall rise --
849Deposed, at length, the grave --
850To that new marriage, justified
851Through Calvaries of Love!
852
853
854
855
856
857
858
859LOVE'
860
861I'm ceded, I've stopped being theirs;
862The name they dropped upon my face
863With water, in the country church,
864Is finished using now,
865And they can put it with my dolls,
866My childhood, and the string of spools
867I've finished threading too.
868
869Baptized before without the choice,
870But this time consciously, of grace
871Unto supremest name,
872Called to my full, the crescent dropped,
873Existence's whole arc filled up
874With one small diadem.
875
876My second rank, too small the first,
877Crowned, crowing on my father's breast,
878A half unconscious queen;
879But this time, adequate, erect,
880With will to choose or to reject.
881And I choose -- just a throne.
882
883
884
885
886
887
888
889
890
891'T was a long parting, but the time
892For interview had come;
893Before the judgment-seat of God,
894The last and second time
895
896These fleshless lovers met,
897A heaven in a gaze,
898A heaven of heavens, the privilege
899Of one another's eyes.
900
901No lifetime set on them,
902Apparelled as the new
903Unborn, except they had beheld,
904Born everlasting now.
905
906Was bridal e'er like this?
907A paradise, the host,
908And cherubim and seraphim
909The most familiar guest.
910
911
912
913
914
915
916
917
918
919I'm wife; I've finished that,
920That other state;
921I'm Czar, I'm woman now:
922It's safer so.
923
924How odd the girl's life looks
925Behind this soft eclipse!
926I think that earth seems so
927To those in heaven now.
928
929This being comfort, then
930That other kind was pain;
931But why compare?
932I'm wife! stop there!
933
934
935
936
937
938
939
940
941
942She rose to his requirement, dropped
943The playthings of her life
944To take the honorable work
945Of woman and of wife.
946
947If aught she missed in her new day
948Of amplitude, or awe,
949Or first prospective, or the gold
950In using wore away,
951
952It lay unmentioned, as the sea
953Develops pearl and weed,
954But only to himself is known
955The fathoms they abide.
956
957
958
959
960
961
962
963
964
965Come slowly, Eden!
966Lips unused to thee,
967Bashful, sip thy jasmines,
968As the fainting bee,
969
970Reaching late his flower,
971Round her chamber hums,
972Counts his nectars -- enters,
973And is lost in balms!
974
975
976
977
978
979
980
981
982
983
984
985
986
987
988
989New feet within my garden go,
990New fingers stir the sod;
991A troubadour upon the elm
992Betrays the solitude.
993
994New children play upon the green,
995New weary sleep below;
996And still the pensive spring returns,
997And still the punctual snow!
998
999
1000
1001
1002
1003
1004
1005MAY-
1006
1007Pink, small, and punctual,
1008Aromatic, low,
1009Covert in April,
1010Candid in May,
1011
1012Dear to the moss,
1013Known by the knoll,
1014Next to the robin
1015In every human soul.
1016
1017Bold little beauty,
1018Bedecked with thee,
1019Nature forswears
1020Antiquity.
1021
1022
1023
1024
1025
1026
1027
1028WHY?
1029
1030The murmur of a bee
1031A witchcraft yieldeth me.
1032If any ask me why,
1033'T were easier to die
1034Than tell.
1035
1036The red upon the hill
1037Taketh away my will;
1038If anybody sneer,
1039Take care, for God is here,
1040That's all.
1041
1042The breaking of the day
1043Addeth to my degree;
1044If any ask me how,
1045Artist, who drew me so,
1046Must tell!
1047
1048
1049
1050
1051
1052
1053
1054Perhaps you'd like to buy a flower?
1055But I could never sell.
1056If you would like to borrow
1057Until the daffodil
1058
1059Unties her yellow bonnet
1060Beneath the village door,
1061Until the bees, from clover rows
1062Their hock and sherry draw,
1063
1064Why, I will lend until just then,
1065But not an hour more!
1066
1067
1068
1069
1070
1071
1072
1073The pedigree of honey
1074Does not concern the bee;
1075A clover, any time, to him
1076Is aristocracy.
1077
1078
1079
1080
1081
1082
1083
1084
1085
1086Some keep the Sabbath going to church;
1087I keep it staying at home,
1088With a bobolink for a chorister,
1089And an orchard for a dome.
1090
1091Some keep the Sabbath in surplice;
1092I just wear my wings,
1093And instead of tolling the bell for church,
1094Our little sexton sings.
1095
1096God preaches, -- a noted clergyman, --
1097And the sermon is never long;
1098So instead of getting to heaven at last,
1099I'm going all along!
1100
1101
1102
1103
1104
1105
1106
1107The bee is not afraid of me,
1108I know the butterfly;
1109The pretty people in the woods
1110Receive me cordially.
1111
1112The brooks laugh louder when I come,
1113The breezes madder play.
1114Wherefore, mine eyes, thy silver mists?
1115Wherefore, O summer's day?
1116
1117
1118
1119
1120
1121
1122
1123SUMMER'
1124
1125Some rainbow coming from the fair!
1126Some vision of the world Cashmere
1127I confidently see!
1128Or else a peacock's purple train,
1129Feather by feather, on the plain
1130Fritters itself away!
1131
1132The dreamy butterflies bestir,
1133Lethargic pools resume the whir
1134Of last year's sundered tune.
1135From some old fortress on the sun
1136Baronial bees march, one by one,
1137In murmuring platoon!
1138
1139The robins stand as thick to-day
1140As flakes of snow stood yesterday,
1141On fence and roof and twig.
1142The orchis binds her feather on
1143For her old lover, Don the Sun,
1144Revisiting the bog!
1145
1146Without commander, countless, still,
1147The regiment of wood and hill
1148In bright detachment stand.
1149Behold! Whose multitudes are these?
1150The children of whose turbaned seas,
1151Or what Circassian land?
1152
1153
1154
1155
1156
1157
1158
1159
1160
1161The grass so little has to do, --
1162A sphere of simple green,
1163With only butterflies to brood,
1164And bees to entertain,
1165
1166And stir all day to pretty tunes
1167The breezes fetch along,
1168And hold the sunshine in its lap
1169And bow to everything;
1170
1171And thread the dews all night, like pearls,
1172And make itself so fine, --
1173A duchess were too common
1174For such a noticing.
1175
1176And even when it dies, to pass
1177In odors so divine,
1178As lowly spices gone to sleep,
1179Or amulets of pine.
1180
1181And then to dwell in sovereign barns,
1182And dream the days away, --
1183The grass so little has to do,
1184I wish I were the hay!
1185
1186
1187
1188
1189
1190
1191
1192A little road not made of man,
1193Enabled of the eye,
1194Accessible to thill of bee,
1195Or cart of butterfly.
1196
1197If town it have, beyond itself,
1198'T is that I cannot say;
1199I only sigh, -- no vehicle
1200Bears me along that way.
1201
1202
1203
1204
1205
1206
1207
1208
1209
1210A drop fell on the apple tree,
1211Another on the roof;
1212A half a dozen kissed the eaves,
1213And made the gables laugh.
1214
1215A few went out to help the brook,
1216That went to help the sea.
1217Myself conjectured, Were they pearls,
1218What necklaces could be!
1219
1220The dust replaced in hoisted roads,
1221The birds jocoser sung;
1222The sunshine threw his hat away,
1223The orchards spangles hung.
1224
1225The breezes brought dejected lutes,
1226And bathed them in the glee;
1227The East put out a single flag,
1228And signed the fete away.
1229
1230
1231
1232
1233
1234
1235
1236
1237
1238A something in a summer's day,
1239As slow her flambeaux burn away,
1240Which solemnizes me.
1241
1242A something in a summer's noon, --
1243An azure depth, a wordless tune,
1244Transcending ecstasy.
1245
1246And still within a summer's night
1247A something so transporting bright,
1248I clap my hands to see;
1249
1250Then veil my too inspecting face,
1251Lest such a subtle, shimmering grace
1252Flutter too far for me.
1253
1254The wizard-fingers never rest,
1255The purple brook within the breast
1256Still chafes its narrow bed;
1257
1258Still rears the East her amber flag,
1259Guides still the sun along the crag
1260His caravan of red,
1261
1262Like flowers that heard the tale of dews,
1263But never deemed the dripping prize
1264Awaited their low brows;
1265
1266Or bees, that thought the summer's name
1267Some rumor of delirium
1268No summer could for them;
1269
1270Or Arctic creature, dimly stirred
1271By tropic hint, -- some travelled bird
1272Imported to the wood;
1273
1274Or wind's bright signal to the ear,
1275Making that homely and severe,
1276Contented, known, before
1277
1278The heaven unexpected came,
1279To lives that thought their worshipping
1280A too presumptuous psalm.
1281
1282
1283
1284
1285
1286
1287
1288
1289
1290This is the land the sunset washes,
1291These are the banks of the Yellow Sea;
1292Where it rose, or whither it rushes,
1293These are the western mystery!
1294
1295Night after night her purple traffic
1296Strews the landing with opal bales;
1297Merchantmen poise upon horizons,
1298Dip, and vanish with fairy sails.
1299
1300
1301
1302
1303
1304
1305
1306
1307
1308There is a flower that bees prefer,
1309And butterflies desire;
1310To gain the purple democrat
1311The humming-birds aspire.
1312
1313And whatsoever insect pass,
1314A honey bears away
1315Proportioned to his several dearth
1316And her capacity.
1317
1318Her face is rounder than the moon,
1319And ruddier than the gown
1320Of orchis in the pasture,
1321Or rhododendron worn.
1322
1323She doth not wait for June;
1324Before the world is green
1325Her sturdy little countenance
1326Against the wind is seen,
1327
1328Contending with the grass,
1329Near kinsman to herself,
1330For privilege of sod and sun,
1331Sweet litigants for life.
1332
1333And when the hills are full,
1334And newer fashions blow,
1335Doth not retract a single spice
1336For pang of jealousy.
1337
1338Her public is the noon,
1339Her providence the sun,
1340Her progress by the bee proclaimed
1341In sovereign, swerveless tune.
1342
1343The bravest of the host,
1344Surrendering the last,
1345Nor even of defeat aware
1346When cancelled by the frost.
1347
1348
1349
1350
1351
1352
1353
1354
1355
1356Like trains of cars on tracks of plush
1357I hear the level bee:
1358A jar across the flowers goes,
1359Their velvet masonry
1360
1361Withstands until the sweet assault
1362Their chivalry consumes,
1363While he, victorious, tilts away
1364To vanquish other blooms.
1365
1366His feet are shod with gauze,
1367His helmet is of gold;
1368His breast, a single onyx
1369With chrysoprase, inlaid.
1370
1371His labor is a chant,
1372His idleness a tune;
1373Oh, for a bee's experience
1374Of clovers and of noon!
1375
1376
1377
1378
1379
1380
1381
1382Presentiment is that long shadow on the lawn
1383Indicative that suns go down;
1384The notice to the startled grass
1385That darkness is about to pass.
1386
1387
1388
1389
1390
1391
1392
1393As children bid the guest good-night,
1394And then reluctant turn,
1395My flowers raise their pretty lips,
1396Then put their nightgowns on.
1397
1398As children caper when they wake,
1399Merry that it is morn,
1400My flowers from a hundred cribs
1401Will peep, and prance again.
1402
1403
1404
1405
1406
1407
1408
1409Angels in the early morning
1410May be seen the dews among,
1411Stooping, plucking, smiling, flying:
1412Do the buds to them belong?
1413
1414Angels when the sun is hottest
1415May be seen the sands among,
1416Stooping, plucking, sighing, flying;
1417Parched the flowers they bear along.
1418
1419
1420
1421
1422
1423
1424
1425So bashful when I spied her,
1426So pretty, so ashamed!
1427So hidden in her leaflets,
1428Lest anybody find;
1429
1430So breathless till I passed her,
1431So helpless when I turned
1432And bore her, struggling, blushing,
1433Her simple haunts beyond!
1434
1435For whom I robbed the dingle,
1436For whom betrayed the dell,
1437Many will doubtless ask me,
1438But I shall never tell!
1439
1440
1441
1442
1443
1444
1445
1446
1447
1448It makes no difference abroad,
1449The seasons fit the same,
1450The mornings blossom into noons,
1451And split their pods of flame.
1452
1453Wild-flowers kindle in the woods,
1454The brooks brag all the day;
1455No blackbird bates his jargoning
1456For passing Calvary.
1457
1458Auto-da-fe and judgment
1459Are nothing to the bee;
1460His separation from his rose
1461To him seems misery.
1462
1463
1464
1465
1466
1467
1468
1469
1470
1471The mountain sat upon the plain
1472In his eternal chair,
1473His observation omnifold,
1474His inquest everywhere.
1475
1476The seasons prayed around his knees,
1477Like children round a sire:
1478Grandfather of the days is he,
1479Of dawn the ancestor.
1480
1481
1482
1483
1484
1485
1486
1487
1488
1489I'll tell you how the sun rose, --
1490A ribbon at a time.
1491The steeples swam in amethyst,
1492The news like squirrels ran.
1493
1494The hills untied their bonnets,
1495The bobolinks begun.
1496Then I said softly to myself,
1497'That must have been the sun!'
1498
1499        *  *  *
1500
1501But how he set, I know not.
1502There seemed a purple stile
1503Which little yellow boys and girls
1504Were climbing all the while
1505
1506Till when they reached the other side,
1507A dominie in gray
1508Put gently up the evening bars,
1509And led the flock away.
1510
1511
1512
1513
1514
1515
1516
1517The butterfly's assumption-gown,
1518In chrysoprase apartments hung,
1519  This afternoon put on.
1520
1521How condescending to descend,
1522And be of buttercups the friend
1523  In a New England town!
1524
1525
1526
1527
1528
1529
1530
1531
1532
1533Of all the sounds despatched abroad,
1534There's not a charge to me
1535Like that old measure in the boughs,
1536That phraseless melody
1537
1538The wind does, working like a hand
1539Whose fingers brush the sky,
1540Then quiver down, with tufts of tune
1541Permitted gods and me.
1542
1543When winds go round and round in bands,
1544And thrum upon the door,
1545And birds take places overhead,
1546To bear them orchestra,
1547
1548I crave him grace, of summer boughs,
1549If such an outcast be,
1550He never heard that fleshless chant
1551Rise solemn in the tree,
1552
1553As if some caravan of sound
1554On deserts, in the sky,
1555Had broken rank,
1556Then knit, and passed
1557In seamless company.
1558
1559
1560
1561
1562
1563
1564
1565
1566
1567Apparently with no surprise
1568To any happy flower,
1569The frost beheads it at its play
1570In accidental power.
1571The blond assassin passes on,
1572The sun proceeds unmoved
1573To measure off another day
1574For an approving God.
1575
1576
1577
1578
1579
1580
1581
1582'T WAS later when the summer went
1583Than when the cricket came,
1584And yet we knew that gentle clock
1585Meant nought but going home.
1586
1587'T was sooner when the cricket went
1588Than when the winter came,
1589Yet that pathetic pendulum
1590Keeps esoteric time.
1591
1592
1593
1594
1595
1596
1597
1598
1599
1600These are the days when birds come back,
1601A very few, a bird or two,
1602To take a backward look.
1603
1604These are the days when skies put on
1605The old, old sophistries of June, --
1606A blue and gold mistake.
1607
1608Oh, fraud that cannot cheat the bee,
1609Almost thy plausibility
1610Induces my belief,
1611
1612Till ranks of seeds their witness bear,
1613And softly through the altered air
1614Hurries a timid leaf!
1615
1616Oh, sacrament of summer days,
1617Oh, last communion in the haze,
1618Permit a child to join,
1619
1620Thy sacred emblems to partake,
1621Thy consecrated bread to break,
1622Taste thine immortal wine!
1623
1624
1625
1626
1627
1628
1629
1630
1631
1632The morns are meeker than they were,
1633The nuts are getting brown;
1634The berry's cheek is plumper,
1635The rose is out of town.
1636
1637The maple wears a gayer scarf,
1638The field a scarlet gown.
1639Lest I should be old-fashioned,
1640I'll put a trinket on.
1641
1642
1643
1644
1645
1646
1647
1648
1649
1650The sky is low, the clouds are mean,
1651A travelling flake of snow
1652Across a barn or through a rut
1653Debates if it will go.
1654
1655A narrow wind complains all day
1656How some one treated him;
1657Nature, like us, is sometimes caught
1658Without her diadem.
1659
1660
1661
1662
1663
1664
1665
1666
1667
1668I think the hemlock likes to stand
1669Upon a marge of snow;
1670It suits his own austerity,
1671And satisfies an awe
1672
1673That men must slake in wilderness,
1674Or in the desert cloy, --
1675An instinct for the hoar, the bald,
1676Lapland's necessity.
1677
1678The hemlock's nature thrives on cold;
1679The gnash of northern winds
1680Is sweetest nutriment to him,
1681His best Norwegian wines.
1682
1683To satin races he is nought;
1684But children on the Don
1685Beneath his tabernacles play,
1686And Dnieper wrestlers run.
1687
1688
1689
1690
1691
1692
1693
1694There's a certain slant of light,
1695On winter afternoons,
1696That oppresses, like the weight
1697Of cathedral tunes.
1698
1699Heavenly hurt it gives us;
1700We can find no scar,
1701But internal difference
1702Where the meanings are.
1703
1704None may teach it anything,
1705' T is the seal, despair, --
1706An imperial affliction
1707Sent us of the air.
1708
1709When it comes, the landscape listens,
1710Shadows hold their breath;
1711When it goes, 't is like the distance
1712On the look of death.
1713
1714
1715
1716
1717
1718
1719
1720
1721
1722
1723One dignity delays for all,
1724One mitred afternoon.
1725None can avoid this purple,
1726None evade this crown.
1727
1728Coach it insures, and footmen,
1729Chamber and state and throng;
1730Bells, also, in the village,
1731As we ride grand along.
1732
1733What dignified attendants,
1734What service when we pause!
1735How loyally at parting
1736Their hundred hats they raise!
1737
1738How pomp surpassing ermine,
1739When simple you and I
1740Present our meek escutcheon,
1741And claim the rank to die!
1742
1743
1744
1745
1746
1747
1748
1749
1750
1751Delayed till she had ceased to know,
1752Delayed till in its vest of snow
1753   Her loving bosom lay.
1754An hour behind the fleeting breath,
1755Later by just an hour than death, --
1756   Oh, lagging yesterday!
1757
1758Could she have guessed that it would be;
1759Could but a crier of the glee
1760   Have climbed the distant hill;
1761Had not the bliss so slow a pace, --
1762Who knows but this surrendered face
1763   Were undefeated still?
1764
1765Oh, if there may departing be
1766Any forgot by victory
1767   In her imperial round,
1768Show them this meek apparelled thing,
1769That could not stop to be a king,
1770   Doubtful if it be crowned!
1771
1772
1773
1774
1775
1776
1777
1778
1779
1780Departed to the judgment,
1781A mighty afternoon;
1782Great clouds like ushers leaning,
1783Creation looking on.
1784
1785The flesh surrendered, cancelled,
1786The bodiless begun;
1787Two worlds, like audiences, disperse
1788And leave the soul alone.
1789
1790
1791
1792
1793
1794
1795
1796Safe in their alabaster chambers,
1797Untouched by morning and untouched by noon,
1798Sleep the meek members of the resurrection,
1799Rafter of satin, and roof of stone.
1800
1801Light laughs the breeze in her castle of sunshine;
1802Babbles the bee in a stolid ear;
1803Pipe the sweet birds in ignorant cadence, --
1804Ah, what sagacity perished here!
1805
1806Grand go the years in the crescent above them;
1807Worlds scoop their arcs, and firmaments row,
1808Diadems drop and Doges surrender,
1809Soundless as dots on a disk of snow.
1810
1811
1812
1813
1814
1815
1816
1817On this long storm the rainbow rose,
1818On this late morn the sun;
1819The clouds, like listless elephants,
1820Horizons straggled down.
1821
1822The birds rose smiling in their nests,
1823The gales indeed were done;
1824Alas! how heedless were the eyes
1825On whom the summer shone!
1826
1827The quiet nonchalance of death
1828No daybreak can bestir;
1829The slow archangel's syllables
1830Must awaken her.
1831
1832
1833
1834
1835
1836
1837
1838
1839
1840My cocoon tightens, colors tease,
1841I'm feeling for the air;
1842A dim capacity for wings
1843Degrades the dress I wear.
1844
1845A power of butterfly must be
1846The aptitude to fly,
1847Meadows of majesty concedes
1848And easy sweeps of sky.
1849
1850So I must baffle at the hint
1851And cipher at the sign,
1852And make much blunder, if at last
1853I take the clew divine.
1854
1855
1856
1857
1858
1859
1860
1861
1862
1863Exultation is the going
1864Of an inland soul to sea, --
1865Past the houses, past the headlands,
1866Into deep eternity!
1867
1868Bred as we, among the mountains,
1869Can the sailor understand
1870The divine intoxication
1871Of the first league out from land?
1872
1873
1874
1875
1876
1877
1878
1879Look back on time with kindly eyes,
1880He doubtless did his best;
1881How softly sinks his trembling sun
1882In human nature's west!
1883
1884
1885
1886
1887
1888
1889
1890A train went through a burial gate,
1891A bird broke forth and sang,
1892And trilled, and quivered, and shook his throat
1893Till all the churchyard rang;
1894
1895And then adjusted his little notes,
1896And bowed and sang again.
1897Doubtless, he thought it meet of him
1898To say good-by to men.
1899
1900
1901
1902
1903
1904
1905
1906I died for beauty, but was scarce
1907Adjusted in the tomb,
1908When one who died for truth was lain
1909In an adjoining room.
1910
1911He questioned softly why I failed?
1912'For beauty,' I replied.
1913'And I for truth, -- the two are one;
1914We brethren are,' he said.
1915
1916And so, as kinsmen met a night,
1917We talked between the rooms,
1918Until the moss had reached our lips,
1919And covered up our names.
1920
1921
1922
1923
1924
1925
1926
1927''
1928
1929How many times these low feet staggered,
1930Only the soldered mouth can tell;
1931Try! can you stir the awful rivet?
1932Try! can you lift the hasps of steel?
1933
1934Stroke the cool forehead, hot so often,
1935Lift, if you can, the listless hair;
1936Handle the adamantine fingers
1937Never a thimble more shall wear.
1938
1939Buzz the dull flies on the chamber window;
1940Brave shines the sun through the freckled pane;
1941Fearless the cobweb swings from the ceiling --
1942Indolent housewife, in daisies lain!
1943
1944
1945
1946
1947
1948
1949
1950
1951
1952I like a look of agony,
1953Because I know it 's true;
1954Men do not sham convulsion,
1955Nor simulate a throe.
1956
1957The eyes glaze once, and that is death.
1958Impossible to feign
1959The beads upon the forehead
1960By homely anguish strung.
1961
1962
1963
1964
1965
1966
1967
1968
1969
1970That short, potential stir
1971That each can make but once,
1972That bustle so illustrious
1973'T is almost consequence,
1974
1975Is the eclat of death.
1976Oh, thou unknown renown
1977That not a beggar would accept,
1978Had he the power to spurn!
1979
1980
1981
1982
1983
1984
1985
1986I went to thank her,
1987But she slept;
1988Her bed a funnelled stone,
1989With nosegays at the head and foot,
1990That travellers had thrown,
1991
1992Who went to thank her;
1993But she slept.
1994'T was short to cross the sea
1995To look upon her like, alive,
1996But turning back 't was slow.
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004I've seen a dying eye
2005Run round and round a room
2006In search of something, as it seemed,
2007Then cloudier become;
2008And then, obscure with fog,
2009And then be soldered down,
2010Without disclosing what it be,
2011'T were blessed to have seen.
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
2019
2020
2021The clouds their backs together laid,
2022The north begun to push,
2023The forests galloped till they fell,
2024The lightning skipped like mice;
2025The thunder crumbled like a stuff --
2026How good to be safe in tombs,
2027Where nature's temper cannot reach,
2028Nor vengeance ever comes!
2029
2030
2031
2032
2033
2034
2035
2036I never saw a moor,
2037I never saw the sea;
2038Yet know I how the heather looks,
2039And what a wave must be.
2040
2041I never spoke with God,
2042Nor visited in heaven;
2043Yet certain am I of the spot
2044As if the chart were given.
2045
2046
2047
2048
2049
2050
2051
2052
2053
2054God permits industrious angels
2055Afternoons to play.
2056I met one, -- forgot my school-mates,
2057All, for him, straightway.
2058
2059God calls home the angels promptly
2060At the setting sun;
2061I missed mine. How dreary marbles,
2062After playing Crown!
2063
2064
2065
2066
2067
2068
2069
2070To know just how he suffered would be dear;
2071To know if any human eyes were near
2072To whom he could intrust his wavering gaze,
2073Until it settled firm on Paradise.
2074
2075To know if he was patient, part content,
2076Was dying as he thought, or different;
2077Was it a pleasant day to die,
2078And did the sunshine face his way?
2079
2080What was his furthest mind, of home, or God,
2081Or what the distant say
2082At news that he ceased human nature
2083On such a day?
2084
2085And wishes, had he any?
2086Just his sigh, accented,
2087Had been legible to me.
2088And was he confident until
2089Ill fluttered out in everlasting well?
2090
2091And if he spoke, what name was best,
2092What first,
2093What one broke off with
2094At the drowsiest?
2095
2096Was he afraid, or tranquil?
2097Might he know
2098How conscious consciousness could grow,
2099Till love that was, and love too blest to be,
2100Meet -- and the junction be Eternity?
2101
2102
2103
2104
2105
2106
2107
2108The last night that she lived,
2109It was a common night,
2110Except the dying; this to us
2111Made nature different.
2112
2113We noticed smallest things, --
2114Things overlooked before,
2115By this great light upon our minds
2116Italicized, as 't were.
2117
2118That others could exist
2119While she must finish quite,
2120A jealousy for her arose
2121So nearly infinite.
2122
2123We waited while she passed;
2124It was a narrow time,
2125Too jostled were our souls to speak,
2126At length the notice came.
2127
2128She mentioned, and forgot;
2129Then lightly as a reed
2130Bent to the water, shivered scarce,
2131Consented, and was dead.
2132
2133And we, we placed the hair,
2134And drew the head erect;
2135And then an awful leisure was,
2136Our faith to regulate.
2137
2138
2139
2140
2141
2142
2143
2144
2145
2146Not in this world to see his face
2147Sounds long, until I read the place
2148Where this is said to be
2149But just the primer to a life
2150Unopened, rare, upon the shelf,
2151Clasped yet to him and me.
2152
2153And yet, my primer suits me so
2154I would not choose a book to know
2155Than that, be sweeter wise;
2156Might some one else so learned be,
2157And leave me just my A B C,
2158Himself could have the skies.
2159
2160
2161
2162
2163
2164
2165
2166The bustle in a house
2167The morning after death
2168Is solemnest of industries
2169Enacted upon earth, --
2170
2171The sweeping up the heart,
2172And putting love away
2173We shall not want to use again
2174Until eternity.
2175
2176
2177
2178
2179
2180
2181
2182I reason, earth is short,
2183And anguish absolute,
2184And many hurt;
2185But what of that?
2186
2187I reason, we could die:
2188The best vitality
2189Cannot excel decay;
2190But what of that?
2191
2192I reason that in heaven
2193Somehow, it will be even,
2194Some new equation given;
2195But what of that?
2196
2197
2198
2199
2200
2201
2202
2203Afraid? Of whom am I afraid?
2204Not death; for who is he?
2205The porter of my father's lodge
2206As much abasheth me.
2207
2208Of life? 'T were odd I fear a thing
2209That comprehendeth me
2210In one or more existences
2211At Deity's decree.
2212
2213Of resurrection? Is the east
2214Afraid to trust the morn
2215With her fastidious forehead?
2216As soon impeach my crown!
2217
2218
2219
2220
2221
2222
2223
2224
2225
2226The sun kept setting, setting still;
2227No hue of afternoon
2228Upon the village I perceived, --
2229From house to house 't was noon.
2230
2231The dusk kept dropping, dropping still;
2232No dew upon the grass,
2233But only on my forehead stopped,
2234And wandered in my face.
2235
2236My feet kept drowsing, drowsing still,
2237My fingers were awake;
2238Yet why so little sound myself
2239Unto my seeming make?
2240
2241How well I knew the light before!
2242I could not see it now.
2243'T is dying, I am doing; but
2244I'm not afraid to know.
2245
2246
2247
2248
2249
2250
2251
2252Two swimmers wrestled on the spar
2253Until the morning sun,
2254When one turned smiling to the land.
2255O God, the other one!
2256
2257The stray ships passing spied a face
2258Upon the waters borne,
2259With eyes in death still begging raised,
2260And hands beseeching thrown.
2261
2262
2263
2264
2265
2266
2267
2268
2269
2270Because I could not stop for Death,
2271He kindly stopped for me;
2272The carriage held but just ourselves
2273And Immortality.
2274
2275We slowly drove, he knew no haste,
2276And I had put away
2277My labor, and my leisure too,
2278For his civility.
2279
2280We passed the school where children played,
2281Their lessons scarcely done;
2282We passed the fields of gazing grain,
2283We passed the setting sun.
2284
2285We paused before a house that seemed
2286A swelling of the ground;
2287The roof was scarcely visible,
2288The cornice but a mound.
2289
2290Since then 't is centuries; but each
2291Feels shorter than the day
2292I first surmised the horses' heads
2293Were toward eternity.
2294
2295
2296
2297
2298
2299
2300
2301She went as quiet as the dew
2302From a familiar flower.
2303Not like the dew did she return
2304At the accustomed hour!
2305
2306She dropt as softly as a star
2307From out my summer's eve;
2308Less skilful than Leverrier
2309It's sorer to believe!
2310
2311
2312
2313
2314
2315
2316
2317
2318
2319At last to be identified!
2320At last, the lamps upon thy side,
2321The rest of life to see!
2322Past midnight, past the morning star!
2323Past sunrise! Ah! what leagues there are
2324Between our feet and day!
2325
2326
2327
2328
2329
2330
2331
2332Except to heaven, she is nought;
2333Except for angels, lone;
2334Except to some wide-wandering bee,
2335A flower superfluous blown;
2336
2337Except for winds, provincial;
2338Except by butterflies,
2339Unnoticed as a single dew
2340That on the acre lies.
2341
2342The smallest housewife in the grass,
2343Yet take her from the lawn,
2344And somebody has lost the face
2345That made existence home!
2346
2347
2348
2349
2350
2351
2352
2353Death is a dialogue between
2354The spirit and the dust.
2355'Dissolve,' says Death. The Spirit, 'Sir,
2356I have another trust.'
2357
2358Death doubts it, argues from the ground.
2359The Spirit turns away,
2360Just laying off, for evidence,
2361An overcoat of clay.
2362
2363
2364
2365
2366
2367
2368
2369It was too late for man,
2370But early yet for God;
2371Creation impotent to help,
2372But prayer remained our side.
2373
2374How excellent the heaven,
2375When earth cannot be had;
2376How hospitable, then, the face
2377Of our old neighbor, God!
2378
2379
2380
2381
2382
2383
2384
2385
2386
2387When I was small, a woman died.
2388To-day her only boy
2389Went up from the Potomac,
2390His face all victory,
2391
2392To look at her; how slowly
2393The seasons must have turned
2394Till bullets clipt an angle,
2395And he passed quickly round!
2396
2397If pride shall be in Paradise
2398I never can decide;
2399Of their imperial conduct,
2400No person testified.
2401
2402But proud in apparition,
2403That woman and her boy
2404Pass back and forth before my brain,
2405As ever in the sky.
2406
2407
2408
2409
2410
2411
2412
2413The daisy follows soft the sun,
2414And when his golden walk is done,
2415   Sits shyly at his feet.
2416He, waking, finds the flower near.
2417'Wherefore, marauder, art thou here?'
2418   'Because, sir, love is sweet!'
2419
2420We are the flower, Thou the sun!
2421Forgive us, if as days decline,
2422   We nearer steal to Thee, --
2423Enamoured of the parting west,
2424The peace, the flight, the amethyst,
2425   Night's possibility!
2426
2427
2428
2429
2430
2431
2432
2433
2434
2435No rack can torture me,
2436My soul's at liberty
2437Behind this mortal bone
2438There knits a bolder one
2439
2440You cannot prick with saw,
2441Nor rend with scymitar.
2442Two bodies therefore be;
2443Bind one, and one will flee.
2444
2445The eagle of his nest
2446No easier divest
2447And gain the sky,
2448Than mayest thou,
2449
2450Except thyself may be
2451Thine enemy;
2452Captivity is consciousness,
2453So's liberty.
2454
2455
2456
2457
2458
2459
2460
2461
2462
2463I lost a world the other day.
2464Has anybody found?
2465You'll know it by the row of stars
2466Around its forehead bound.
2467
2468A rich man might not notice it;
2469Yet to my frugal eye
2470Of more esteem than ducats.
2471Oh, find it, sir, for me!
2472
2473
2474
2475
2476
2477
2478
2479If I shouldn't be alive
2480When the robins come,
2481Give the one in red cravat
2482A memorial crumb.
2483
2484If I couldn't thank you,
2485Being just asleep,
2486You will know I'm trying
2487With my granite lip!
2488
2489
2490
2491
2492
2493
2494
2495Sleep is supposed to be,
2496By souls of sanity,
2497The shutting of the eye.
2498
2499Sleep is the station grand
2500Down which on either hand
2501The hosts of witness stand!
2502
2503Morn is supposed to be,
2504By people of degree,
2505The breaking of the day.
2506
2507Morning has not occurred!
2508That shall aurora be
2509East of eternity;
2510
2511One with the banner gay,
2512One in the red array, --
2513That is the break of day.
2514
2515
2516
2517
2518
2519
2520
2521I shall know why, when time is over,
2522And I have ceased to wonder why;
2523Christ will explain each separate anguish
2524In the fair schoolroom of the sky.
2525
2526He will tell me what Peter promised,
2527And I, for wonder at his woe,
2528I shall forget the drop of anguish
2529That scalds me now, that scalds me now.
2530
2531
2532
2533
2534
2535
2536
2537I never lost as much but twice,
2538And that was in the sod;
2539Twice have I stood a beggar
2540Before the door of God!
2541
2542Angels, twice descending,
2543Reimbursed my store.
2544Burglar, banker, father,
2545I am poor once more!
2546
2547
2548    My nosegays are for captives;
2549       Dim, long-expectant eyes,
2550    Fingers denied the plucking,
2551       Patient till paradise,
2552
2553    To such, if they should whisper
2554       Of morning and the moor,
2555    They bear no other errand,
2556       And I, no other prayer.
2557
2558
2559
2560
2561
2562
2563
2564
2565
2566I'm nobody!  Who are you?
2567Are you nobody, too?
2568Then there 's a pair of us -- don't tell!
2569They 'd banish us, you know.
2570
2571How dreary to be somebody!
2572How public, like a frog
2573To tell your name the livelong day
2574To an admiring bog!
2575
2576
2577
2578
2579
2580
2581
2582I bring an unaccustomed wine
2583To lips long parching, next to mine,
2584And summon them to drink.
2585
2586Crackling with fever, they essay;
2587I turn my brimming eyes away,
2588And come next hour to look.
2589
2590The hands still hug the tardy glass;
2591The lips I would have cooled, alas!
2592Are so superfluous cold,
2593
2594I would as soon attempt to warm
2595The bosoms where the frost has lain
2596Ages beneath the mould.
2597
2598Some other thirsty there may be
2599To whom this would have pointed me
2600Had it remained to speak.
2601
2602And so I always bear the cup
2603If, haply, mine may be the drop
2604Some pilgrim thirst to slake, --
2605
2606If, haply, any say to me,
2607'Unto the little, unto me,'
2608When I at last awake.
2609
2610
2611
2612
2613
2614
2615
2616The nearest dream recedes, unrealized.
2617      The heaven we chase
2618      Like the June bee
2619      Before the school-boy
2620      Invites the race;
2621      Stoops to an easy clover --
2622Dips -- evades -- teases -- deploys;
2623      Then to the royal clouds
2624      Lifts his light pinnace
2625      Heedless of the boy
2626Staring, bewildered, at the mocking sky.
2627
2628      Homesick for steadfast honey,
2629      Ah! the bee flies not
2630That brews that rare variety.
2631
2632
2633
2634
2635
2636
2637
2638We play at paste,
2639Till qualified for pearl,
2640Then drop the paste,
2641And deem ourself a fool.
2642The shapes, though, were similar,
2643And our new hands
2644Learned gem-tactics
2645Practising sands.
2646
2647
2648
2649
2650
2651
2652
2653I found the phrase to every thought
2654I ever had, but one;
2655And that defies me, -- as a hand
2656Did try to chalk the sun
2657
2658To races nurtured in the dark; --
2659How would your own begin?
2660Can blaze be done in cochineal,
2661Or noon in mazarin?
2662
2663
2664
2665
2666
2667
2668
2669
2670
2671Hope is the thing with feathers
2672That perches in the soul,
2673And sings the tune without the words,
2674And never stops at all,
2675
2676And sweetest in the gale is heard;
2677And sore must be the storm
2678That could abash the little bird
2679That kept so many warm.
2680
2681I 've heard it in the chillest land,
2682And on the strangest sea;
2683Yet, never, in extremity,
2684It asked a crumb of me.
2685
2686
2687
2688
2689
2690
2691
2692
2693
2694Dare you see a soul at the white heat?
2695   Then crouch within the door.
2696Red is the fire's common tint;
2697   But when the vivid ore
2698
2699Has sated flame's conditions,
2700   Its quivering substance plays
2701Without a color but the light
2702   Of unanointed blaze.
2703
2704Least village boasts its blacksmith,
2705   Whose anvil's even din
2706Stands symbol for the finer forge
2707   That soundless tugs within,
2708
2709Refining these impatient ores
2710   With hammer and with blaze,
2711Until the designated light
2712   Repudiate the forge.
2713
2714
2715
2716
2717
2718
2719
2720
2721
2722Who never lost, are unprepared
2723A coronet to find;
2724Who never thirsted, flagons
2725And cooling tamarind.
2726
2727Who never climbed the weary league --
2728Can such a foot explore
2729The purple territories
2730On Pizarro's shore?
2731
2732How many legions overcome?
2733The emperor will say.
2734How many colors taken
2735On Revolution Day?
2736
2737How many bullets bearest?
2738The royal scar hast thou?
2739Angels, write 'Promoted'
2740On this soldier's brow!
2741
2742
2743
2744
2745
2746
2747
2748
2749
2750I can wade grief,
2751Whole pools of it, --
2752I 'm used to that.
2753But the least push of joy
2754Breaks up my feet,
2755And I tip -- drunken.
2756Let no pebble smile,
2757'T was the new liquor, --
2758That was all!
2759
2760Power is only pain,
2761Stranded, through discipline,
2762Till weights will hang.
2763Give balm to giants,
2764And they 'll wilt, like men.
2765Give Himmaleh, --
2766They 'll carry him!
2767
2768
2769
2770
2771
2772
2773
2774
2775
2776I never hear the word 'escape'
2777Without a quicker blood,
2778A sudden expectation,
2779A flying attitude.
2780
2781I never hear of prisons broad
2782By soldiers battered down,
2783But I tug childish at my bars, --
2784Only to fail again!
2785
2786
2787
2788
2789
2790
2791
2792
2793
2794
2795For each ecstatic instant
2796We must an anguish pay
2797In keen and quivering ratio
2798To the ecstasy.
2799
2800For each beloved hour
2801Sharp pittances of years,
2802Bitter contested farthings
2803And coffers heaped with tears.
2804
2805
2806
2807
2808
2809
2810
2811
2812
2813Through the straight pass of suffering
2814The martyrs even trod,
2815Their feet upon temptation,
2816Their faces upon God.
2817
2818A stately, shriven company;
2819Convulsion playing round,
2820Harmless as streaks of meteor
2821Upon a planet's bound.
2822
2823Their faith the everlasting troth;
2824Their expectation fair;
2825The needle to the north degree
2826Wades so, through polar air.
2827
2828
2829
2830
2831
2832
2833
2834
2835
2836I meant to have but modest needs,
2837Such as content, and heaven;
2838Within my income these could lie,
2839And life and I keep even.
2840
2841But since the last included both,
2842It would suffice my prayer
2843But just for one to stipulate,
2844And grace would grant the pair.
2845
2846And so, upon this wise I prayed, --
2847Great Spirit, give to me
2848A heaven not so large as yours,
2849But large enough for me.
2850
2851A smile suffused Jehovah's face;
2852The cherubim withdrew;
2853Grave saints stole out to look at me,
2854And showed their dimples, too.
2855
2856I left the place with all my might, --
2857My prayer away I threw;
2858The quiet ages picked it up,
2859And Judgment twinkled, too,
2860
2861That one so honest be extant
2862As take the tale for true
2863That 'Whatsoever you shall ask,
2864Itself be given you.'
2865
2866But I, grown shrewder, scan the skies
2867With a suspicious air, --
2868As children, swindled for the first,
2869All swindlers be, infer.
2870
2871
2872
2873
2874
2875
2876
2877The thought beneath so slight a film
2878Is more distinctly seen, --
2879As laces just reveal the surge,
2880Or mists the Apennine.
2881
2882
2883
2884
2885
2886
2887
2888The soul unto itself
2889Is an imperial friend, --
2890Or the most agonizing spy
2891An enemy could send.
2892
2893Secure against its own,
2894No treason it can fear;
2895Itself its sovereign, of itself
2896The soul should stand in awe.
2897
2898
2899
2900
2901
2902
2903
2904Surgeons must be very careful
2905When they take the knife!
2906Underneath their fine incisions
2907Stirs the culprit, -- Life!
2908
2909
2910
2911
2912
2913
2914
2915
2916
2917I like to see it lap the miles,
2918And lick the valleys up,
2919And stop to feed itself at tanks;
2920And then, prodigious, step
2921
2922Around a pile of mountains,
2923And, supercilious, peer
2924In shanties by the sides of roads;
2925And then a quarry pare
2926
2927To fit its sides, and crawl between,
2928Complaining all the while
2929In horrid, hooting stanza;
2930Then chase itself down hill
2931
2932And neigh like Boanerges;
2933Then, punctual as a star,
2934Stop -- docile and omnipotent --
2935At its own stable door.
2936
2937
2938
2939
2940
2941
2942
2943
2944
2945The show is not the show,
2946But they that go.
2947Menagerie to me
2948My neighbor be.
2949Fair play --
2950Both went to see.
2951
2952
2953
2954
2955
2956
2957
2958Delight becomes pictorial
2959When viewed through pain, --
2960More fair, because impossible
2961That any gain.
2962
2963The mountain at a given distance
2964In amber lies;
2965Approached, the amber flits a little, --
2966And that 's the skies!
2967
2968
2969
2970
2971
2972
2973
2974A thought went up my mind to-day
2975That I have had before,
2976But did not finish, -- some way back,
2977I could not fix the year,
2978
2979Nor where it went, nor why it came
2980The second time to me,
2981Nor definitely what it was,
2982Have I the art to say.
2983
2984But somewhere in my soul, I know
2985I 've met the thing before;
2986It just reminded me -- 't was all --
2987And came my way no more.
2988
2989
2990
2991
2992
2993
2994
2995Is Heaven a physician?
2996They say that He can heal;
2997But medicine posthumous
2998   Is unavailable.
2999
3000Is Heaven an exchequer?
3001   They speak of what we owe;
3002But that negotiation
3003   I 'm not a party to.
3004
3005
3006
3007
3008
3009
3010
3011
3012
3013Though I get home how late, how late!
3014So I get home, 't will compensate.
3015Better will be the ecstasy
3016That they have done expecting me,
3017When, night descending, dumb and dark,
3018They hear my unexpected knock.
3019Transporting must the moment be,
3020Brewed from decades of agony!
3021
3022To think just how the fire will burn,
3023Just how long-cheated eyes will turn
3024To wonder what myself will say,
3025And what itself will say to me,
3026Beguiles the centuries of way!
3027
3028
3029
3030
3031
3032
3033
3034A poor torn heart, a tattered heart,
3035That sat it down to rest,
3036Nor noticed that the ebbing day
3037Flowed silver to the west,
3038Nor noticed night did soft descend
3039Nor constellation burn,
3040Intent upon the vision
3041Of latitudes unknown.
3042
3043The angels, happening that way,
3044This dusty heart espied;
3045Tenderly took it up from toil
3046And carried it to God.
3047There, -- sandals for the barefoot;
3048There, -- gathered from the gales,
3049Do the blue havens by the hand
3050Lead the wandering sails.
3051
3052
3053
3054
3055
3056
3057
3058
3059
3060I should have been too glad, I see,
3061Too lifted for the scant degree
3062   Of life's penurious round;
3063My little circuit would have shamed
3064This new circumference, have blamed
3065   The homelier time behind.
3066
3067I should have been too saved, I see,
3068Too rescued; fear too dim to me
3069   That I could spell the prayer
3070I knew so perfect yesterday, --
3071That scalding one, 'Sabachthani,'
3072   Recited fluent here.
3073
3074Earth would have been too much, I see,
3075And heaven not enough for me;
3076   I should have had the joy
3077Without the fear to justify, --
3078The palm without the Calvary;
3079   So, Saviour, crucify.
3080
3081Defeat whets victory, they say;
3082The reefs in old Gethsemane
3083   Endear the shore beyond.
3084'T is beggars banquets best define;
3085'T is thirsting vitalizes wine, --
3086   Faith faints to understand.
3087
3088
3089
3090
3091
3092
3093
3094
3095
3096It tossed and tossed, --
3097A little brig I knew, --
3098O'ertook by blast,
3099It spun and spun,
3100And groped delirious, for morn.
3101
3102It slipped and slipped,
3103As one that drunken stepped;
3104Its white foot tripped,
3105Then dropped from sight.
3106
3107Ah, brig, good-night
3108To crew and you;
3109The ocean's heart too smooth, too blue,
3110To break for you.
3111
3112
3113
3114
3115
3116
3117
3118Victory comes late,
3119And is held low to freezing lips
3120Too rapt with frost
3121To take it.
3122How sweet it would have tasted,
3123Just a drop!
3124Was God so economical?
3125His table 's spread too high for us
3126Unless we dine on tip-toe.
3127Crumbs fit such little mouths,
3128Cherries suit robins;
3129The eagle's golden breakfast
3130Strangles them.
3131God keeps his oath to sparrows,
3132Who of little love
3133Know how to starve!
3134
3135
3136
3137
3138
3139
3140
3141
3142
3143God gave a loaf to every bird,
3144But just a crumb to me;
3145I dare not eat it, though I starve, --
3146My poignant luxury
3147To own it, touch it, prove the feat
3148That made the pellet mine, --
3149Too happy in my sparrow chance
3150For ampler coveting.
3151
3152It might be famine all around,
3153I could not miss an ear,
3154Such plenty smiles upon my board,
3155My garner shows so fair.
3156I wonder how the rich may feel, --
3157An Indiaman -- an Earl?
3158I deem that I with but a crumb
3159Am sovereign of them all.
3160
3161
3162
3163
3164
3165
3166
3167Experiment to me
3168Is every one I meet.
3169If it contain a kernel?
3170The figure of a nut
3171
3172Presents upon a tree,
3173Equally plausibly;
3174But meat within is requisite,
3175To squirrels and to me.
3176
3177
3178
3179
3180
3181
3182
3183MY COUNTRY'
3184
3185My country need not change her gown,
3186Her triple suit as sweet
3187As when 't was cut at Lexington,
3188And first pronounced 'a fit.'
3189
3190Great Britain disapproves 'the stars;'
3191Disparagement discreet, --
3192There 's something in their attitude
3193That taunts her bayonet.
3194
3195
3196
3197
3198
3199
3200
3201Faith is a fine invention
3202For gentlemen who see;
3203But microscopes are prudent
3204In an emergency!
3205
3206
3207
3208
3209
3210
3211
3212Except the heaven had come so near,
3213So seemed to choose my door,
3214The distance would not haunt me so;
3215I had not hoped before.
3216
3217But just to hear the grace depart
3218I never thought to see,
3219Afflicts me with a double loss;
3220'T is lost, and lost to me.
3221
3222
3223
3224
3225
3226
3227
3228Portraits are to daily faces
3229As an evening west
3230To a fine, pedantic sunshine
3231In a satin vest.
3232
3233
3234
3235
3236
3237
3238
3239
3240
3241I took my power in my hand.
3242And went against the world;
3243'T was not so much as David had,
3244But I was twice as bold.
3245
3246I aimed my pebble, but myself
3247Was all the one that fell.
3248Was it Goliath was too large,
3249Or only I too small?
3250
3251
3252
3253
3254
3255
3256
3257A shady friend for torrid days
3258Is easier to find
3259Than one of higher temperature
3260For frigid hour of mind.
3261
3262The vane a little to the east
3263Scares muslin souls away;
3264If broadcloth breasts are firmer
3265Than those of organdy,
3266
3267Who is to blame? The weaver?
3268Ah! the bewildering thread!
3269The tapestries of paradise
3270So notelessly are made!
3271
3272
3273
3274
3275
3276
3277
3278
3279
3280Each life converges to some centre
3281Expressed or still;
3282Exists in every human nature
3283A goal,
3284
3285Admitted scarcely to itself, it may be,
3286Too fair
3287For credibility's temerity
3288To dare.
3289
3290Adored with caution, as a brittle heaven,
3291To reach
3292Were hopeless as the rainbow's raiment
3293To touch,
3294
3295Yet persevered toward, surer for the distance;
3296How high
3297Unto the saints' slow diligence
3298The sky!
3299
3300Ungained, it may be, by a life's low venture,
3301But then,
3302Eternity enables the endeavoring
3303Again.
3304
3305
3306
3307
3308
3309
3310
3311
3312
3313Before I got my eye put out,
3314I liked as well to see
3315As other creatures that have eyes,
3316And know no other way.
3317
3318But were it told to me, to-day,
3319That I might have the sky
3320For mine, I tell you that my heart
3321Would split, for size of me.
3322
3323The meadows mine, the mountains mine, --
3324All forests, stintless stars,
3325As much of noon as I could take
3326Between my finite eyes.
3327
3328The motions of the dipping birds,
3329The lightning's jointed road,
3330For mine to look at when I liked, --
3331The news would strike me dead!
3332
3333So safer, guess, with just my soul
3334Upon the window-pane
3335Where other creatures put their eyes,
3336Incautious of the sun.
3337
3338
3339
3340
3341
3342
3343
3344Talk with prudence to a beggar
3345Of 'Potosi' and the mines!
3346Reverently to the hungry
3347Of your viands and your wines!
3348
3349Cautious, hint to any captive
3350You have passed enfranchised feet!
3351Anecdotes of air in dungeons
3352Have sometimes proved deadly sweet!
3353
3354
3355
3356
3357
3358
3359
3360
3361
3362He preached upon 'breadth' till it argued him narrow, --
3363The broad are too broad to define;
3364And of 'truth' until it proclaimed him a liar, --
3365The truth never flaunted a sign.
3366
3367Simplicity fled from his counterfeit presence
3368As gold the pyrites would shun.
3369What confusion would cover the innocent Jesus
3370To meet so enabled a man!
3371
3372
3373
3374
3375
3376
3377
3378Good night! which put the candle out?
3379A jealous zephyr, not a doubt.
3380   Ah! friend, you little knew
3381How long at that celestial wick
3382The angels labored diligent;
3383   Extinguished, now, for you!
3384
3385It might have been the lighthouse spark
3386Some sailor, rowing in the dark,
3387   Had importuned to see!
3388It might have been the waning lamp
3389That lit the drummer from the camp
3390   To purer reveille!
3391
3392
3393
3394
3395
3396
3397
3398When I hoped I feared,
3399Since I hoped I dared;
3400Everywhere alone
3401As a church remain;
3402Spectre cannot harm,
3403Serpent cannot charm;
3404He deposes doom,
3405Who hath suffered him.
3406
3407
3408
3409
3410
3411
3412
3413
3414
3415A deed knocks first at thought,
3416And then it knocks at will.
3417That is the manufacturing spot,
3418And will at home and well.
3419
3420It then goes out an act,
3421Or is entombed so still
3422That only to the ear of God
3423Its doom is audible.
3424
3425
3426
3427
3428
3429
3430
3431TIME'
3432
3433Mine enemy is growing old, --
3434I have at last revenge.
3435The palate of the hate departs;
3436If any would avenge, --
3437
3438Let him be quick, the viand flits,
3439It is a faded meat.
3440Anger as soon as fed is dead;
3441'T is starving makes it fat.
3442
3443
3444
3445
3446
3447
3448
3449
3450
3451Remorse is memory awake,
3452Her companies astir, --
3453A presence of departed acts
3454At window and at door.
3455
3456It's past set down before the soul,
3457And lighted with a match,
3458Perusal to facilitate
3459Of its condensed despatch.
3460
3461Remorse is cureless, -- the disease
3462Not even God can heal;
3463For 't is his institution, --
3464The complement of hell.
3465
3466
3467
3468
3469
3470
3471
3472
3473
3474The body grows outside, --
3475The more convenient way, --
3476That if the spirit like to hide,
3477Its temple stands alway
3478
3479Ajar, secure, inviting;
3480It never did betray
3481The soul that asked its shelter
3482In timid honesty.
3483
3484
3485
3486
3487
3488
3489
3490Undue significance a starving man attaches
3491To food
3492Far off; he sighs, and therefore hopeless,
3493And therefore good.
3494
3495Partaken, it relieves indeed, but proves us
3496That spices fly
3497In the receipt. It was the distance
3498Was savory.
3499
3500
3501
3502
3503
3504
3505
3506Heart not so heavy as mine,
3507Wending late home,
3508As it passed my window
3509Whistled itself a tune, --
3510
3511A careless snatch, a ballad,
3512A ditty of the street;
3513Yet to my irritated ear
3514An anodyne so sweet,
3515
3516It was as if a bobolink,
3517Sauntering this way,
3518Carolled and mused and carolled,
3519Then bubbled slow away.
3520
3521It was as if a chirping brook
3522Upon a toilsome way
3523Set bleeding feet to minuets
3524Without the knowing why.
3525
3526To-morrow, night will come again,
3527Weary, perhaps, and sore.
3528Ah, bugle, by my window,
3529I pray you stroll once more!
3530
3531
3532
3533
3534
3535
3536
3537I many times thought peace had come,
3538When peace was far away;
3539As wrecked men deem they sight the land
3540At centre of the sea,
3541
3542And struggle slacker, but to prove,
3543As hopelessly as I,
3544How many the fictitious shores
3545Before the harbor lie.
3546
3547
3548
3549
3550
3551
3552
3553Unto my books so good to turn
3554Far ends of tired days;
3555It half endears the abstinence,
3556And pain is missed in praise.
3557
3558As flavors cheer retarded guests
3559With banquetings to be,
3560So spices stimulate the time
3561Till my small library.
3562
3563It may be wilderness without,
3564Far feet of failing men,
3565But holiday excludes the night,
3566And it is bells within.
3567
3568I thank these kinsmen of the shelf;
3569Their countenances bland
3570Enamour in prospective,
3571And satisfy, obtained.
3572
3573
3574
3575
3576
3577
3578
3579This merit hath the worst, --
3580It cannot be again.
3581When Fate hath taunted last
3582And thrown her furthest stone,
3583
3584The maimed may pause and breathe,
3585And glance securely round.
3586The deer invites no longer
3587Than it eludes the hound.
3588
3589
3590
3591
3592
3593
3594
3595
3596
3597I had been hungry all the years;
3598My noon had come, to dine;
3599I, trembling, drew the table near,
3600And touched the curious wine.
3601
3602'T was this on tables I had seen,
3603When turning, hungry, lone,
3604I looked in windows, for the wealth
3605I could not hope to own.
3606
3607I did not know the ample bread,
3608'T was so unlike the crumb
3609The birds and I had often shared
3610In Nature's dining-room.
3611
3612The plenty hurt me, 't was so new, --
3613Myself felt ill and odd,
3614As berry of a mountain bush
3615Transplanted to the road.
3616
3617Nor was I hungry; so I found
3618That hunger was a way
3619Of persons outside windows,
3620The entering takes away.
3621
3622
3623
3624
3625
3626
3627
3628I gained it so,
3629      By climbing slow,
3630By catching at the twigs that grow
3631Between the bliss and me.
3632      It hung so high,
3633      As well the sky
3634      Attempt by strategy.
3635
3636
3637I said I gained it, --
3638      This was all.
3639Look, how I clutch it,
3640      Lest it fall,
3641And I a pauper go;
3642Unfitted by an instant's grace
3643For the contented beggar's face
3644I wore an hour ago.
3645
3646
3647
3648
3649
3650
3651
3652To learn the transport by the pain,
3653As blind men learn the sun;
3654To die of thirst, suspecting
3655That brooks in meadows run;
3656
3657To stay the homesick, homesick feet
3658Upon a foreign shore
3659Haunted by native lands, the while,
3660And blue, beloved air --
3661
3662This is the sovereign anguish,
3663This, the signal woe!
3664These are the patient laureates
3665Whose voices, trained below,
3666
3667Ascend in ceaseless carol,
3668Inaudible, indeed,
3669To us, the duller scholars
3670Of the mysterious bard!
3671
3672
3673
3674
3675
3676
3677
3678
3679
3680I years had been from home,
3681And now, before the door,
3682I dared not open, lest a face
3683I never saw before
3684
3685Stare vacant into mine
3686And ask my business there.
3687My business, -- just a life I left,
3688Was such still dwelling there?
3689
3690I fumbled at my nerve,
3691I scanned the windows near;
3692The silence like an ocean rolled,
3693And broke against my ear.
3694
3695I laughed a wooden laugh
3696That I could fear a door,
3697Who danger and the dead had faced,
3698But never quaked before.
3699
3700I fitted to the latch
3701My hand, with trembling care,
3702Lest back the awful door should spring,
3703And leave me standing there.
3704
3705I moved my fingers off
3706As cautiously as glass,
3707And held my ears, and like a thief
3708Fled gasping from the house.
3709
3710
3711
3712
3713
3714
3715
3716
3717
3718Prayer is the little implement
3719Through which men reach
3720Where presence is denied them.
3721They fling their speech
3722
3723By means of it in God's ear;
3724If then He hear,
3725This sums the apparatus
3726Comprised in prayer.
3727
3728
3729
3730
3731
3732
3733
3734I know that he exists
3735Somewhere, in silence.
3736He has hid his rare life
3737From our gross eyes.
3738
3739'T is an instant's play,
3740'T is a fond ambush,
3741Just to make bliss
3742Earn her own surprise!
3743
3744But should the play
3745Prove piercing earnest,
3746Should the glee glaze
3747In death's stiff stare,
3748
3749Would not the fun
3750Look too expensive?
3751Would not the jest
3752Have crawled too far?
3753
3754
3755
3756
3757
3758
3759
3760
3761
3762Musicians wrestle everywhere:
3763All day, among the crowded air,
3764  I hear the silver strife;
3765And -- waking long before the dawn --
3766Such transport breaks upon the town
3767  I think it that 'new life!'
3768
3769It is not bird, it has no nest;
3770Nor band, in brass and scarlet dressed,
3771  Nor tambourine, nor man;
3772It is not hymn from pulpit read, --
3773The morning stars the treble led
3774  On time's first afternoon!
3775
3776Some say it is the spheres at play!
3777Some say that bright majority
3778  Of vanished dames and men!
3779Some think it service in the place
3780Where we, with late, celestial face,
3781  Please God, shall ascertain!
3782
3783
3784
3785
3786
3787
3788
3789
3790
3791Just lost when I was saved!
3792Just felt the world go by!
3793Just girt me for the onset with eternity,
3794When breath blew back,
3795And on the other side
3796I heard recede the disappointed tide!
3797
3798Therefore, as one returned, I feel,
3799Odd secrets of the line to tell!
3800Some sailor, skirting foreign shores,
3801Some pale reporter from the awful doors
3802Before the seal!
3803
3804Next time, to stay!
3805Next time, the things to see
3806By ear unheard,
3807Unscrutinized by eye.
3808
3809Next time, to tarry,
3810While the ages steal, --
3811Slow tramp the centuries,
3812And the cycles wheel.
3813
3814
3815
3816
3817
3818
3819
3820
3821
3822
3823
3824
3825
3826Of all the souls that stand create
3827I have elected one.
3828When sense from spirit files away,
3829And subterfuge is done;
3830
3831When that which is and that which was
3832Apart, intrinsic, stand,
3833And this brief tragedy of flesh
3834Is shifted like a sand;
3835
3836When figures show their royal front
3837And mists are carved away, --
3838Behold the atom I preferred
3839To all the lists of clay!
3840
3841
3842
3843
3844
3845
3846
3847I have no life but this,
3848To lead it here;
3849Nor any death, but lest
3850Dispelled from there;
3851
3852Nor tie to earths to come,
3853Nor action new,
3854Except through this extent,
3855The realm of you.
3856
3857
3858
3859
3860
3861
3862
3863Your riches taught me poverty.
3864Myself a millionnaire
3865In little wealths, -- as girls could boast, --
3866Till broad as Buenos Ayre,
3867
3868You drifted your dominions
3869A different Peru;
3870And I esteemed all poverty,
3871For life's estate with you.
3872
3873Of mines I little know, myself,
3874But just the names of gems, --
3875The colors of the commonest;
3876And scarce of diadems
3877
3878So much that, did I meet the queen,
3879Her glory I should know:
3880But this must be a different wealth,
3881To miss it beggars so.
3882
3883I 'm sure 't is India all day
3884To those who look on you
3885Without a stint, without a blame, --
3886Might I but be the Jew!
3887
3888I 'm sure it is Golconda,
3889Beyond my power to deem, --
3890To have a smile for mine each day,
3891How better than a gem!
3892
3893At least, it solaces to know
3894That there exists a gold,
3895Although I prove it just in time
3896Its distance to behold!
3897
3898It 's far, far treasure to surmise,
3899And estimate the pearl
3900That slipped my simple fingers through
3901While just a girl at school!
3902
3903
3904
3905
3906
3907
3908
3909
3910
3911I gave myself to him,
3912And took himself for pay.
3913The solemn contract of a life
3914Was ratified this way.
3915
3916The wealth might disappoint,
3917Myself a poorer prove
3918Than this great purchaser suspect,
3919The daily own of Love
3920
3921Depreciate the vision;
3922But, till the merchant buy,
3923Still fable, in the isles of spice,
3924The subtle cargoes lie.
3925
3926At least, 't is mutual risk, --
3927Some found it mutual gain;
3928Sweet debt of Life, -- each night to owe,
3929Insolvent, every noon.
3930
3931
3932
3933
3934
3935
3936
3937
3938
3939'GOING to him! Happy letter! Tell him --
3940Tell him the page I didn't write;
3941Tell him I only said the syntax,
3942And left the verb and the pronoun out.
3943Tell him just how the fingers hurried,
3944Then how they waded, slow, slow, slow;
3945And then you wished you had eyes in your pages,
3946So you could see what moved them so.
3947
3948'Tell him it wasn't a practised writer,
3949You guessed, from the way the sentence toiled;
3950You could hear the bodice tug, behind you,
3951As if it held but the might of a child;
3952You almost pitied it, you, it worked so.
3953Tell him -- No, you may quibble there,
3954For it would split his heart to know it,
3955And then you and I were silenter.
3956
3957'Tell him night finished before we finished,
3958And the old clock kept neighing 'day!'
3959And you got sleepy and begged to be ended --
3960What could it hinder so, to say?
3961Tell him just how she sealed you, cautious,
3962But if he ask where you are hid
3963Until to-morrow, -- happy letter!
3964Gesture, coquette, and shake your head!'
3965
3966
3967
3968
3969
3970
3971
3972The way I read a letter 's this:
3973'T is first I lock the door,
3974And push it with my fingers next,
3975For transport it be sure.
3976
3977And then I go the furthest off
3978To counteract a knock;
3979Then draw my little letter forth
3980And softly pick its lock.
3981
3982Then, glancing narrow at the wall,
3983And narrow at the floor,
3984For firm conviction of a mouse
3985Not exorcised before,
3986
3987Peruse how infinite I am
3988To -- no one that you know!
3989And sigh for lack of heaven, -- but not
3990The heaven the creeds bestow.
3991
3992
3993
3994
3995
3996
3997
3998Wild nights! Wild nights!
3999Were I with thee,
4000Wild nights should be
4001Our luxury!
4002
4003Futile the winds
4004To a heart in port, --
4005Done with the compass,
4006Done with the chart.
4007
4008Rowing in Eden!
4009Ah! the sea!
4010Might I but moor
4011To-night in thee!
4012
4013
4014
4015
4016
4017
4018
4019
4020
4021The night was wide, and furnished scant
4022With but a single star,
4023That often as a cloud it met
4024Blew out itself for fear.
4025
4026The wind pursued the little bush,
4027And drove away the leaves
4028November left; then clambered up
4029And fretted in the eaves.
4030
4031No squirrel went abroad;
4032A dog's belated feet
4033Like intermittent plush were heard
4034Adown the empty street.
4035
4036To feel if blinds be fast,
4037And closer to the fire
4038Her little rocking-chair to draw,
4039And shiver for the poor,
4040
4041The housewife's gentle task.
4042'How pleasanter,' said she
4043Unto the sofa opposite,
4044'The sleet than May -- no thee!'
4045
4046
4047
4048
4049
4050
4051
4052
4053
4054Did the harebell loose her girdle
4055To the lover bee,
4056Would the bee the harebell hallow
4057Much as formerly?
4058
4059Did the paradise, persuaded,
4060Yield her moat of pearl,
4061Would the Eden be an Eden,
4062Or the earl an earl?
4063
4064
4065
4066
4067
4068
4069
4070A charm invests a face
4071Imperfectly beheld, --
4072The lady dare not lift her veil
4073For fear it be dispelled.
4074
4075But peers beyond her mesh,
4076And wishes, and denies, --
4077Lest interview annul a want
4078That image satisfies.
4079
4080
4081
4082
4083
4084
4085
4086
4087
4088The rose did caper on her cheek,
4089Her bodice rose and fell,
4090Her pretty speech, like drunken men,
4091Did stagger pitiful.
4092
4093Her fingers fumbled at her work, --
4094Her needle would not go;
4095What ailed so smart a little maid
4096It puzzled me to know,
4097
4098Till opposite I spied a cheek
4099That bore another rose;
4100Just opposite, another speech
4101That like the drunkard goes;
4102
4103A vest that, like the bodice, danced
4104To the immortal tune, --
4105Till those two troubled little clocks
4106Ticked softly into one.
4107
4108
4109
4110
4111
4112
4113
4114In lands I never saw, they say,
4115Immortal Alps look down,
4116Whose bonnets touch the firmament,
4117Whose sandals touch the town, --
4118
4119Meek at whose everlasting feet
4120A myriad daisies play.
4121Which, sir, are you, and which am I,
4122Upon an August day?
4123
4124
4125
4126
4127
4128
4129
4130The moon is distant from the sea,
4131And yet with amber hands
4132She leads him, docile as a boy,
4133Along appointed sands.
4134
4135He never misses a degree;
4136Obedient to her eye,
4137He comes just so far toward the town,
4138Just so far goes away.
4139
4140Oh, Signor, thine the amber hand,
4141And mine the distant sea, --
4142Obedient to the least command
4143Thine eyes impose on me.
4144
4145
4146
4147
4148
4149
4150
4151He put the belt around my life, --
4152I heard the buckle snap,
4153And turned away, imperial,
4154My lifetime folding up
4155Deliberate, as a duke would do
4156A kingdom's title-deed, --
4157Henceforth a dedicated sort,
4158A member of the cloud.
4159
4160Yet not too far to come at call,
4161And do the little toils
4162That make the circuit of the rest,
4163And deal occasional smiles
4164To lives that stoop to notice mine
4165And kindly ask it in, --
4166Whose invitation, knew you not
4167For whom I must decline?
4168
4169
4170
4171
4172
4173
4174
4175
4176
4177I held a jewel in my fingers
4178And went to sleep.
4179The day was warm, and winds were prosy;
4180I said: ''T will keep.'
4181
4182I woke and chid my honest fingers, --
4183The gem was gone;
4184And now an amethyst remembrance
4185Is all I own.
4186
4187
4188
4189
4190
4191
4192
4193What if I say I shall not wait?
4194What if I burst the fleshly gate
4195And pass, escaped, to thee?
4196What if I file this mortal off,
4197See where it hurt me, -- that 's enough, --
4198And wade in liberty?
4199
4200They cannot take us any more, --
4201Dungeons may call, and guns implore;
4202Unmeaning now, to me,
4203As laughter was an hour ago,
4204Or laces, or a travelling show,
4205Or who died yesterday!
4206
4207
4208
4209
4210
4211
4212
4213
4214
4215
4216
4217
4218
4219
4220
4221
4222Nature, the gentlest mother,
4223Impatient of no child,
4224The feeblest or the waywardest, --
4225Her admonition mild
4226
4227In forest and the hill
4228By traveller is heard,
4229Restraining rampant squirrel
4230Or too impetuous bird.
4231
4232How fair her conversation,
4233A summer afternoon, --
4234Her household, her assembly;
4235And when the sun goes down
4236
4237Her voice among the aisles
4238Incites the timid prayer
4239Of the minutest cricket,
4240The most unworthy flower.
4241
4242When all the children sleep
4243She turns as long away
4244As will suffice to light her lamps;
4245Then, bending from the sky
4246
4247With infinite affection
4248And infiniter care,
4249Her golden finger on her lip,
4250Wills silence everywhere.
4251
4252
4253
4254
4255
4256
4257
4258
4259
4260Will there really be a morning?
4261Is there such a thing as day?
4262Could I see it from the mountains
4263If I were as tall as they?
4264
4265Has it feet like water-lilies?
4266Has it feathers like a bird?
4267Is it brought from famous countries
4268Of which I have never heard?
4269
4270Oh, some scholar! Oh, some sailor!
4271Oh, some wise man from the skies!
4272Please to tell a little pilgrim
4273Where the place called morning lies!
4274
4275
4276
4277
4278
4279
4280
4281At half-past three a single bird
4282Unto a silent sky
4283Propounded but a single term
4284Of cautious melody.
4285
4286At half-past four, experiment
4287Had subjugated test,
4288And lo! her silver principle
4289Supplanted all the rest.
4290
4291At half-past seven, element
4292Nor implement was seen,
4293And place was where the presence was,
4294Circumference between.
4295
4296
4297
4298
4299
4300
4301
4302DAY'
4303
4304The day came slow, till five o'clock,
4305Then sprang before the hills
4306Like hindered rubies, or the light
4307A sudden musket spills.
4308
4309The purple could not keep the east,
4310The sunrise shook from fold,
4311Like breadths of topaz, packed a night,
4312The lady just unrolled.
4313
4314The happy winds their timbrels took;
4315The birds, in docile rows,
4316Arranged themselves around their prince
4317(The wind is prince of those).
4318
4319The orchard sparkled like a Jew, --
4320How mighty 't was, to stay
4321A guest in this stupendous place,
4322The parlor of the day!
4323
4324
4325
4326
4327
4328
4329
4330THE SUN'
4331
4332The sun just touched the morning;
4333The morning, happy thing,
4334Supposed that he had come to dwell,
4335And life would be all spring.
4336
4337She felt herself supremer, --
4338A raised, ethereal thing;
4339Henceforth for her what holiday!
4340Meanwhile, her wheeling king
4341
4342Trailed slow along the orchards
4343His haughty, spangled hems,
4344Leaving a new necessity, --
4345The want of diadems!
4346
4347The morning fluttered, staggered,
4348Felt feebly for her crown, --
4349Her unanointed forehead
4350Henceforth her only one.
4351
4352
4353
4354
4355
4356
4357
4358
4359
4360
4361The robin is the one
4362That interrupts the morn
4363With hurried, few, express reports
4364When March is scarcely on.
4365
4366The robin is the one
4367That overflows the noon
4368With her cherubic quantity,
4369An April but begun.
4370
4371The robin is the one
4372That speechless from her nest
4373Submits that home and certainty
4374And sanctity are best.
4375
4376
4377
4378
4379
4380
4381
4382THE BUTTERFLY'
4383
4384From cocoon forth a butterfly
4385As lady from her door
4386Emerged -- a summer afternoon --
4387Repairing everywhere,
4388
4389Without design, that I could trace,
4390Except to stray abroad
4391On miscellaneous enterprise
4392The clovers understood.
4393
4394Her pretty parasol was seen
4395Contracting in a field
4396Where men made hay, then struggling hard
4397With an opposing cloud,
4398
4399Where parties, phantom as herself,
4400To Nowhere seemed to go
4401In purposeless circumference,
4402As 't were a tropic show.
4403
4404And notwithstanding bee that worked,
4405And flower that zealous blew,
4406This audience of idleness
4407Disdained them, from the sky,
4408
4409Till sundown crept, a steady tide,
4410And men that made the hay,
4411And afternoon, and butterfly,
4412Extinguished in its sea.
4413
4414
4415
4416
4417
4418
4419
4420
4421
4422Before you thought of spring,
4423Except as a surmise,
4424You see, God bless his suddenness,
4425A fellow in the skies
4426Of independent hues,
4427A little weather-worn,
4428Inspiriting habiliments
4429Of indigo and brown.
4430
4431With specimens of song,
4432As if for you to choose,
4433Discretion in the interval,
4434With gay delays he goes
4435To some superior tree
4436Without a single leaf,
4437And shouts for joy to nobody
4438But his seraphic self!
4439
4440
4441
4442
4443
4444
4445
4446
4447
4448An altered look about the hills;
4449A Tyrian light the village fills;
4450A wider sunrise in the dawn;
4451A deeper twilight on the lawn;
4452A print of a vermilion foot;
4453A purple finger on the slope;
4454A flippant fly upon the pane;
4455A spider at his trade again;
4456An added strut in chanticleer;
4457A flower expected everywhere;
4458An axe shrill singing in the woods;
4459Fern-odors on untravelled roads, --
4460All this, and more I cannot tell,
4461A furtive look you know as well,
4462And Nicodemus' mystery
4463Receives its annual reply.
4464
4465
4466
4467
4468
4469
4470
4471
4472
4473'Whose are the little beds,' I asked,
4474'Which in the valleys lie?'
4475Some shook their heads, and others smiled,
4476And no one made reply.
4477
4478'Perhaps they did not hear,' I said;
4479'I will inquire again.
4480Whose are the beds, the tiny beds
4481So thick upon the plain?'
4482
4483''T is daisy in the shortest;
4484A little farther on,
4485Nearest the door to wake the first,
4486Little leontodon.
4487
4488''T is iris, sir, and aster,
4489Anemone and bell,
4490Batschia in the blanket red,
4491And chubby daffodil.'
4492
4493Meanwhile at many cradles
4494Her busy foot she plied,
4495Humming the quaintest lullaby
4496That ever rocked a child.
4497
4498'Hush! Epigea wakens! --
4499The crocus stirs her lids,
4500Rhodora's cheek is crimson, --
4501She's dreaming of the woods.'
4502
4503Then, turning from them, reverent,
4504'Their bed-time 't is,' she said;
4505'The bumble-bees will wake them
4506When April woods are red.'
4507
4508
4509
4510
4511
4512
4513
4514
4515
4516Pigmy seraphs gone astray,
4517Velvet people from Vevay,
4518Belles from some lost summer day,
4519Bees' exclusive coterie.
4520Paris could not lay the fold
4521Belted down with emerald;
4522Venice could not show a cheek
4523Of a tint so lustrous meek.
4524Never such an ambuscade
4525As of brier and leaf displayed
4526For my little damask maid.
4527I had rather wear her grace
4528Than an earl's distinguished face;
4529I had rather dwell like her
4530Than be Duke of Exeter
4531Royalty enough for me
4532To subdue the bumble-bee!
4533
4534
4535
4536
4537
4538
4539
4540THE ORIOLE'
4541
4542To hear an oriole sing
4543May be a common thing,
4544Or only a divine.
4545
4546It is not of the bird
4547Who sings the same, unheard,
4548As unto crowd.
4549
4550The fashion of the ear
4551Attireth that it hear
4552In dun or fair.
4553
4554So whether it be rune,
4555Or whether it be none,
4556Is of within;
4557
4558The 'tune is in the tree,'
4559The sceptic showeth me;
4560'No, sir! In thee!'
4561
4562
4563
4564
4565
4566
4567
4568
4569
4570One of the ones that Midas touched,
4571Who failed to touch us all,
4572Was that confiding prodigal,
4573The blissful oriole.
4574
4575So drunk, he disavows it
4576With badinage divine;
4577So dazzling, we mistake him
4578For an alighting mine.
4579
4580A pleader, a dissembler,
4581An epicure, a thief, --
4582Betimes an oratorio,
4583An ecstasy in chief;
4584
4585The Jesuit of orchards,
4586He cheats as he enchants
4587Of an entire attar
4588For his decamping wants.
4589
4590The splendor of a Burmah,
4591The meteor of birds,
4592Departing like a pageant
4593Of ballads and of bards.
4594
4595I never thought that Jason sought
4596For any golden fleece;
4597But then I am a rural man,
4598With thoughts that make for peace.
4599
4600But if there were a Jason,
4601Tradition suffer me
4602Behold his lost emolument
4603Upon the apple-tree.
4604
4605
4606
4607
4608
4609
4610
4611
4612
4613I dreaded that first robin so,
4614But he is mastered now,
4615And I 'm accustomed to him grown, --
4616He hurts a little, though.
4617
4618I thought if I could only live
4619Till that first shout got by,
4620Not all pianos in the woods
4621Had power to mangle me.
4622
4623I dared not meet the daffodils,
4624For fear their yellow gown
4625Would pierce me with a fashion
4626So foreign to my own.
4627
4628I wished the grass would hurry,
4629So when 't was time to see,
4630He 'd be too tall, the tallest one
4631Could stretch to look at me.
4632
4633I could not bear the bees should come,
4634I wished they 'd stay away
4635In those dim countries where they go:
4636What word had they for me?
4637
4638They 're here, though; not a creature failed,
4639No blossom stayed away
4640In gentle deference to me,
4641The Queen of Calvary.
4642
4643Each one salutes me as he goes,
4644And I my childish plumes
4645Lift, in bereaved acknowledgment
4646Of their unthinking drums.
4647
4648
4649
4650
4651
4652
4653
4654THE HUMMING-
4655
4656A route of evanescence
4657With a revolving wheel;
4658A resonance of emerald,
4659A rush of cochineal;
4660And every blossom on the bush
4661Adjusts its tumbled head, --
4662The mail from Tunis, probably,
4663An easy morning's ride.
4664
4665
4666
4667
4668
4669
4670
4671
4672
4673The skies can't keep their secret!
4674They tell it to the hills --
4675The hills just tell the orchards --
4676And they the daffodils!
4677
4678A bird, by chance, that goes that way
4679Soft overheard the whole.
4680If I should bribe the little bird,
4681Who knows but she would tell?
4682
4683I think I won't, however,
4684It's finer not to know;
4685If summer were an axiom,
4686What sorcery had snow?
4687
4688So keep your secret, Father!
4689I would not, if I could,
4690Know what the sapphire fellows do,
4691In your new-fashioned world!
4692
4693
4694
4695
4696
4697
4698
4699Who robbed the woods,
4700The trusting woods?
4701The unsuspecting trees
4702Brought out their burrs and mosses
4703His fantasy to please.
4704He scanned their trinkets, curious,
4705He grasped, he bore away.
4706What will the solemn hemlock,
4707What will the fir-tree say?
4708
4709
4710
4711
4712
4713
4714
4715
4716
4717Two butterflies went out at noon
4718And waltzed above a stream,
4719Then stepped straight through the firmament
4720And rested on a beam;
4721
4722And then together bore away
4723Upon a shining sea, --
4724Though never yet, in any port,
4725Their coming mentioned be.
4726
4727If spoken by the distant bird,
4728If met in ether sea
4729By frigate or by merchantman,
4730Report was not to me.
4731
4732
4733
4734
4735
4736
4737
4738
4739
4740I started early, took my dog,
4741And visited the sea;
4742The mermaids in the basement
4743Came out to look at me,
4744
4745And frigates in the upper floor
4746Extended hempen hands,
4747Presuming me to be a mouse
4748Aground, upon the sands.
4749
4750But no man moved me till the tide
4751Went past my simple shoe,
4752And past my apron and my belt,
4753And past my bodice too,
4754
4755And made as he would eat me up
4756As wholly as a dew
4757Upon a dandelion's sleeve --
4758And then I started too.
4759
4760And he -- he followed close behind;
4761I felt his silver heel
4762Upon my ankle, -- then my shoes
4763Would overflow with pearl.
4764
4765Until we met the solid town,
4766No man he seemed to know;
4767And bowing with a mighty look
4768At me, the sea withdrew.
4769
4770
4771
4772
4773
4774
4775
4776OLD-
4777
4778Arcturus is his other name, --
4779I'd rather call him star!
4780It's so unkind of science
4781To go and interfere!
4782
4783I pull a flower from the woods, --
4784A monster with a glass
4785Computes the stamens in a breath,
4786And has her in a class.
4787
4788Whereas I took the butterfly
4789Aforetime in my hat,
4790He sits erect in cabinets,
4791The clover-bells forgot.
4792
4793What once was heaven, is zenith now.
4794Where I proposed to go
4795When time's brief masquerade was done,
4796Is mapped, and charted too!
4797
4798What if the poles should frisk about
4799And stand upon their heads!
4800I hope I 'm ready for the worst,
4801Whatever prank betides!
4802
4803Perhaps the kingdom of Heaven 's changed!
4804I hope the children there
4805Won't be new-fashioned when I come,
4806And laugh at me, and stare!
4807
4808I hope the father in the skies
4809Will lift his little girl, --
4810Old-fashioned, naughty, everything, --
4811Over the stile of pearl!
4812
4813
4814
4815
4816
4817
4818
4819
4820
4821An awful tempest mashed the air,
4822The clouds were gaunt and few;
4823A black, as of a spectre's cloak,
4824Hid heaven and earth from view.
4825
4826The creatures chuckled on the roofs
4827And whistled in the air,
4828And shook their fists and gnashed their teeth.
4829And swung their frenzied hair.
4830
4831The morning lit, the birds arose;
4832The monster's faded eyes
4833Turned slowly to his native coast,
4834And peace was Paradise!
4835
4836
4837
4838
4839
4840
4841
4842
4843
4844An everywhere of silver,
4845With ropes of sand
4846To keep it from effacing
4847The track called land.
4848
4849
4850
4851
4852
4853
4854
4855
4856
4857A bird came down the walk:
4858He did not know I saw;
4859He bit an angle-worm in halves
4860And ate the fellow, raw.
4861
4862And then he drank a dew
4863From a convenient grass,
4864And then hopped sidewise to the wall
4865To let a beetle pass.
4866
4867He glanced with rapid eyes
4868That hurried all abroad, --
4869They looked like frightened beads, I thought;
4870He stirred his velvet head
4871
4872Like one in danger; cautious,
4873I offered him a crumb,
4874And he unrolled his feathers
4875And rowed him softer home
4876
4877Than oars divide the ocean,
4878Too silver for a seam,
4879Or butterflies, off banks of noon,
4880Leap, plashless, as they swim.
4881
4882
4883
4884
4885
4886
4887
4888
4889
4890A narrow fellow in the grass
4891Occasionally rides;
4892You may have met him, -- did you not,
4893His notice sudden is.
4894
4895The grass divides as with a comb,
4896A spotted shaft is seen;
4897And then it closes at your feet
4898And opens further on.
4899
4900He likes a boggy acre,
4901A floor too cool for corn.
4902Yet when a child, and barefoot,
4903I more than once, at morn,
4904
4905Have passed, I thought, a whip-lash
4906Unbraiding in the sun, --
4907When, stooping to secure it,
4908It wrinkled, and was gone.
4909
4910Several of nature's people
4911I know, and they know me;
4912I feel for them a transport
4913Of cordiality;
4914
4915But never met this fellow,
4916Attended or alone,
4917Without a tighter breathing,
4918And zero at the bone.
4919
4920
4921
4922
4923
4924
4925
4926
4927
4928The mushroom is the elf of plants,
4929At evening it is not;
4930At morning in a truffled hut
4931It stops upon a spot
4932
4933As if it tarried always;
4934And yet its whole career
4935Is shorter than a snake's delay,
4936And fleeter than a tare.
4937
4938'T is vegetation's juggler,
4939The germ of alibi;
4940Doth like a bubble antedate,
4941And like a bubble hie.
4942
4943I feel as if the grass were pleased
4944To have it intermit;
4945The surreptitious scion
4946Of summer's circumspect.
4947
4948Had nature any outcast face,
4949Could she a son contemn,
4950Had nature an Iscariot,
4951That mushroom, -- it is him.
4952
4953
4954
4955
4956
4957
4958
4959
4960
4961There came a wind like a bugle;
4962It quivered through the grass,
4963And a green chill upon the heat
4964So ominous did pass
4965We barred the windows and the doors
4966As from an emerald ghost;
4967The doom's electric moccason
4968That very instant passed.
4969On a strange mob of panting trees,
4970And fences fled away,
4971And rivers where the houses ran
4972The living looked that day.
4973The bell within the steeple wild
4974The flying tidings whirled.
4975How much can come
4976And much can go,
4977And yet abide the world!
4978
4979
4980
4981
4982
4983
4984
4985
4986
4987A spider sewed at night
4988Without a light
4989Upon an arc of white.
4990If ruff it was of dame
4991Or shroud of gnome,
4992Himself, himself inform.
4993Of immortality
4994His strategy
4995Was physiognomy.
4996
4997
4998
4999
5000
5001
5002
5003I know a place where summer strives
5004With such a practised frost,
5005She each year leads her daisies back,
5006Recording briefly, 'Lost.'
5007
5008But when the south wind stirs the pools
5009And struggles in the lanes,
5010Her heart misgives her for her vow,
5011And she pours soft refrains
5012
5013Into the lap of adamant,
5014And spices, and the dew,
5015That stiffens quietly to quartz,
5016Upon her amber shoe.
5017
5018
5019
5020
5021
5022
5023
5024The one that could repeat the summer day
5025Were greater than itself, though he
5026Minutest of mankind might be.
5027And who could reproduce the sun,
5028At period of going down --
5029The lingering and the stain, I mean --
5030When Orient has been outgrown,
5031And Occident becomes unknown,
5032His name remain.
5033
5034
5035
5036
5037
5038
5039
5040THE WlND'
5041
5042The wind tapped like a tired man,
5043And like a host, 'Come in,'
5044I boldly answered; entered then
5045My residence within
5046
5047A rapid, footless guest,
5048To offer whom a chair
5049Were as impossible as hand
5050A sofa to the air.
5051
5052No bone had he to bind him,
5053His speech was like the push
5054Of numerous humming-birds at once
5055From a superior bush.
5056
5057His countenance a billow,
5058His fingers, if he pass,
5059Let go a music, as of tunes
5060Blown tremulous in glass.
5061
5062He visited, still flitting;
5063Then, like a timid man,
5064Again he tapped -- 't was flurriedly --
5065And I became alone.
5066
5067
5068
5069
5070
5071
5072
5073Nature rarer uses yellow
5074   Than another hue;
5075Saves she all of that for sunsets, --
5076   Prodigal of blue,
5077
5078Spending scarlet like a woman,
5079   Yellow she affords
5080Only scantly and selectly,
5081   Like a lover's words.
5082
5083
5084
5085
5086
5087
5088
5089
5090
5091The leaves, like women, interchange
5092  Sagacious confidence;
5093Somewhat of nods, and somewhat of
5094  Portentous inference,
5095
5096The parties in both cases
5097  Enjoining secrecy, --
5098Inviolable compact
5099  To notoriety.
5100
5101
5102
5103
5104
5105
5106
5107
5108
5109How happy is the little stone
5110That rambles in the road alone,
5111And doesn't care about careers,
5112And exigencies never fears;
5113Whose coat of elemental brown
5114A passing universe put on;
5115And independent as the sun,
5116Associates or glows alone,
5117Fulfilling absolute decree
5118In casual simplicity.
5119
5120
5121
5122
5123
5124
5125
5126
5127
5128It sounded as if the streets were running,
5129And then the streets stood still.
5130Eclipse was all we could see at the window,
5131And awe was all we could feel.
5132
5133By and by the boldest stole out of his covert,
5134To see if time was there.
5135Nature was in her beryl apron,
5136Mixing fresher air.
5137
5138
5139
5140
5141
5142
5143
5144
5145
5146The rat is the concisest tenant.
5147He pays no rent, --
5148Repudiates the obligation,
5149On schemes intent.
5150
5151Balking our wit
5152To sound or circumvent,
5153Hate cannot harm
5154A foe so reticent.
5155
5156Neither decree
5157Prohibits him,
5158Lawful as
5159Equilibrium.
5160
5161
5162
5163
5164
5165
5166
5167Frequently the woods are pink,
5168Frequently are brown;
5169Frequently the hills undress
5170Behind my native town.
5171
5172Oft a head is crested
5173I was wont to see,
5174And as oft a cranny
5175Where it used to be.
5176
5177And the earth, they tell me,
5178On its axis turned, --
5179Wonderful rotation
5180By but twelve performed!
5181
5182
5183
5184
5185
5186
5187
5188A THUNDER-
5189
5190The wind begun to rock the grass
5191With threatening tunes and low, --
5192He flung a menace at the earth,
5193A menace at the sky.
5194
5195The leaves unhooked themselves from trees
5196And started all abroad;
5197The dust did scoop itself like hands
5198And throw away the road.
5199
5200The wagons quickened on the streets,
5201The thunder hurried slow;
5202The lightning showed a yellow beak,
5203And then a livid claw.
5204
5205The birds put up the bars to nests,
5206The cattle fled to barns;
5207There came one drop of giant rain,
5208And then, as if the hands
5209
5210That held the dams had parted hold,
5211The waters wrecked the sky,
5212But overlooked my father's house,
5213Just quartering a tree.
5214
5215
5216
5217
5218
5219
5220
5221
5222
5223South winds jostle them,
5224Bumblebees come,
5225Hover, hesitate,
5226Drink, and are gone.
5227
5228Butterflies pause
5229On their passage Cashmere;
5230I, softly plucking,
5231Present them here!
5232
5233
5234
5235
5236
5237
5238
5239
5240
5241Where ships of purple gently toss
5242On seas of daffodil,
5243Fantastic sailors mingle,
5244And then -- the wharf is still.
5245
5246
5247
5248
5249
5250
5251
5252She sweeps with many-colored brooms,
5253And leaves the shreds behind;
5254Oh, housewife in the evening west,
5255Come back, and dust the pond!
5256
5257You dropped a purple ravelling in,
5258You dropped an amber thread;
5259And now you 've littered all the East
5260With duds of emerald!
5261
5262And still she plies her spotted brooms,
5263And still the aprons fly,
5264Till brooms fade softly into stars --
5265And then I come away.
5266
5267
5268
5269
5270
5271
5272
5273Like mighty footlights burned the red
5274At bases of the trees, --
5275The far theatricals of day
5276Exhibiting to these.
5277
5278'T was universe that did applaud
5279While, chiefest of the crowd,
5280Enabled by his royal dress,
5281Myself distinguished God.
5282
5283
5284
5285
5286
5287
5288
5289
5290
5291Bring me the sunset in a cup,
5292Reckon the morning's flagons up,
5293   And say how many dew;
5294Tell me how far the morning leaps,
5295Tell me what time the weaver sleeps
5296   Who spun the breadths of blue!
5297
5298Write me how many notes there be
5299In the new robin's ecstasy
5300   Among astonished boughs;
5301How many trips the tortoise makes,
5302How many cups the bee partakes, --
5303   The debauchee of dews!
5304
5305Also, who laid the rainbow's piers,
5306Also, who leads the docile spheres
5307   By withes of supple blue?
5308Whose fingers string the stalactite,
5309Who counts the wampum of the night,
5310   To see that none is due?
5311
5312Who built this little Alban house
5313And shut the windows down so close
5314   My spirit cannot see?
5315Who 'll let me out some gala day,
5316With implements to fly away,
5317   Passing pomposity?
5318
5319
5320
5321
5322
5323
5324
5325
5326
5327Blazing in gold and quenching in purple,
5328Leaping like leopards to the sky,
5329Then at the feet of the old horizon
5330Laying her spotted face, to die;
5331
5332Stooping as low as the otter's window,
5333Touching the roof and tinting the barn,
5334Kissing her bonnet to the meadow, --
5335And the juggler of day is gone!
5336
5337
5338
5339
5340
5341
5342
5343
5344Farther in summer than the birds,
5345Pathetic from the grass,
5346A minor nation celebrates
5347Its unobtrusive mass.
5348
5349No ordinance is seen,
5350So gradual the grace,
5351A pensive custom it becomes,
5352Enlarging loneliness.
5353
5354Antiquest felt at noon
5355When August, burning low,
5356Calls forth this spectral canticle,
5357Repose to typify.
5358
5359Remit as yet no grace,
5360No furrow on the glow,
5361Yet a druidic difference
5362Enhances nature now.
5363
5364
5365
5366
5367
5368
5369As imperceptibly as grief
5370The summer lapsed away, --
5371Too imperceptible, at last,
5372To seem like perfidy.
5373
5374A quietness distilled,
5375As twilight long begun,
5376Or Nature, spending with herself
5377Sequestered afternoon.
5378
5379The dusk drew earlier in,
5380The morning foreign shone, --
5381A courteous, yet harrowing grace,
5382As guest who would be gone.
5383
5384And thus, without a wing,
5385Or service of a keel,
5386Our summer made her light escape
5387Into the beautiful.
5388
5389
5390
5391
5392
5393
5394
5395It can't be summer, -- that got through;
5396It 's early yet for spring;
5397There 's that long town of white to cross
5398Before the blackbirds sing.
5399
5400It can't be dying, -- it's too rouge, --
5401The dead shall go in white.
5402So sunset shuts my question down
5403With clasps of chrysolite.
5404
5405
5406
5407
5408
5409
5410
5411SUMMER'
5412
5413The gentian weaves her fringes,
5414The maple's loom is red.
5415My departing blossoms
5416Obviate parade.
5417
5418A brief, but patient illness,
5419An hour to prepare;
5420And one, below this morning,
5421Is where the angels are.
5422
5423It was a short procession, --
5424The bobolink was there,
5425An aged bee addressed us,
5426And then we knelt in prayer.
5427
5428We trust that she was willing, --
5429We ask that we may be.
5430Summer, sister, seraph,
5431Let us go with thee!
5432
5433In the name of the bee
5434And of the butterfly
5435And of the breeze, amen!
5436
5437
5438
5439
5440
5441
5442
5443
5444
5445God made a little gentian;
5446It tried to be a rose
5447And failed, and all the summer laughed.
5448But just before the snows
5449There came a purple creature
5450That ravished all the hill;
5451And summer hid her forehead,
5452And mockery was still.
5453The frosts were her condition;
5454The Tyrian would not come
5455Until the North evoked it.
5456'Creator! shall I bloom?'
5457
5458
5459
5460
5461
5462
5463
5464
5465
5466Besides the autumn poets sing,
5467A few prosaic days
5468A little this side of the snow
5469And that side of the haze.
5470
5471A few incisive mornings,
5472A few ascetic eyes, --
5473Gone Mr. Bryant's golden-rod,
5474And Mr. Thomson's sheaves.
5475
5476Still is the bustle in the brook,
5477Sealed are the spicy valves;
5478Mesmeric fingers softly touch
5479The eyes of many elves.
5480
5481Perhaps a squirrel may remain,
5482My sentiments to share.
5483Grant me, O Lord, a sunny mind,
5484Thy windy will to bear!
5485
5486
5487
5488
5489
5490
5491
5492
5493
5494It sifts from leaden sieves,
5495It powders all the wood,
5496It fills with alabaster wool
5497The wrinkles of the road.
5498
5499It makes an even face
5500Of mountain and of plain, --
5501Unbroken forehead from the east
5502Unto the east again.
5503
5504It reaches to the fence,
5505It wraps it, rail by rail,
5506Till it is lost in fleeces;
5507It flings a crystal veil
5508
5509On stump and stack and stem, --
5510The summer's empty room,
5511Acres of seams where harvests were,
5512Recordless, but for them.
5513
5514It ruffles wrists of posts,
5515As ankles of a queen, --
5516Then stills its artisans like ghosts,
5517Denying they have been.
5518
5519
5520
5521
5522
5523
5524
5525
5526
5527No brigadier throughout the year
5528So civic as the jay.
5529A neighbor and a warrior too,
5530With shrill felicity
5531
5532Pursuing winds that censure us
5533A February day,
5534The brother of the universe
5535Was never blown away.
5536
5537The snow and he are intimate;
5538I 've often seen them play
5539When heaven looked upon us all
5540With such severity,
5541
5542I felt apology were due
5543To an insulted sky,
5544Whose pompous frown was nutriment
5545To their temerity.
5546
5547The pillow of this daring head
5548Is pungent evergreens;
5549His larder -- terse and militant --
5550Unknown, refreshing things;
5551
5552His character a tonic,
5553His future a dispute;
5554Unfair an immortality
5555That leaves this neighbor out.
5556
5557
5558
5559
5560
5561
5562
5563
5564
5565
5566
5567Let down the bars, O Death!
5568The tired flocks come in
5569Whose bleating ceases to repeat,
5570Whose wandering is done.
5571
5572Thine is the stillest night,
5573Thine the securest fold;
5574Too near thou art for seeking thee,
5575Too tender to be told.
5576
5577
5578
5579
5580
5581
5582
5583Going to heaven!
5584I don't know when,
5585Pray do not ask me how, --
5586Indeed, I 'm too astonished
5587To think of answering you!
5588Going to heaven! --
5589How dim it sounds!
5590And yet it will be done
5591As sure as flocks go home at night
5592Unto the shepherd's arm!
5593
5594Perhaps you 're going too!
5595Who knows?
5596If you should get there first,
5597Save just a little place for me
5598Close to the two I lost!
5599
5600The smallest 'robe' will fit me,
5601And just a bit of 'crown;'
5602For you know we do not mind our dress
5603When we are going home.
5604
5605I 'm glad I don't believe it,
5606For it would stop my breath,
5607And I 'd like to look a little more
5608At such a curious earth!
5609I am glad they did believe it
5610Whom I have never found
5611Since the mighty autumn afternoon
5612I left them in the ground.
5613
5614
5615
5616
5617
5618
5619
5620At least to pray is left, is left.
5621O Jesus! in the air
5622I know not which thy chamber is, --
5623I 'm knocking everywhere.
5624
5625Thou stirrest earthquake in the South,
5626And maelstrom in the sea;
5627Say, Jesus Christ of Nazareth,
5628Hast thou no arm for me?
5629
5630
5631
5632
5633
5634
5635
5636
5637
5638Step lightly on this narrow spot!
5639The broadest land that grows
5640Is not so ample as the breast
5641These emerald seams enclose.
5642
5643Step lofty; for this name is told
5644As far as cannon dwell,
5645Or flag subsist, or fame export
5646Her deathless syllable.
5647
5648
5649
5650
5651
5652
5653
5654Morns like these we parted;
5655Noons like these she rose,
5656Fluttering first, then firmer,
5657To her fair repose.
5658
5659Never did she lisp it,
5660And 't was not for me;
5661She was mute from transport,
5662I, from agony!
5663
5664Till the evening, nearing,
5665One the shutters drew --
5666Quick! a sharper rustling!
5667And this linnet flew!
5668
5669
5670
5671
5672
5673
5674
5675A death-blow is a life-blow to some
5676Who, till they died, did not alive become;
5677Who, had they lived, had died, but when
5678They died, vitality begun.
5679
5680
5681
5682
5683
5684
5685
5686I read my sentence steadily,
5687Reviewed it with my eyes,
5688To see that I made no mistake
5689In its extremest clause, --
5690
5691The date, and manner of the shame;
5692And then the pious form
5693That 'God have mercy' on the soul
5694The jury voted him.
5695
5696I made my soul familiar
5697With her extremity,
5698That at the last it should not be
5699A novel agony,
5700
5701But she and Death, acquainted,
5702Meet tranquilly as friends,
5703Salute and pass without a hint --
5704And there the matter ends.
5705
5706
5707
5708
5709
5710
5711
5712I have not told my garden yet,
5713Lest that should conquer me;
5714I have not quite the strength now
5715To break it to the bee.
5716
5717I will not name it in the street,
5718For shops would stare, that I,
5719So shy, so very ignorant,
5720Should have the face to die.
5721
5722The hillsides must not know it,
5723Where I have rambled so,
5724Nor tell the loving forests
5725The day that I shall go,
5726
5727Nor lisp it at the table,
5728Nor heedless by the way
5729Hint that within the riddle
5730One will walk to-day!
5731
5732
5733
5734
5735
5736
5737
5738THE BATTLE-
5739
5740They dropped like flakes, they dropped like stars,
5741   Like petals from a rose,
5742When suddenly across the June
5743   A wind with fingers goes.
5744
5745They perished in the seamless grass, --
5746   No eye could find the place;
5747But God on his repealless list
5748   Can summon every face.
5749
5750
5751
5752
5753
5754
5755
5756The only ghost I ever saw
5757Was dressed in mechlin, -- so;
5758He wore no sandal on his foot,
5759And stepped like flakes of snow.
5760His gait was soundless, like the bird,
5761But rapid, like the roe;
5762His fashions quaint, mosaic,
5763Or, haply, mistletoe.
5764
5765His conversation seldom,
5766His laughter like the breeze
5767That dies away in dimples
5768Among the pensive trees.
5769Our interview was transient,--
5770Of me, himself was shy;
5771And God forbid I look behind
5772Since that appalling day!
5773
5774
5775
5776
5777
5778
5779
5780Some, too fragile for winter winds,
5781The thoughtful grave encloses, --
5782Tenderly tucking them in from frost
5783Before their feet are cold.
5784
5785Never the treasures in her nest
5786The cautious grave exposes,
5787Building where schoolboy dare not look
5788And sportsman is not bold.
5789
5790This covert have all the children
5791Early aged, and often cold, --
5792Sparrows unnoticed by the Father;
5793Lambs for whom time had not a fold.
5794
5795
5796
5797
5798
5799
5800
5801As by the dead we love to sit,
5802Become so wondrous dear,
5803As for the lost we grapple,
5804Though all the rest are here, --
5805
5806In broken mathematics
5807We estimate our prize,
5808Vast, in its fading ratio,
5809To our penurious eyes!
5810
5811
5812
5813
5814
5815
5816
5817
5818
5819Death sets a thing significant
5820The eye had hurried by,
5821Except a perished creature
5822Entreat us tenderly
5823
5824To ponder little workmanships
5825In crayon or in wool,
5826With 'This was last her fingers did,'
5827Industrious until
5828
5829The thimble weighed too heavy,
5830The stitches stopped themselves,
5831And then 't was put among the dust
5832Upon the closet shelves.
5833
5834A book I have, a friend gave,
5835Whose pencil, here and there,
5836Had notched the place that pleased him, --
5837At rest his fingers are.
5838
5839Now, when I read, I read not,
5840For interrupting tears
5841Obliterate the etchings
5842Too costly for repairs.
5843
5844
5845
5846
5847
5848
5849
5850I went to heaven, --
5851'T was a small town,
5852Lit with a ruby,
5853Lathed with down.
5854Stiller than the fields
5855At the full dew,
5856Beautiful as pictures
5857No man drew.
5858People like the moth,
5859Of mechlin, frames,
5860Duties of gossamer,
5861And eider names.
5862Almost contented
5863I could be
5864'Mong such unique
5865Society.
5866
5867
5868
5869
5870
5871
5872
5873Their height in heaven comforts not,
5874Their glory nought to me;
5875'T was best imperfect, as it was;
5876I 'm finite, I can't see.
5877
5878The house of supposition,
5879The glimmering frontier
5880That skirts the acres of perhaps,
5881To me shows insecure.
5882
5883The wealth I had contented me;
5884If 't was a meaner size,
5885Then I had counted it until
5886It pleased my narrow eyes
5887
5888Better than larger values,
5889However true their show;
5890This timid life of evidence
5891Keeps pleading, 'I don't know.'
5892
5893
5894
5895
5896
5897
5898
5899There is a shame of nobleness
5900Confronting sudden pelf, --
5901A finer shame of ecstasy
5902Convicted of itself.
5903
5904A best disgrace a brave man feels,
5905Acknowledged of the brave, --
5906One more 'Ye Blessed' to be told;
5907But this involves the grave.
5908
5909
5910
5911
5912
5913
5914
5915
5916
5917Triumph may be of several kinds.
5918There 's triumph in the room
5919When that old imperator, Death,
5920By faith is overcome.
5921
5922There 's triumph of the finer mind
5923When truth, affronted long,
5924Advances calm to her supreme,
5925Her God her only throng.
5926
5927A triumph when temptation's bribe
5928Is slowly handed back,
5929One eye upon the heaven renounced
5930And one upon the rack.
5931
5932Severer triumph, by himself
5933Experienced, who can pass
5934Acquitted from that naked bar,
5935Jehovah's countenance!
5936
5937
5938
5939
5940
5941
5942
5943Pompless no life can pass away;
5944    The lowliest career
5945To the same pageant wends its way
5946    As that exalted here.
5947How cordial is the mystery!
5948    The hospitable pall
5949A 'this way' beckons spaciously, --
5950    A miracle for all!
5951
5952
5953
5954
5955
5956
5957
5958I noticed people disappeared,
5959When but a little child, --
5960Supposed they visited remote,
5961Or settled regions wild.
5962
5963Now know I they both visited
5964And settled regions wild,
5965But did because they died, -- a fact
5966Withheld the little child!
5967
5968
5969
5970
5971
5972
5973
5974
5975
5976I had no cause to be awake,
5977My best was gone to sleep,
5978And morn a new politeness took,
5979And failed to wake them up,
5980
5981But called the others clear,
5982And passed their curtains by.
5983Sweet morning, when I over-sleep,
5984Knock, recollect, for me!
5985
5986I looked at sunrise once,
5987And then I looked at them,
5988And wishfulness in me arose
5989For circumstance the same.
5990
5991'T was such an ample peace,
5992It could not hold a sigh, --
5993'T was Sabbath with the bells divorced,
5994'T was sunset all the day.
5995
5996So choosing but a gown
5997And taking but a prayer,
5998The only raiment I should need,
5999I struggled, and was there.
6000
6001
6002
6003
6004
6005
6006
6007If anybody's friend be dead,
6008It 's sharpest of the theme
6009The thinking how they walked alive,
6010At such and such a time.
6011
6012Their costume, of a Sunday,
6013Some manner of the hair, --
6014A prank nobody knew but them,
6015Lost, in the sepulchre.
6016
6017How warm they were on such a day:
6018You almost feel the date,
6019So short way off it seems; and now,
6020They 're centuries from that.
6021
6022How pleased they were at what you said;
6023You try to touch the smile,
6024And dip your fingers in the frost:
6025When was it, can you tell,
6026
6027You asked the company to tea,
6028Acquaintance, just a few,
6029And chatted close with this grand thing
6030That don't remember you?
6031
6032Past bows and invitations,
6033Past interview, and vow,
6034Past what ourselves can estimate, --
6035That makes the quick of woe!
6036
6037
6038
6039
6040
6041
6042
6043
6044
6045Our journey had advanced;
6046Our feet were almost come
6047To that odd fork in Being's road,
6048Eternity by term.
6049
6050Our pace took sudden awe,
6051Our feet reluctant led.
6052Before were cities, but between,
6053The forest of the dead.
6054
6055Retreat was out of hope, --
6056Behind, a sealed route,
6057Eternity's white flag before,
6058And God at every gate.
6059
6060
6061
6062
6063
6064
6065
6066
6067
6068Ample make this bed.
6069Make this bed with awe;
6070In it wait till judgment break
6071Excellent and fair.
6072
6073Be its mattress straight,
6074Be its pillow round;
6075Let no sunrise' yellow noise
6076Interrupt this ground.
6077
6078
6079
6080
6081
6082
6083
6084
6085
6086On such a night, or such a night,
6087Would anybody care
6088If such a little figure
6089Slipped quiet from its chair,
6090
6091So quiet, oh, how quiet!
6092That nobody might know
6093But that the little figure
6094Rocked softer, to and fro?
6095
6096On such a dawn, or such a dawn,
6097Would anybody sigh
6098That such a little figure
6099Too sound asleep did lie
6100
6101For chanticleer to wake it, --
6102Or stirring house below,
6103Or giddy bird in orchard,
6104Or early task to do?
6105
6106There was a little figure plump
6107For every little knoll,
6108Busy needles, and spools of thread,
6109And trudging feet from school.
6110
6111Playmates, and holidays, and nuts,
6112And visions vast and small.
6113Strange that the feet so precious charged
6114Should reach so small a goal!
6115
6116
6117
6118
6119
6120
6121
6122Essential oils are wrung:
6123The attar from the rose
6124Is not expressed by suns alone,
6125It is the gift of screws.
6126
6127The general rose decays;
6128But this, in lady's drawer,
6129Makes summer when the lady lies
6130In ceaseless rosemary.
6131
6132
6133
6134
6135
6136
6137I lived on dread; to those who know
6138The stimulus there is
6139In danger, other impetus
6140Is numb and vital-less.
6141
6142As 't were a spur upon the soul,
6143A fear will urge it where
6144To go without the spectre's aid
6145Were challenging despair.
6146
6147
6148
6149
6150
6151
6152
6153If I should die,
6154And you should live,
6155And time should gurgle on,
6156And morn should beam,
6157And noon should burn,
6158As it has usual done;
6159If birds should build as early,
6160And bees as bustling go, --
6161One might depart at option
6162From enterprise below!
6163'T is sweet to know that stocks will stand
6164When we with daisies lie,
6165That commerce will continue,
6166And trades as briskly fly.
6167It makes the parting tranquil
6168And keeps the soul serene,
6169That gentlemen so sprightly
6170Conduct the pleasing scene!
6171
6172
6173
6174
6175
6176
6177
6178
6179
6180Her final summer was it,
6181And yet we guessed it not;
6182If tenderer industriousness
6183Pervaded her, we thought
6184
6185A further force of life
6186Developed from within, --
6187When Death lit all the shortness up,
6188And made the hurry plain.
6189
6190We wondered at our blindness, --
6191When nothing was to see
6192But her Carrara guide-post, --
6193At our stupidity,
6194
6195When, duller than our dulness,
6196The busy darling lay,
6197So busy was she, finishing,
6198So leisurely were we!
6199
6200
6201
6202
6203
6204
6205
6206
6207
6208One need not be a chamber to be haunted,
6209One need not be a house;
6210The brain has corridors surpassing
6211Material place.
6212
6213Far safer, of a midnight meeting
6214External ghost,
6215Than an interior confronting
6216That whiter host.
6217
6218Far safer through an Abbey gallop,
6219The stones achase,
6220Than, moonless, one's own self encounter
6221In lonesome place.
6222
6223Ourself, behind ourself concealed,
6224Should startle most;
6225Assassin, hid in our apartment,
6226Be horror's least.
6227
6228The prudent carries a revolver,
6229He bolts the door,
6230O'erlooking a superior spectre
6231More near.
6232
6233
6234
6235
6236
6237
6238
6239
6240
6241She died, -- this was the way she died;
6242And when her breath was done,
6243Took up her simple wardrobe
6244And started for the sun.
6245
6246Her little figure at the gate
6247The angels must have spied,
6248Since I could never find her
6249Upon the mortal side.
6250
6251
6252
6253
6254
6255
6256
6257
6258
6259Wait till the majesty of Death
6260Invests so mean a brow!
6261Almost a powdered footman
6262Might dare to touch it now!
6263
6264Wait till in everlasting robes
6265This democrat is dressed,
6266Then prate about 'preferment'
6267And 'station' and the rest!
6268
6269Around this quiet courtier
6270Obsequious angels wait!
6271Full royal is his retinue,
6272Full purple is his state!
6273
6274A lord might dare to lift the hat
6275To such a modest clay,
6276Since that my Lord, 'the Lord of lords'
6277Receives unblushingly!
6278
6279
6280
6281
6282
6283
6284
6285
6286
6287Went up a year this evening!
6288I recollect it well!
6289Amid no bells nor bravos
6290The bystanders will tell!
6291Cheerful, as to the village,
6292Tranquil, as to repose,
6293Chastened, as to the chapel,
6294This humble tourist rose.
6295Did not talk of returning,
6296Alluded to no time
6297When, were the gales propitious,
6298We might look for him;
6299Was grateful for the roses
6300In life's diverse bouquet,
6301Talked softly of new species
6302To pick another day.
6303
6304Beguiling thus the wonder,
6305The wondrous nearer drew;
6306Hands bustled at the moorings --
6307The crowd respectful grew.
6308Ascended from our vision
6309To countenances new!
6310A difference, a daisy,
6311Is all the rest I knew!
6312
6313
6314
6315
6316
6317
6318
6319
6320
6321Taken from men this morning,
6322Carried by men to-day,
6323Met by the gods with banners
6324Who marshalled her away.
6325
6326One little maid from playmates,
6327One little mind from school, --
6328There must be guests in Eden;
6329All the rooms are full.
6330
6331Far as the east from even,
6332Dim as the border star, --
6333Courtiers quaint, in kingdoms,
6334Our departed are.
6335
6336
6337
6338
6339
6340
6341
6342What inn is this
6343Where for the night
6344Peculiar traveller comes?
6345Who is the landlord?
6346Where the maids?
6347Behold, what curious rooms!
6348No ruddy fires on the hearth,
6349No brimming tankards flow.
6350Necromancer, landlord,
6351Who are these below?
6352
6353
6354
6355
6356
6357
6358
6359It was not death, for I stood up,
6360And all the dead lie down;
6361It was not night, for all the bells
6362Put out their tongues, for noon.
6363
6364It was not frost, for on my flesh
6365I felt siroccos crawl, --
6366Nor fire, for just my marble feet
6367Could keep a chancel cool.
6368
6369And yet it tasted like them all;
6370The figures I have seen
6371Set orderly, for burial,
6372Reminded me of mine,
6373
6374As if my life were shaven
6375And fitted to a frame,
6376And could not breathe without a key;
6377And 't was like midnight, some,
6378
6379When everything that ticked has stopped,
6380And space stares, all around,
6381Or grisly frosts, first autumn morns,
6382Repeal the beating ground.
6383
6384But most like chaos, -- stopless, cool, --
6385Without a chance or spar,
6386Or even a report of land
6387To justify despair.
6388
6389
6390
6391
6392
6393
6394
6395
6396
6397I should not dare to leave my friend,
6398Because -- because if he should die
6399While I was gone, and I -- too late --
6400Should reach the heart that wanted me;
6401
6402If I should disappoint the eyes
6403That hunted, hunted so, to see,
6404And could not bear to shut until
6405They 'noticed' me -- they noticed me;
6406
6407If I should stab the patient faith
6408So sure I 'd come -- so sure I 'd come,
6409It listening, listening, went to sleep
6410Telling my tardy name, --
6411
6412My heart would wish it broke before,
6413Since breaking then, since breaking then,
6414Were useless as next morning's sun,
6415Where midnight frosts had lain!
6416
6417
6418
6419
6420
6421
6422
6423
6424
6425Great streets of silence led away
6426To neighborhoods of pause;
6427Here was no notice, no dissent,
6428No universe, no laws.
6429
6430By clocks 't was morning, and for night
6431The bells at distance called;
6432But epoch had no basis here,
6433For period exhaled.
6434
6435
6436
6437
6438
6439
6440
6441A throe upon the features
6442A hurry in the breath,
6443An ecstasy of parting
6444Denominated 'Death,' --
6445
6446An anguish at the mention,
6447Which, when to patience grown,
6448I 've known permission given
6449To rejoin its own.
6450
6451
6452
6453
6454
6455
6456
6457SAVED!
6458
6459Of tribulation these are they
6460Denoted by the white;
6461The spangled gowns, a lesser rank
6462Of victors designate.
6463
6464All these did conquer; but the ones
6465Who overcame most times
6466Wear nothing commoner than snow,
6467No ornament but palms.
6468
6469Surrender is a sort unknown
6470On this superior soil;
6471Defeat, an outgrown anguish,
6472Remembered as the mile
6473
6474Our panting ankle barely gained
6475When night devoured the road;
6476But we stood whispering in the house,
6477And all we said was 'Saved'!
6478
6479
6480
6481
6482
6483
6484
6485I think just how my shape will rise
6486When I shall be forgiven,
6487Till hair and eyes and timid head
6488Are out of sight, in heaven.
6489
6490I think just how my lips will weigh
6491With shapeless, quivering prayer
6492That you, so late, consider me,
6493The sparrow of your care.
6494
6495I mind me that of anguish sent,
6496Some drifts were moved away
6497Before my simple bosom broke, --
6498And why not this, if they?
6499
6500And so, until delirious borne
6501I con that thing, -- 'forgiven,' --
6502Till with long fright and longer trust
6503I drop my heart, unshriven!
6504
6505
6506
6507
6508
6509
6510
6511
6512
6513After a hundred years
6514Nobody knows the place, --
6515Agony, that enacted there,
6516Motionless as peace.
6517
6518Weeds triumphant ranged,
6519Strangers strolled and spelled
6520At the lone orthography
6521Of the elder dead.
6522
6523Winds of summer fields
6524Recollect the way, --
6525Instinct picking up the key
6526Dropped by memory.
6527
6528
6529
6530
6531
6532
6533
6534Lay this laurel on the one
6535Too intrinsic for renown.
6536Laurel! veil your deathless tree, --
6537Him you chasten, that is he!
6538
6539
6540
6541
6542
6543
6544
6545
6546
6547
6548'T is little I could care for pearls
6549  Who own the ample sea;
6550Or brooches, when the Emperor
6551  With rubies pelteth me;
6552
6553Or gold, who am the Prince of Mines;
6554  Or diamonds, when I see
6555A diadem to fit a dome
6556  Continual crowning me.
6557
6558
6559
6560
6561
6562
6563
6564
6565
6566Superiority to fate
6567  Is difficult to learn.
6568'T is not conferred by any,
6569  But possible to earn
6570
6571A pittance at a time,
6572  Until, to her surprise,
6573The soul with strict economy
6574  Subsists till Paradise.
6575
6576
6577
6578
6579
6580
6581
6582
6583
6584Hope is a subtle glutton;
6585  He feeds upon the fair;
6586And yet, inspected closely,
6587  What abstinence is there!
6588
6589His is the halcyon table
6590  That never seats but one,
6591And whatsoever is consumed
6592  The same amounts remain.
6593
6594
6595
6596
6597
6598
6599
6600
6601
6602
6603
6604Forbidden fruit a flavor has
6605  That lawful orchards mocks;
6606How luscious lies the pea within
6607  The pod that Duty locks!
6608
6609
6610
6611
6612
6613
6614
6615
6616
6617
6618
6619Heaven is what I cannot reach!
6620  The apple on the tree,
6621Provided it do hopeless hang,
6622  That 'heaven' is, to me.
6623
6624The color on the cruising cloud,
6625  The interdicted ground
6626Behind the hill, the house behind, --
6627  There Paradise is found!
6628
6629
6630
6631
6632
6633
6634
6635
6636
6637A word is dead
6638When it is said,
6639  Some say.
6640I say it just
6641Begins to live
6642  That day.
6643
6644
6645
6646
6647
6648
6649
6650To venerate the simple days
6651  Which lead the seasons by,
6652Needs but to remember
6653  That from you or me
6654They may take the trifle
6655  Termed mortality!
6656
6657To invest existence with a stately air,
6658Needs but to remember
6659  That the acorn there
6660Is the egg of forests
6661  For the upper air!
6662
6663
6664
6665
6666
6667
6668
6669LIFE'
6670
6671It's such a little thing to weep,
6672  So short a thing to sigh;
6673And yet by trades the size of these
6674  We men and women die!
6675
6676
6677
6678
6679
6680
6681
6682Drowning is not so pitiful
6683  As the attempt to rise.
6684Three times, 't is said, a sinking man
6685  Comes up to face the skies,
6686And then declines forever
6687  To that abhorred abode
6688Where hope and he part company, --
6689  For he is grasped of God.
6690The Maker's cordial visage,
6691  However good to see,
6692Is shunned, we must admit it,
6693  Like an adversity.
6694
6695
6696
6697
6698
6699
6700
6701How still the bells in steeples stand,
6702  Till, swollen with the sky,
6703They leap upon their silver feet
6704  In frantic melody!
6705
6706
6707
6708
6709
6710
6711
6712If the foolish call them 'flowers,'
6713  Need the wiser tell?
6714If the savans 'classify' them,
6715  It is just as well!
6716
6717Those who read the Revelations
6718  Must not criticise
6719Those who read the same edition
6720  With beclouded eyes!
6721
6722Could we stand with that old Moses
6723  Canaan denied, --
6724Scan, like him, the stately landscape
6725  On the other side, --
6726
6727Doubtless we should deem superfluous
6728  Many sciences
6729Not pursued by learnèd angels
6730  In scholastic skies!
6731
6732Low amid that glad _Belles lettres_
6733  Grant that we may stand,
6734Stars, amid profound Galaxies,
6735  At that grand 'Right hand'!
6736
6737
6738
6739
6740
6741
6742
6743
6744
6745Could mortal lip divine
6746  The undeveloped freight
6747Of a delivered syllable,
6748  'T would crumble with the weight.
6749
6750
6751
6752
6753
6754
6755
6756
6757
6758My life closed twice before its close;
6759  It yet remains to see
6760If Immortality unveil
6761  A third event to me,
6762
6763So huge, so hopeless to conceive,
6764  As these that twice befell.
6765Parting is all we know of heaven,
6766  And all we need of hell.
6767
6768
6769
6770
6771
6772
6773
6774
6775
6776We never know how high we are
6777  Till we are called to rise;
6778And then, if we are true to plan,
6779  Our statures touch the skies.
6780
6781The heroism we recite
6782  Would be a daily thing,
6783Did not ourselves the cubits warp
6784  For fear to be a king.
6785
6786
6787
6788
6789
6790
6791
6792
6793
6794While I was fearing it, it came,
6795  But came with less of fear,
6796Because that fearing it so long
6797  Had almost made it dear.
6798There is a fitting a dismay,
6799  A fitting a despair.
6800'Tis harder knowing it is due,
6801  Than knowing it is here.
6802The trying on the utmost,
6803  The morning it is new,
6804Is terribler than wearing it
6805  A whole existence through.
6806
6807
6808
6809
6810
6811
6812
6813
6814
6815There is no frigate like a book
6816  To take us lands away,
6817Nor any coursers like a page
6818  Of prancing poetry.
6819This traverse may the poorest take
6820  Without oppress of toll;
6821How frugal is the chariot
6822  That bears a human soul!
6823
6824
6825
6826
6827
6828
6829
6830Who has not found the heaven below
6831  Will fail of it above.
6832God's residence is next to mine,
6833  His furniture is love.
6834
6835
6836
6837
6838
6839
6840
6841
6842
6843A face devoid of love or grace,
6844  A hateful, hard, successful face,
6845A face with which a stone
6846  Would feel as thoroughly at ease
6847As were they old acquaintances, --
6848  First time together thrown.
6849
6850
6851
6852
6853
6854
6855
6856
6857
6858I had a guinea golden;
6859  I lost it in the sand,
6860And though the sum was simple,
6861  And pounds were in the land,
6862Still had it such a value
6863  Unto my frugal eye,
6864That when I could not find it
6865  I sat me down to sigh.
6866
6867I had a crimson robin
6868  Who sang full many a day,
6869But when the woods were painted
6870  He, too, did fly away.
6871Time brought me other robins, --
6872  Their ballads were the same, --
6873Still for my missing troubadour
6874  I kept the 'house at hame.'
6875
6876I had a star in heaven;
6877  One Pleiad was its name,
6878And when I was not heeding
6879  It wandered from the same.
6880And though the skies are crowded,
6881  And all the night ashine,
6882I do not care about it,
6883  Since none of them are mine.
6884
6885My story has a moral:
6886  I have a missing friend, --
6887Pleiad its name, and robin,
6888  And guinea in the sand, --
6889And when this mournful ditty,
6890  Accompanied with tear,
6891Shall meet the eye of traitor
6892  In country far from here,
6893Grant that repentance solemn
6894  May seize upon his mind,
6895And he no consolation
6896  Beneath the sun may find.
6897
6898 -- This poem may have had, like many others, a
6899personal origin. It is more than probable that it was
6900sent to some friend travelling in Europe, a dainty
6901reminder of letter-writing delinquencies.
6902
6903
6904
6905
6906
6907
6908
6909
6910
6911From all the jails the boys and girls
6912  Ecstatically leap, --
6913Beloved, only afternoon
6914  That prison doesn't keep.
6915
6916They storm the earth and stun the air,
6917  A mob of solid bliss.
6918Alas! that frowns could lie in wait
6919  For such a foe as this!
6920
6921
6922
6923
6924
6925
6926
6927
6928Few get enough, -- enough is one;
6929  To that ethereal throng
6930Have not each one of us the right
6931  To stealthily belong?
6932
6933
6934
6935
6936
6937
6938
6939Upon the gallows hung a wretch,
6940  Too sullied for the hell
6941To which the law entitled him.
6942  As nature's curtain fell
6943The one who bore him tottered in,
6944  For this was woman's son.
6945''T was all I had,' she stricken gasped;
6946  Oh, what a livid boon!
6947
6948
6949
6950
6951
6952
6953
6954
6955
6956I felt a clearing in my mind
6957  As if my brain had split;
6958I tried to match it, seam by seam,
6959  But could not make them fit.
6960
6961The thought behind I strove to join
6962  Unto the thought before,
6963But sequence ravelled out of reach
6964  Like balls upon a floor.
6965
6966
6967
6968
6969
6970
6971
6972
6973
6974The reticent volcano keeps
6975  His never slumbering plan;
6976Confided are his projects pink
6977  To no precarious man.
6978
6979If nature will not tell the tale
6980  Jehovah told to her,
6981Can human nature not survive
6982  Without a listener?
6983
6984Admonished by her buckled lips
6985  Let every babbler be.
6986The only secret people keep
6987  Is Immortality.
6988
6989
6990
6991
6992
6993
6994
6995
6996
6997If recollecting were forgetting,
6998  Then I remember not;
6999And if forgetting, recollecting,
7000  How near I had forgot!
7001And if to miss were merry,
7002  And if to mourn were gay,
7003How very blithe the fingers
7004  That gathered these to-day!
7005
7006
7007
7008
7009
7010
7011
7012The farthest thunder that I heard
7013  Was nearer than the sky,
7014And rumbles still, though torrid noons
7015  Have lain their missiles by.
7016The lightning that preceded it
7017  Struck no one but myself,
7018But I would not exchange the bolt
7019  For all the rest of life.
7020Indebtedness to oxygen
7021  The chemist may repay,
7022But not the obligation
7023  To electricity.
7024It founds the homes and decks the days,
7025  And every clamor bright
7026Is but the gleam concomitant
7027  Of that waylaying light.
7028The thought is quiet as a flake, --
7029  A crash without a sound;
7030How life's reverberation
7031  Its explanation found!
7032
7033
7034
7035
7036
7037
7038
7039On the bleakness of my lot
7040  Bloom I strove to raise.
7041Late, my acre of a rock
7042  Yielded grape and maize.
7043
7044Soil of flint if steadfast tilled
7045  Will reward the hand;
7046Seed of palm by Lybian sun
7047  Fructified in sand.
7048
7049
7050
7051
7052
7053
7054
7055
7056
7057A door just opened on a street --
7058  I, lost, was passing by --
7059An instant's width of warmth disclosed,
7060  And wealth, and company.
7061
7062The door as sudden shut, and I,
7063  I, lost, was passing by, --
7064Lost doubly, but by contrast most,
7065  Enlightening misery.
7066
7067
7068
7069
7070
7071
7072
7073
7074
7075
7076Are friends delight or pain?
7077  Could bounty but remain
7078Riches were good.
7079
7080But if they only stay
7081Bolder to fly away,
7082  Riches are sad.
7083
7084
7085
7086
7087
7088
7089
7090
7091
7092
7093Ashes denote that fire was;
7094  Respect the grayest pile
7095For the departed creature's sake
7096  That hovered there awhile.
7097
7098Fire exists the first in light,
7099  And then consolidates, --
7100Only the chemist can disclose
7101  Into what carbonates.
7102
7103
7104
7105
7106
7107
7108
7109
7110
7111Fate slew him, but he did not drop;
7112  She felled -- he did not fall --
7113Impaled him on her fiercest stakes --
7114  He neutralized them all.
7115
7116She stung him, sapped his firm advance,
7117  But, when her worst was done,
7118And he, unmoved, regarded her,
7119  Acknowledged him a man.
7120
7121
7122
7123
7124
7125
7126
7127
7128
7129Finite to fail, but infinite to venture.
7130  For the one ship that struts the shore
7131Many's the gallant, overwhelmed creature
7132  Nodding in navies nevermore.
7133
7134
7135
7136
7137
7138
7139
7140
7141
7142I measure every grief I meet
7143  With analytic eyes;
7144I wonder if it weighs like mine,
7145  Or has an easier size.
7146
7147I wonder if they bore it long,
7148  Or did it just begin?
7149I could not tell the date of mine,
7150  It feels so old a pain.
7151
7152I wonder if it hurts to live,
7153  And if they have to try,
7154And whether, could they choose between,
7155  They would not rather die.
7156
7157I wonder if when years have piled --
7158  Some thousands -- on the cause
7159Of early hurt, if such a lapse
7160  Could give them any pause;
7161
7162Or would they go on aching still
7163  Through centuries above,
7164Enlightened to a larger pain
7165  By contrast with the love.
7166
7167The grieved are many, I am told;
7168  The reason deeper lies, --
7169Death is but one and comes but once,
7170  And only nails the eyes.
7171
7172There's grief of want, and grief of cold, --
7173  A sort they call 'despair;'
7174There's banishment from native eyes,
7175  In sight of native air.
7176
7177And though I may not guess the kind
7178  Correctly, yet to me
7179A piercing comfort it affords
7180  In passing Calvary,
7181
7182To note the fashions of the cross,
7183  Of those that stand alone,
7184Still fascinated to presume
7185  That some are like my own.
7186
7187
7188
7189
7190
7191
7192
7193I have a king who does not speak;
7194So, wondering, thro' the hours meek
7195  I trudge the day away,--
7196Half glad when it is night and sleep,
7197If, haply, thro' a dream to peep
7198  In parlors shut by day.
7199
7200And if I do, when morning comes,
7201It is as if a hundred drums
7202  Did round my pillow roll,
7203And shouts fill all my childish sky,
7204And bells keep saying 'victory'
7205  From steeples in my soul!
7206
7207And if I don't, the little Bird
7208Within the Orchard is not heard,
7209  And I omit to pray,
7210'Father, thy will be done' to-day,
7211For my will goes the other way,
7212  And it were perjury!
7213
7214
7215
7216
7217
7218
7219
7220
7221
7222It dropped so low in my regard
7223  I heard it hit the ground,
7224And go to pieces on the stones
7225  At bottom of my mind;
7226
7227Yet blamed the fate that fractured, less
7228  Than I reviled myself
7229For entertaining plated wares
7230  Upon my silver shelf.
7231
7232
7233
7234
7235
7236
7237
7238
7239
7240To lose one's faith surpasses
7241  The loss of an estate,
7242Because estates can be
7243  Replenished, -- faith cannot.
7244
7245Inherited with life,
7246  Belief but once can be;
7247Annihilate a single clause,
7248  And Being's beggary.
7249
7250
7251
7252
7253
7254
7255
7256
7257
7258I had a daily bliss
7259  I half indifferent viewed,
7260Till sudden I perceived it stir, --
7261  It grew as I pursued,
7262
7263Till when, around a crag,
7264  It wasted from my sight,
7265Enlarged beyond my utmost scope,
7266  I learned its sweetness right.
7267
7268
7269
7270
7271
7272
7273
7274I worked for chaff, and earning wheat
7275  Was haughty and betrayed.
7276What right had fields to arbitrate
7277  In matters ratified?
7278
7279I tasted wheat, -- and hated chaff,
7280  And thanked the ample friend;
7281Wisdom is more becoming viewed
7282  At distance than at hand.
7283
7284
7285
7286
7287
7288
7289
7290Life, and Death, and Giants
7291  Such as these, are still.
7292Minor apparatus, hopper of the mill,
7293Beetle at the candle,
7294  Or a fife's small fame,
7295Maintain by accident
7296  That they proclaim.
7297
7298
7299
7300
7301
7302
7303
7304
7305
7306Our lives are Swiss, --
7307  So still, so cool,
7308  Till, some odd afternoon,
7309The Alps neglect their curtains,
7310  And we look farther on.
7311
7312Italy stands the other side,
7313  While, like a guard between,
7314The solemn Alps,
7315The siren Alps,
7316  Forever intervene!
7317
7318
7319
7320
7321
7322
7323
7324
7325
7326Remembrance has a rear and front, --
7327  'T is something like a house;
7328It has a garret also
7329  For refuse and the mouse,
7330
7331Besides, the deepest cellar
7332  That ever mason hewed;
7333Look to it, by its fathoms
7334  Ourselves be not pursued.
7335
7336
7337
7338
7339
7340
7341
7342To hang our head ostensibly,
7343  And subsequent to find
7344That such was not the posture
7345  Of our immortal mind,
7346
7347Affords the sly presumption
7348  That, in so dense a fuzz,
7349You, too, take cobweb attitudes
7350  Upon a plane of gauze!
7351
7352
7353
7354
7355
7356
7357
7358
7359
7360The brain is wider than the sky,
7361  For, put them side by side,
7362The one the other will include
7363  With ease, and you beside.
7364
7365The brain is deeper than the sea,
7366  For, hold them, blue to blue,
7367The one the other will absorb,
7368  As sponges, buckets do.
7369
7370The brain is just the weight of God,
7371  For, lift them, pound for pound,
7372And they will differ, if they do,
7373  As syllable from sound.
7374
7375
7376
7377
7378
7379
7380
7381The bone that has no marrow;
7382  What ultimate for that?
7383It is not fit for table,
7384  For beggar, or for cat.
7385
7386A bone has obligations,
7387  A being has the same;
7388A marrowless assembly
7389  Is culpabler than shame.
7390
7391But how shall finished creatures
7392  A function fresh obtain? --
7393Old Nicodemus' phantom
7394  Confronting us again!
7395
7396
7397
7398
7399
7400
7401
7402
7403
7404The past is such a curious creature,
7405  To look her in the face
7406A transport may reward us,
7407  Or a disgrace.
7408
7409Unarmed if any meet her,
7410  I charge him, fly!
7411Her rusty ammunition
7412  Might yet reply!
7413
7414
7415
7416
7417
7418
7419
7420To help our bleaker parts
7421  Salubrious hours are given,
7422Which if they do not fit for earth
7423  Drill silently for heaven.
7424
7425
7426
7427
7428
7429
7430
7431What soft, cherubic creatures
7432  These gentlewomen are!
7433One would as soon assault a plush
7434  Or violate a star.
7435
7436Such dimity convictions,
7437  A horror so refined
7438Of freckled human nature,
7439  Of Deity ashamed, --
7440
7441It's such a common glory,
7442  A fisherman's degree!
7443Redemption, brittle lady,
7444  Be so, ashamed of thee.
7445
7446
7447
7448
7449
7450
7451
7452
7453
7454Who never wanted, -- maddest joy
7455  Remains to him unknown:
7456The banquet of abstemiousness
7457  Surpasses that of wine.
7458
7459Within its hope, though yet ungrasped
7460  Desire's perfect goal,
7461No nearer, lest reality
7462  Should disenthrall thy soul.
7463
7464
7465
7466
7467
7468
7469
7470
7471
7472It might be easier
7473  To fail with land in sight,
7474Than gain my blue peninsula
7475  To perish of delight.
7476
7477
7478
7479
7480
7481
7482
7483
7484
7485You cannot put a fire out;
7486  A thing that can ignite
7487Can go, itself, without a fan
7488  Upon the slowest night.
7489
7490You cannot fold a flood
7491  And put it in a drawer, --
7492Because the winds would find it out,
7493  And tell your cedar floor.
7494
7495
7496
7497
7498
7499
7500
7501A modest lot, a fame petite,
7502  A brief campaign of sting and sweet
7503  Is plenty! Is enough!
7504A sailor's business is the shore,
7505  A soldier's -- balls. Who asketh more
7506Must seek the neighboring life!
7507
7508
7509
7510
7511
7512
7513
7514Is bliss, then, such abyss
7515I must not put my foot amiss
7516For fear I spoil my shoe?
7517
7518I'd rather suit my foot
7519Than save my boot,
7520For yet to buy another pair
7521Is possible
7522At any fair.
7523
7524But bliss is sold just once;
7525The patent lost
7526None buy it any more.
7527
7528
7529
7530
7531
7532
7533
7534
7535
7536I stepped from plank to plank
7537  So slow and cautiously;
7538The stars about my head I felt,
7539  About my feet the sea.
7540
7541I knew not but the next
7542  Would be my final inch, --
7543This gave me that precarious gait
7544  Some call experience.
7545
7546
7547
7548
7549
7550
7551
7552
7553
7554One day is there of the series
7555  Termed Thanksgiving day,
7556Celebrated part at table,
7557  Part in memory.
7558
7559Neither patriarch nor pussy,
7560  I dissect the play;
7561Seems it, to my hooded thinking,
7562  Reflex holiday.
7563
7564Had there been no sharp subtraction
7565  From the early sum,
7566Not an acre or a caption
7567  Where was once a room,
7568
7569Not a mention, whose small pebble
7570  Wrinkled any bay, --
7571Unto such, were such assembly,
7572  'T were Thanksgiving day.
7573
7574
7575
7576
7577
7578
7579
7580
7581
7582Softened by Time's consummate plush,
7583  How sleek the woe appears
7584That threatened childhood's citadel
7585  And undermined the years!
7586
7587Bisected now by bleaker griefs,
7588  We envy the despair
7589That devastated childhood's realm,
7590  So easy to repair.
7591
7592
7593
7594
7595
7596
7597
7598
7599
7600
7601
7602
7603
7604Proud of my broken heart since thou didst break it,
7605  Proud of the pain I did not feel till thee,
7606Proud of my night since thou with moons dost slake it,
7607  Not to partake thy passion, my humility.
7608
7609
7610
7611
7612
7613
7614
7615LOVE'
7616
7617My worthiness is all my doubt,
7618  His merit all my fear,
7619Contrasting which, my qualities
7620  Do lowlier appear;
7621
7622Lest I should insufficient prove
7623  For his beloved need,
7624The chiefest apprehension
7625  Within my loving creed.
7626
7627So I, the undivine abode
7628  Of his elect content,
7629Conform my soul as 't were a church
7630  Unto her sacrament.
7631
7632
7633
7634
7635
7636
7637
7638
7639
7640Love is anterior to life,
7641  Posterior to death,
7642Initial of creation, and
7643  The exponent of breath.
7644
7645
7646
7647
7648
7649
7650
7651
7652
7653One blessing had I, than the rest
7654  So larger to my eyes
7655That I stopped gauging, satisfied,
7656  For this enchanted size.
7657
7658It was the limit of my dream,
7659  The focus of my prayer, --
7660A perfect, paralyzing bliss
7661  Contented as despair.
7662
7663I knew no more of want or cold,
7664  Phantasms both become,
7665For this new value in the soul,
7666  Supremest earthly sum.
7667
7668The heaven below the heaven above
7669  Obscured with ruddier hue.
7670Life's latitude leant over-full;
7671  The judgment perished, too.
7672
7673Why joys so scantily disburse,
7674  Why Paradise defer,
7675Why floods are served to us in bowls, --
7676  I speculate no more.
7677
7678
7679
7680
7681
7682
7683
7684
7685
7686When roses cease to bloom, dear,
7687  And violets are done,
7688When bumble-bees in solemn flight
7689  Have passed beyond the sun,
7690
7691The hand that paused to gather
7692  Upon this summer's day
7693Will idle lie, in Auburn, --
7694  Then take my flower, pray!
7695
7696
7697
7698
7699
7700
7701
7702
7703
7704Summer for thee grant I may be
7705  When summer days are flown!
7706Thy music still when whippoorwill
7707  And oriole are done!
7708
7709For thee to bloom, I'll skip the tomb
7710  And sow my blossoms o'er!
7711Pray gather me, Anemone,
7712  Thy flower forevermore!
7713
7714
7715
7716
7717
7718
7719
7720
7721
7722Split the lark and you'll find the music,
7723  Bulb after bulb, in silver rolled,
7724Scantily dealt to the summer morning,
7725  Saved for your ear when lutes be old.
7726
7727Loose the flood, you shall find it patent,
7728  Gush after gush, reserved for you;
7729Scarlet experiment! sceptic Thomas,
7730  Now, do you doubt that your bird was true?
7731
7732
7733
7734
7735
7736
7737
7738To lose thee, sweeter than to gain
7739  All other hearts I knew.
7740'T is true the drought is destitute,
7741  But then I had the dew!
7742
7743The Caspian has its realms of sand,
7744  Its other realm of sea;
7745Without the sterile perquisite
7746  No Caspian could be.
7747
7748
7749
7750
7751
7752
7753
7754  Poor little heart!
7755  Did they forget thee?
7756Then dinna care! Then dinna care!
7757
7758  Proud little heart!
7759  Did they forsake thee?
7760Be debonair! Be debonair!
7761
7762  Frail little heart!
7763  I would not break thee:
7764Could'st credit me? Could'st credit me?
7765
7766  Gay little heart!
7767  Like morning glory
7768Thou'll wilted be; thou'll wilted be!
7769
7770
7771
7772
7773
7774
7775
7776
7777
7778There is a word
7779  Which bears a sword
7780  Can pierce an armed man.
7781It hurls its barbed syllables,--
7782  At once is mute again.
7783But where it fell
7784The saved will tell
7785  On patriotic day,
7786Some epauletted brother
7787  Gave his breath away.
7788
7789Wherever runs the breathless sun,
7790  Wherever roams the day,
7791There is its noiseless onset,
7792  There is its victory!
7793
7794Behold the keenest marksman!
7795  The most accomplished shot!
7796Time's sublimest target
7797  Is a soul 'forgot'!
7798
7799
7800
7801
7802
7803
7804
7805I've got an arrow here;
7806  Loving the hand that sent it,
7807I the dart revere.
7808
7809Fell, they will say, in 'skirmish'!
7810  Vanquished, my soul will know,
7811By but a simple arrow
7812  Sped by an archer's bow.
7813
7814
7815
7816
7817
7818
7819
7820
7821
7822He fumbles at your spirit
7823  As players at the keys
7824Before they drop full music on;
7825  He stuns you by degrees,
7826
7827Prepares your brittle substance
7828  For the ethereal blow,
7829By fainter hammers, further heard,
7830  Then nearer, then so slow
7831
7832Your breath has time to straighten,
7833  Your brain to bubble cool, --
7834Deals one imperial thunderbolt
7835  That scalps your naked soul.
7836
7837
7838
7839
7840
7841
7842
7843Heart, we will forget him!
7844  You and I, to-night!
7845You may forget the warmth he gave,
7846  I will forget the light.
7847
7848When you have done, pray tell me,
7849  That I my thoughts may dim;
7850Haste! lest while you're lagging,
7851  I may remember him!
7852
7853
7854
7855
7856
7857
7858
7859Father, I bring thee not myself, --
7860  That were the little load;
7861I bring thee the imperial heart
7862  I had not strength to hold.
7863
7864The heart I cherished in my own
7865  Till mine too heavy grew,
7866Yet strangest, heavier since it went,
7867  Is it too large for you?
7868
7869
7870
7871
7872
7873
7874
7875We outgrow love like other things
7876  And put it in the drawer,
7877Till it an antique fashion shows
7878  Like costumes grandsires wore.
7879
7880
7881
7882
7883
7884
7885
7886Not with a club the heart is broken,
7887    Nor with a stone;
7888A whip, so small you could not see it.
7889    I've known
7890
7891To lash the magic creature
7892    Till it fell,
7893Yet that whip's name too noble
7894    Then to tell.
7895
7896Magnanimous of bird
7897    By boy descried,
7898To sing unto the stone
7899    Of which it died.
7900
7901
7902
7903
7904
7905
7906
7907WHO?
7908
7909My friend must be a bird,
7910    Because it flies!
7911Mortal my friend must be,
7912    Because it dies!
7913Barbs has it, like a bee.
7914Ah, curious friend,
7915    Thou puzzlest me!
7916
7917
7918
7919
7920
7921
7922
7923He touched me, so I live to know
7924That such a day, permitted so,
7925  I groped upon his breast.
7926It was a boundless place to me,
7927And silenced, as the awful sea
7928  Puts minor streams to rest.
7929
7930And now, I'm different from before,
7931As if I breathed superior air,
7932  Or brushed a royal gown;
7933My feet, too, that had wandered so,
7934My gypsy face transfigured now
7935  To tenderer renown.
7936
7937
7938
7939
7940
7941
7942
7943
7944
7945Let me not mar that perfect dream
7946  By an auroral stain,
7947But so adjust my daily night
7948  That it will come again.
7949
7950
7951
7952
7953
7954
7955
7956
7957
7958I live with him, I see his face;
7959  I go no more away
7960For visitor, or sundown;
7961  Death's single privacy,
7962
7963The only one forestalling mine,
7964  And that by right that he
7965Presents a claim invisible,
7966  No wedlock granted me.
7967
7968I live with him, I hear his voice,
7969  I stand alive to-day
7970To witness to the certainty
7971  Of immortality
7972
7973Taught me by Time, -- the lower way,
7974  Conviction every day, --
7975That life like this is endless,
7976  Be judgment what it may.
7977
7978
7979
7980
7981
7982
7983
7984
7985
7986I envy seas whereon he rides,
7987  I envy spokes of wheels
7988Of chariots that him convey,
7989  I envy speechless hills
7990
7991That gaze upon his journey;
7992  How easy all can see
7993What is forbidden utterly
7994  As heaven, unto me!
7995
7996I envy nests of sparrows
7997  That dot his distant eaves,
7998The wealthy fly upon his pane,
7999  The happy, happy leaves
8000
8001That just abroad his window
8002  Have summer's leave to be,
8003The earrings of Pizarro
8004  Could not obtain for me.
8005
8006I envy light that wakes him,
8007  And bells that boldly ring
8008To tell him it is noon abroad, --
8009  Myself his noon could bring,
8010
8011Yet interdict my blossom
8012  And abrogate my bee,
8013Lest noon in everlasting night
8014  Drop Gabriel and me.
8015
8016
8017
8018
8019
8020
8021
8022
8023
8024A solemn thing it was, I said,
8025  A woman white to be,
8026And wear, if God should count me fit,
8027  Her hallowed mystery.
8028
8029A timid thing to drop a life
8030  Into the purple well,
8031Too plummetless that it come back
8032  Eternity until.
8033
8034
8035
8036
8037
8038
8039
8040
8041
8042
8043
8044
8045
8046
8047NATURE'
8048
8049The springtime's pallid landscape
8050  Will glow like bright bouquet,
8051Though drifted deep in parian
8052  The village lies to-day.
8053
8054The lilacs, bending many a year,
8055  With purple load will hang;
8056The bees will not forget the tune
8057  Their old forefathers sang.
8058
8059The rose will redden in the bog,
8060  The aster on the hill
8061Her everlasting fashion set,
8062  And covenant gentians frill,
8063
8064Till summer folds her miracle
8065  As women do their gown,
8066Or priests adjust the symbols
8067  When sacrament is done.
8068
8069
8070
8071
8072
8073
8074
8075
8076
8077She slept beneath a tree
8078  Remembered but by me.
8079I touched her cradle mute;
8080She recognized the foot,
8081Put on her carmine suit, --
8082  And see!
8083
8084
8085
8086
8087
8088
8089
8090A light exists in spring
8091  Not present on the year
8092At any other period.
8093  When March is scarcely here
8094
8095A color stands abroad
8096  On solitary hills
8097That science cannot overtake,
8098  But human nature feels.
8099
8100It waits upon the lawn;
8101  It shows the furthest tree
8102Upon the furthest slope we know;
8103  It almost speaks to me.
8104
8105Then, as horizons step,
8106  Or noons report away,
8107Without the formula of sound,
8108  It passes, and we stay:
8109
8110A quality of loss
8111  Affecting our content,
8112As trade had suddenly encroached
8113  Upon a sacrament.
8114
8115
8116
8117
8118
8119
8120
8121
8122
8123A lady red upon the hill
8124  Her annual secret keeps;
8125A lady white within the field
8126  In placid lily sleeps!
8127
8128The tidy breezes with their brooms
8129  Sweep vale, and hill, and tree!
8130Prithee, my pretty housewives!
8131  Who may expected be?
8132
8133The neighbors do not yet suspect!
8134  The woods exchange a smile --
8135Orchard, and buttercup, and bird --
8136  In such a little while!
8137
8138And yet how still the landscape stands,
8139  How nonchalant the wood,
8140As if the resurrection
8141  Were nothing very odd!
8142
8143
8144
8145
8146
8147
8148
8149
8150
8151Dear March, come in!
8152How glad I am!
8153I looked for you before.
8154Put down your hat --
8155You must have walked --
8156How out of breath you are!
8157Dear March, how are you?
8158And the rest?
8159Did you leave Nature well?
8160Oh, March, come right upstairs with me,
8161I have so much to tell!
8162
8163I got your letter, and the birds';
8164The maples never knew
8165That you were coming, -- I declare,
8166How red their faces grew!
8167But, March, forgive me --
8168And all those hills
8169You left for me to hue;
8170There was no purple suitable,
8171You took it all with you.
8172
8173Who knocks? That April!
8174Lock the door!
8175I will not be pursued!
8176He stayed away a year, to call
8177When I am occupied.
8178But trifles look so trivial
8179As soon as you have come,
8180That blame is just as dear as praise
8181And praise as mere as blame.
8182
8183
8184
8185
8186
8187
8188
8189
8190
8191We like March, his shoes are purple,
8192  He is new and high;
8193Makes he mud for dog and peddler,
8194  Makes he forest dry;
8195Knows the adder's tongue his coming,
8196  And begets her spot.
8197Stands the sun so close and mighty
8198  That our minds are hot.
8199News is he of all the others;
8200  Bold it were to die
8201With the blue-birds buccaneering
8202  On his British sky.
8203
8204
8205
8206
8207
8208
8209
8210
8211Not knowing when the dawn will come
8212  I open every door;
8213Or has it feathers like a bird,
8214  Or billows like a shore?
8215
8216
8217
8218
8219
8220
8221
8222A murmur in the trees to note,
8223  Not loud enough for wind;
8224A star not far enough to seek,
8225  Nor near enough to find;
8226
8227A long, long yellow on the lawn,
8228  A hubbub as of feet;
8229Not audible, as ours to us,
8230  But dapperer, more sweet;
8231
8232A hurrying home of little men
8233  To houses unperceived, --
8234All this, and more, if I should tell,
8235  Would never be believed.
8236
8237Of robins in the trundle bed
8238  How many I espy
8239Whose nightgowns could not hide the wings,
8240  Although I heard them try!
8241
8242But then I promised ne'er to tell;
8243  How could I break my word?
8244So go your way and I'll go mine, --
8245  No fear you'll miss the road.
8246
8247
8248
8249
8250
8251
8252
8253Morning is the place for dew,
8254  Corn is made at noon,
8255After dinner light for flowers,
8256  Dukes for setting sun!
8257
8258
8259
8260
8261
8262
8263
8264To my quick ear the leaves conferred;
8265  The bushes they were bells;
8266I could not find a privacy
8267  From Nature's sentinels.
8268
8269In cave if I presumed to hide,
8270  The walls began to tell;
8271Creation seemed a mighty crack
8272  To make me visible.
8273
8274
8275
8276
8277
8278
8279
8280
8281
8282A sepal, petal, and a thorn
8283  Upon a common summer's morn,
8284A flash of dew, a bee or two,
8285A breeze
8286A caper in the trees, --
8287  And I'm a rose!
8288
8289
8290
8291
8292
8293
8294
8295High from the earth I heard a bird;
8296  He trod upon the trees
8297As he esteemed them trifles,
8298  And then he spied a breeze,
8299And situated softly
8300  Upon a pile of wind
8301Which in a perturbation
8302  Nature had left behind.
8303A joyous-going fellow
8304  I gathered from his talk,
8305Which both of benediction
8306  And badinage partook,
8307Without apparent burden,
8308  I learned, in leafy wood
8309He was the faithful father
8310  Of a dependent brood;
8311And this untoward transport
8312  His remedy for care, --
8313A contrast to our respites.
8314  How different we are!
8315
8316
8317
8318
8319
8320
8321
8322
8323
8324The spider as an artist
8325  Has never been employed
8326Though his surpassing merit
8327  Is freely certified
8328
8329By every broom and Bridget
8330  Throughout a Christian land.
8331Neglected son of genius,
8332  I take thee by the hand.
8333
8334
8335
8336
8337
8338
8339
8340
8341
8342What mystery pervades a well!
8343  The water lives so far,
8344Like neighbor from another world
8345  Residing in a jar.
8346
8347The grass does not appear afraid;
8348  I often wonder he
8349Can stand so close and look so bold
8350  At what is dread to me.
8351
8352Related somehow they may be, --
8353  The sedge stands next the sea,
8354Where he is floorless, yet of fear
8355  No evidence gives he.
8356
8357But nature is a stranger yet;
8358  The ones that cite her most
8359Have never passed her haunted house,
8360  Nor simplified her ghost.
8361
8362To pity those that know her not
8363  Is helped by the regret
8364That those who know her, know her less
8365  The nearer her they get.
8366
8367
8368
8369
8370
8371
8372
8373To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee, --
8374One clover, and a bee,
8375And revery.
8376The revery alone will do
8377If bees are few.
8378
8379
8380
8381
8382
8383
8384
8385
8386
8387It's like the light, --
8388  A fashionless delight
8389It's like the bee, --
8390  A dateless melody.
8391
8392It's like the woods,
8393  Private like breeze,
8394Phraseless, yet it stirs
8395  The proudest trees.
8396
8397It's like the morning, --
8398  Best when it's done, --
8399The everlasting clocks
8400  Chime noon.
8401
8402
8403
8404
8405
8406
8407
8408A dew sufficed itself
8409  And satisfied a leaf,
8410And felt, 'how vast a destiny!
8411  How trivial is life!'
8412
8413The sun went out to work,
8414  The day went out to play,
8415But not again that dew was seen
8416  By physiognomy.
8417
8418Whether by day abducted,
8419  Or emptied by the sun
8420Into the sea, in passing,
8421  Eternally unknown.
8422
8423
8424
8425
8426
8427
8428
8429
8430
8431His bill an auger is,
8432  His head, a cap and frill.
8433He laboreth at every tree, --
8434  A worm his utmost goal.
8435
8436
8437
8438
8439
8440
8441
8442
8443
8444Sweet is the swamp with its secrets,
8445  Until we meet a snake;
8446'T is then we sigh for houses,
8447  And our departure take
8448At that enthralling gallop
8449  That only childhood knows.
8450A snake is summer's treason,
8451  And guile is where it goes.
8452
8453
8454
8455
8456
8457
8458
8459Could I but ride indefinite,
8460  As doth the meadow-bee,
8461And visit only where I liked,
8462  And no man visit me,
8463
8464And flirt all day with buttercups,
8465  And marry whom I may,
8466And dwell a little everywhere,
8467  Or better, run away
8468
8469With no police to follow,
8470  Or chase me if I do,
8471Till I should jump peninsulas
8472  To get away from you, --
8473
8474I said, but just to be a bee
8475  Upon a raft of air,
8476And row in nowhere all day long,
8477  And anchor off the bar,--
8478What liberty! So captives deem
8479  Who tight in dungeons are.
8480
8481
8482
8483
8484
8485
8486
8487
8488
8489The moon was but a chin of gold
8490  A night or two ago,
8491And now she turns her perfect face
8492  Upon the world below.
8493
8494Her forehead is of amplest blond;
8495  Her cheek like beryl stone;
8496Her eye unto the summer dew
8497  The likest I have known.
8498
8499Her lips of amber never part;
8500  But what must be the smile
8501Upon her friend she could bestow
8502  Were such her silver will!
8503
8504And what a privilege to be
8505  But the remotest star!
8506For certainly her way might pass
8507  Beside your twinkling door.
8508
8509Her bonnet is the firmament,
8510  The universe her shoe,
8511The stars the trinkets at her belt,
8512  Her dimities of blue.
8513
8514
8515
8516
8517
8518
8519
8520
8521
8522The bat is dun with wrinkled wings
8523  Like fallow article,
8524And not a song pervades his lips,
8525  Or none perceptible.
8526
8527His small umbrella, quaintly halved,
8528  Describing in the air
8529An arc alike inscrutable, --
8530  Elate philosopher!
8531
8532Deputed from what firmament
8533  Of what astute abode,
8534Empowered with what malevolence
8535  Auspiciously withheld.
8536
8537To his adroit Creator
8538  Ascribe no less the praise;
8539Beneficent, believe me,
8540  His eccentricities.
8541
8542
8543
8544
8545
8546
8547
8548
8549
8550You've seen balloons set, haven't you?
8551  So stately they ascend
8552It is as swans discarded you
8553  For duties diamond.
8554
8555Their liquid feet go softly out
8556  Upon a sea of blond;
8557They spurn the air as 't were too mean
8558  For creatures so renowned.
8559
8560Their ribbons just beyond the eye,
8561  They struggle some for breath,
8562And yet the crowd applauds below;
8563  They would not encore death.
8564
8565The gilded creature strains and spins,
8566  Trips frantic in a tree,
8567Tears open her imperial veins
8568  And tumbles in the sea.
8569
8570The crowd retire with an oath
8571  The dust in streets goes down,
8572And clerks in counting-rooms observe,
8573  ''T was only a balloon.'
8574
8575
8576
8577
8578
8579
8580
8581
8582
8583The cricket sang,
8584And set the sun,
8585And workmen finished, one by one,
8586  Their seam the day upon.
8587
8588The low grass loaded with the dew,
8589The twilight stood as strangers do
8590With hat in hand, polite and new,
8591  To stay as if, or go.
8592
8593A vastness, as a neighbor, came, --
8594A wisdom without face or name,
8595A peace, as hemispheres at home, --
8596  And so the night became.
8597
8598
8599
8600
8601
8602
8603
8604
8605
8606Drab habitation of whom?
8607Tabernacle or tomb,
8608Or dome of worm,
8609Or porch of gnome,
8610Or some elf's catacomb?
8611
8612
8613
8614
8615
8616
8617
8618
8619A sloop of amber slips away
8620  Upon an ether sea,
8621And wrecks in peace a purple tar,
8622  The son of ecstasy.
8623
8624
8625
8626
8627
8628
8629
8630
8631
8632Of bronze and blaze
8633  The north, to-night!
8634  So adequate its forms,
8635So preconcerted with itself,
8636  So distant to alarms, --
8637An unconcern so sovereign
8638  To universe, or me,
8639It paints my simple spirit
8640  With tints of majesty,
8641Till I take vaster attitudes,
8642  And strut upon my stem,
8643Disdaining men and oxygen,
8644  For arrogance of them.
8645
8646My splendors are menagerie;
8647  But their competeless show
8648Will entertain the centuries
8649  When I am, long ago,
8650An island in dishonored grass,
8651  Whom none but daisies know.
8652
8653
8654
8655
8656
8657
8658
8659
8660
8661How the old mountains drip with sunset,
8662  And the brake of dun!
8663How the hemlocks are tipped in tinsel
8664  By the wizard sun!
8665
8666How the old steeples hand the scarlet,
8667  Till the ball is full, --
8668Have I the lip of the flamingo
8669  That I dare to tell?
8670
8671Then, how the fire ebbs like billows,
8672  Touching all the grass
8673With a departing, sapphire feature,
8674  As if a duchess pass!
8675
8676How a small dusk crawls on the village
8677  Till the houses blot;
8678And the odd flambeaux no men carry
8679  Glimmer on the spot!
8680
8681Now it is night in nest and kennel,
8682  And where was the wood,
8683Just a dome of abyss is nodding
8684  Into solitude! --
8685
8686These are the visions baffled Guido;
8687  Titian never told;
8688Domenichino dropped the pencil,
8689  Powerless to unfold.
8690
8691
8692
8693
8694
8695
8696
8697
8698
8699The murmuring of bees has ceased;
8700  But murmuring of some
8701Posterior, prophetic,
8702  Has simultaneous come, --
8703
8704The lower metres of the year,
8705  When nature's laugh is done, --
8706The Revelations of the book
8707  Whose Genesis is June.
8708
8709
8710
8711
8712
8713
8714
8715
8716
8717
8718This world is not conclusion;
8719  A sequel stands beyond,
8720Invisible, as music,
8721  But positive, as sound.
8722It beckons and it baffles;
8723  Philosophies don't know,
8724And through a riddle, at the last,
8725  Sagacity must go.
8726To guess it puzzles scholars;
8727  To gain it, men have shown
8728Contempt of generations,
8729  And crucifixion known.
8730
8731
8732
8733
8734
8735
8736
8737We learn in the retreating
8738  How vast an one
8739Was recently among us.
8740  A perished sun
8741
8742Endears in the departure
8743  How doubly more
8744Than all the golden presence
8745  It was before!
8746
8747
8748
8749
8750
8751
8752
8753They say that 'time assuages,' --
8754  Time never did assuage;
8755An actual suffering strengthens,
8756  As sinews do, with age.
8757
8758Time is a test of trouble,
8759  But not a remedy.
8760If such it prove, it prove too
8761  There was no malady.
8762
8763
8764
8765
8766
8767
8768
8769We cover thee, sweet face.
8770  Not that we tire of thee,
8771But that thyself fatigue of us;
8772  Remember, as thou flee,
8773We follow thee until
8774  Thou notice us no more,
8775And then, reluctant, turn away
8776  To con thee o'er and o'er,
8777And blame the scanty love
8778  We were content to show,
8779Augmented, sweet, a hundred fold
8780  If thou would'st take it now.
8781
8782
8783
8784
8785
8786
8787
8788
8789
8790That is solemn we have ended, --
8791  Be it but a play,
8792Or a glee among the garrets,
8793  Or a holiday,
8794
8795Or a leaving home; or later,
8796  Parting with a world
8797We have understood, for better
8798  Still it be unfurled.
8799
8800
8801
8802
8803
8804
8805
8806The stimulus, beyond the grave
8807  His countenance to see,
8808Supports me like imperial drams
8809  Afforded royally.
8810
8811
8812
8813
8814
8815
8816
8817Given in marriage unto thee,
8818  Oh, thou celestial host!
8819Bride of the Father and the Son,
8820  Bride of the Holy Ghost!
8821
8822Other betrothal shall dissolve,
8823  Wedlock of will decay;
8824Only the keeper of this seal
8825  Conquers mortality.
8826
8827
8828
8829
8830
8831
8832
8833
8834That such have died enables us
8835  The tranquiller to die;
8836That such have lived, certificate
8837  For immortality.
8838
8839
8840
8841
8842
8843
8844
8845They won't frown always, -- some sweet day
8846  When I forget to tease,
8847They'll recollect how cold I looked,
8848  And how I just said 'please.'
8849
8850Then they will hasten to the door
8851  To call the little child,
8852Who cannot thank them, for the ice
8853  That on her lisping piled.
8854
8855
8856
8857
8858
8859
8860
8861
8862
8863It is an honorable thought,
8864  And makes one lift one's hat,
8865As one encountered gentlefolk
8866  Upon a daily street,
8867
8868That we've immortal place,
8869  Though pyramids decay,
8870And kingdoms, like the orchard,
8871  Flit russetly away.
8872
8873
8874
8875
8876
8877
8878
8879The distance that the dead have gone
8880  Does not at first appear;
8881Their coming back seems possible
8882  For many an ardent year.
8883
8884And then, that we have followed them
8885  We more than half suspect,
8886So intimate have we become
8887  With their dear retrospect.
8888
8889
8890
8891
8892
8893
8894
8895How dare the robins sing,
8896  When men and women hear
8897Who since they went to their account
8898  Have settled with the year! --
8899Paid all that life had earned
8900  In one consummate bill,
8901And now, what life or death can do
8902  Is immaterial.
8903Insulting is the sun
8904  To him whose mortal light,
8905Beguiled of immortality,
8906  Bequeaths him to the night.
8907In deference to him
8908  Extinct be every hum,
8909Whose garden wrestles with the dew,
8910  At daybreak overcome!
8911
8912
8913
8914
8915
8916
8917
8918
8919
8920Death is like the insect
8921  Menacing the tree,
8922Competent to kill it,
8923  But decoyed may be.
8924
8925Bait it with the balsam,
8926  Seek it with the knife,
8927Baffle, if it cost you
8928  Everything in life.
8929
8930Then, if it have burrowed
8931  Out of reach of skill,
8932Ring the tree and leave it, --
8933  'T is the vermin's will.
8934
8935
8936
8937
8938
8939
8940
8941
8942
8943'T is sunrise, little maid, hast thou
8944  No station in the day?
8945'T was not thy wont to hinder so, --
8946  Retrieve thine industry.
8947
8948'T is noon, my little maid, alas!
8949  And art thou sleeping yet?
8950The lily waiting to be wed,
8951  The bee, dost thou forget?
8952
8953My little maid, 't is night; alas,
8954  That night should be to thee
8955Instead of morning! Hadst thou broached
8956  Thy little plan to me,
8957Dissuade thee if I could not, sweet,
8958  I might have aided thee.
8959
8960
8961
8962
8963
8964
8965
8966Each that we lose takes part of us;
8967  A crescent still abides,
8968Which like the moon, some turbid night,
8969  Is summoned by the tides.
8970
8971
8972
8973
8974
8975
8976
8977Not any higher stands the grave
8978  For heroes than for men;
8979Not any nearer for the child
8980  Than numb three-score and ten.
8981
8982This latest leisure equal lulls
8983  The beggar and his queen;
8984Propitiate this democrat
8985  By summer's gracious mien.
8986
8987
8988
8989
8990
8991
8992
8993
8994
8995As far from pity as complaint,
8996  As cool to speech as stone,
8997As numb to revelation
8998  As if my trade were bone.
8999
9000As far from time as history,
9001  As near yourself to-day
9002As children to the rainbow's scarf,
9003  Or sunset's yellow play
9004
9005To eyelids in the sepulchre.
9006  How still the dancer lies,
9007While color's revelations break,
9008  And blaze the butterflies!
9009
9010
9011
9012
9013
9014
9015
9016
9017
9018'T is whiter than an Indian pipe,
9019  'T is dimmer than a lace;
9020No stature has it, like a fog,
9021  When you approach the place.
9022
9023Not any voice denotes it here,
9024  Or intimates it there;
9025A spirit, how doth it accost?
9026  What customs hath the air?
9027
9028This limitless hyperbole
9029  Each one of us shall be;
9030'T is drama, if (hypothesis)
9031  It be not tragedy!
9032
9033
9034
9035
9036
9037
9038
9039
9040
9041She laid her docile crescent down,
9042  And this mechanic stone
9043Still states, to dates that have forgot,
9044  The news that she is gone.
9045
9046So constant to its stolid trust,
9047  The shaft that never knew,
9048It shames the constancy that fled
9049  Before its emblem flew.
9050
9051
9052
9053
9054
9055
9056
9057Bless God, he went as soldiers,
9058  His musket on his breast;
9059Grant, God, he charge the bravest
9060  Of all the martial blest.
9061
9062Please God, might I behold him
9063  In epauletted white,
9064I should not fear the foe then,
9065  I should not fear the fight.
9066
9067
9068
9069
9070
9071
9072
9073Immortal is an ample word
9074  When what we need is by,
9075But when it leaves us for a time,
9076  'T is a necessity.
9077
9078Of heaven above the firmest proof
9079  We fundamental know,
9080Except for its marauding hand,
9081  It had been heaven below.
9082
9083
9084
9085
9086
9087
9088
9089Where every bird is bold to go,
9090  And bees abashless play,
9091The foreigner before he knocks
9092  Must thrust the tears away.
9093
9094
9095
9096
9097
9098
9099
9100The grave my little cottage is,
9101  Where, keeping house for thee,
9102I make my parlor orderly,
9103  And lay the marble tea,
9104
9105For two divided, briefly,
9106  A cycle, it may be,
9107Till everlasting life unite
9108  In strong society.
9109
9110
9111
9112
9113
9114
9115
9116This was in the white of the year,
9117  That was in the green,
9118Drifts were as difficult then to think
9119  As daisies now to be seen.
9120
9121Looking back is best that is left,
9122  Or if it be before,
9123Retrospection is prospect's half,
9124  Sometimes almost more.
9125
9126
9127
9128
9129
9130
9131
9132Sweet hours have perished here;
9133  This is a mighty room;
9134Within its precincts hopes have played, --
9135  Now shadows in the tomb.
9136
9137
9138
9139
9140
9141
9142
9143Me! Come! My dazzled face
9144In such a shining place!
9145
9146Me! Hear! My foreign ear
9147The sounds of welcome near!
9148
9149The saints shall meet
9150Our bashful feet.
9151
9152My holiday shall be
9153That they remember me;
9154
9155My paradise, the fame
9156That they pronounce my name.
9157
9158
9159
9160
9161
9162
9163
9164
9165
9166From us she wandered now a year,
9167  Her tarrying unknown;
9168If wilderness prevent her feet,
9169  Or that ethereal zone
9170
9171No eye hath seen and lived,
9172  We ignorant must be.
9173We only know what time of year
9174  We took the mystery.
9175
9176
9177
9178
9179
9180
9181
9182
9183I wish I knew that woman's name,
9184  So, when she comes this way,
9185To hold my life, and hold my ears,
9186  For fear I hear her say
9187
9188She's 'sorry I am dead,' again,
9189  Just when the grave and I
9190Have sobbed ourselves almost to sleep, --
9191  Our only lullaby.
9192
9193
9194
9195
9196
9197
9198
9199
9200
9201Bereaved of all, I went abroad,
9202  No less bereaved to be
9203Upon a new peninsula, --
9204  The grave preceded me,
9205
9206Obtained my lodgings ere myself,
9207  And when I sought my bed,
9208The grave it was, reposed upon
9209  The pillow for my head.
9210
9211I waked, to find it first awake,
9212  I rose, -- it followed me;
9213I tried to drop it in the crowd,
9214  To lose it in the sea,
9215
9216In cups of artificial drowse
9217  To sleep its shape away, --
9218The grave was finished, but the spade
9219  Remained in memory.
9220
9221
9222
9223
9224
9225
9226
9227I felt a funeral in my brain,
9228  And mourners, to and fro,
9229Kept treading, treading, till it seemed
9230  That sense was breaking through.
9231
9232And when they all were seated,
9233  A service like a drum
9234Kept beating, beating, till I thought
9235  My mind was going numb.
9236
9237And then I heard them lift a box,
9238  And creak across my soul
9239With those same boots of lead, again.
9240  Then space began to toll
9241
9242As all the heavens were a bell,
9243  And Being but an ear,
9244And I and silence some strange race,
9245  Wrecked, solitary, here.
9246
9247
9248
9249
9250
9251
9252
9253I meant to find her when I came;
9254  Death had the same design;
9255But the success was his, it seems,
9256  And the discomfit mine.
9257
9258I meant to tell her how I longed
9259  For just this single time;
9260But Death had told her so the first,
9261  And she had hearkened him.
9262
9263To wander now is my abode;
9264  To rest, -- to rest would be
9265A privilege of hurricane
9266  To memory and me.
9267
9268
9269
9270
9271
9272
9273
9274
9275
9276I sing to use the waiting,
9277  My bonnet but to tie,
9278And shut the door unto my house;
9279  No more to do have I,
9280
9281Till, his best step approaching,
9282  We journey to the day,
9283And tell each other how we sang
9284  To keep the dark away.
9285
9286
9287
9288
9289
9290
9291
9292A sickness of this world it most occasions
9293  When best men die;
9294A wishfulness their far condition
9295  To occupy.
9296
9297A chief indifference, as foreign
9298  A world must be
9299Themselves forsake contented,
9300  For Deity.
9301
9302
9303
9304
9305
9306
9307
9308Superfluous were the sun
9309  When excellence is dead;
9310He were superfluous every day,
9311  For every day is said
9312
9313That syllable whose faith
9314  Just saves it from despair,
9315And whose 'I'll meet you' hesitates
9316  If love inquire, 'Where?'
9317
9318Upon his dateless fame
9319  Our periods may lie,
9320As stars that drop anonymous
9321  From an abundant sky.
9322
9323
9324
9325
9326
9327
9328
9329So proud she was to die
9330  It made us all ashamed
9331That what we cherished, so unknown
9332  To her desire seemed.
9333
9334So satisfied to go
9335  Where none of us should be,
9336Immediately, that anguish stooped
9337  Almost to jealousy.
9338
9339
9340
9341
9342
9343
9344
9345
9346
9347Tie the strings to my life, my Lord,
9348  Then I am ready to go!
9349Just a look at the horses --
9350  Rapid! That will do!
9351
9352Put me in on the firmest side,
9353  So I shall never fall;
9354For we must ride to the Judgment,
9355  And it's partly down hill.
9356
9357But never I mind the bridges,
9358  And never I mind the sea;
9359Held fast in everlasting race
9360  By my own choice and thee.
9361
9362Good-by to the life I used to live,
9363  And the world I used to know;
9364And kiss the hills for me, just once;
9365  Now I am ready to go!
9366
9367
9368
9369
9370
9371
9372
9373The dying need but little, dear, --
9374  A glass of water's all,
9375A flower's unobtrusive face
9376  To punctuate the wall,
9377
9378A fan, perhaps, a friend's regret,
9379  And certainly that one
9380No color in the rainbow
9381  Perceives when you are gone.
9382
9383
9384
9385
9386
9387
9388
9389
9390
9391There's something quieter than sleep
9392  Within this inner room!
9393It wears a sprig upon its breast,
9394  And will not tell its name.
9395
9396Some touch it and some kiss it,
9397  Some chafe its idle hand;
9398It has a simple gravity
9399  I do not understand!
9400
9401While simple-hearted neighbors
9402  Chat of the 'early dead,'
9403We, prone to periphrasis,
9404  Remark that birds have fled!
9405
9406
9407
9408
9409
9410
9411
9412The soul should always stand ajar,
9413  That if the heaven inquire,
9414He will not be obliged to wait,
9415  Or shy of troubling her.
9416
9417Depart, before the host has slid
9418  The bolt upon the door,
9419To seek for the accomplished guest, --
9420  Her visitor no more.
9421
9422
9423
9424
9425
9426
9427
9428Three weeks passed since I had seen her, --
9429  Some disease had vexed;
9430'T was with text and village singing
9431  I beheld her next,
9432
9433And a company -- our pleasure
9434  To discourse alone;
9435Gracious now to me as any,
9436  Gracious unto none.
9437
9438Borne, without dissent of either,
9439  To the parish night;
9440Of the separated people
9441  Which are out of sight?
9442
9443
9444
9445
9446
9447
9448
9449I breathed enough to learn the trick,
9450  And now, removed from air,
9451I simulate the breath so well,
9452  That one, to be quite sure
9453
9454The lungs are stirless, must descend
9455  Among the cunning cells,
9456And touch the pantomime himself.
9457  How cool the bellows feels!
9458
9459
9460
9461
9462
9463
9464
9465I wonder if the sepulchre
9466  Is not a lonesome way,
9467When men and boys, and larks and June
9468  Go down the fields to hay!
9469
9470
9471
9472
9473
9474
9475
9476
9477
9478If tolling bell I ask the cause.
9479  'A soul has gone to God,'
9480I'm answered in a lonesome tone;
9481  Is heaven then so sad?
9482
9483That bells should joyful ring to tell
9484  A soul had gone to heaven,
9485Would seem to me the proper way
9486  A good news should be given.
9487
9488
9489
9490
9491
9492
9493
9494If I may have it when it's dead
9495  I will contented be;
9496If just as soon as breath is out
9497  It shall belong to me,
9498
9499Until they lock it in the grave,
9500  'T is bliss I cannot weigh,
9501For though they lock thee in the grave,
9502  Myself can hold the key.
9503
9504Think of it, lover! I and thee
9505  Permitted face to face to be;
9506After a life, a death we'll say, --
9507  For death was that, and this is thee.
9508
9509
9510
9511
9512
9513
9514
9515Before the ice is in the pools,
9516  Before the skaters go,
9517Or any cheek at nightfall
9518  Is tarnished by the snow,
9519
9520Before the fields have finished,
9521  Before the Christmas tree,
9522Wonder upon wonder
9523  Will arrive to me!
9524
9525What we touch the hems of
9526  On a summer's day;
9527What is only walking
9528  Just a bridge away;
9529
9530That which sings so, speaks so,
9531  When there's no one here, --
9532Will the frock I wept in
9533  Answer me to wear?
9534
9535
9536
9537
9538
9539
9540
9541
9542
9543I heard a fly buzz when I died;
9544  The stillness round my form
9545Was like the stillness in the air
9546  Between the heaves of storm.
9547
9548The eyes beside had wrung them dry,
9549  And breaths were gathering sure
9550For that last onset, when the king
9551  Be witnessed in his power.
9552
9553I willed my keepsakes, signed away
9554  What portion of me I
9555Could make assignable, -- and then
9556  There interposed a fly,
9557
9558With blue, uncertain, stumbling buzz,
9559  Between the light and me;
9560And then the windows failed, and then
9561  I could not see to see.
9562
9563
9564
9565
9566
9567
9568
9569Adrift! A little boat adrift!
9570  And night is coming down!
9571Will no one guide a little boat
9572  Unto the nearest town?
9573
9574So sailors say, on yesterday,
9575  Just as the dusk was brown,
9576One little boat gave up its strife,
9577  And gurgled down and down.
9578
9579But angels say, on yesterday,
9580  Just as the dawn was red,
9581One little boat o'erspent with gales
9582Retrimmed its masts, redecked its sails
9583  Exultant, onward sped!
9584
9585
9586
9587
9588
9589
9590
9591There's been a death in the opposite house
9592  As lately as to-day.
9593I know it by the numb look
9594  Such houses have alway.
9595
9596The neighbors rustle in and out,
9597  The doctor drives away.
9598A window opens like a pod,
9599  Abrupt, mechanically;
9600
9601Somebody flings a mattress out, --
9602  The children hurry by;
9603They wonder if It died on that, --
9604  I used to when a boy.
9605
9606The minister goes stiffly in
9607  As if the house were his,
9608And he owned all the mourners now,
9609  And little boys besides;
9610
9611And then the milliner, and the man
9612  Of the appalling trade,
9613To take the measure of the house.
9614  There'll be that dark parade
9615
9616Of tassels and of coaches soon;
9617  It's easy as a sign, --
9618The intuition of the news
9619  In just a country town.
9620
9621
9622
9623
9624
9625
9626
9627We never know we go, -- when we are going
9628  We jest and shut the door;
9629Fate following behind us bolts it,
9630  And we accost no more.
9631
9632
9633
9634
9635
9636
9637THE SOUL'
9638
9639It struck me every day
9640  The lightning was as new
9641As if the cloud that instant slit
9642  And let the fire through.
9643
9644It burned me in the night,
9645  It blistered in my dream;
9646It sickened fresh upon my sight
9647  With every morning's beam.
9648
9649I thought that storm was brief, --
9650  The maddest, quickest by;
9651But Nature lost the date of this,
9652  And left it in the sky.
9653
9654
9655
9656
9657
9658
9659
9660Water is taught by thirst;
9661Land, by the oceans passed;
9662  Transport, by throe;
9663Peace, by its battles told;
9664Love, by memorial mould;
9665  Birds, by the snow.
9666
9667
9668
9669
9670
9671
9672
9673
9674We thirst at first, -- 't is Nature's act;
9675  And later, when we die,
9676A little water supplicate
9677  Of fingers going by.
9678
9679It intimates the finer want,
9680  Whose adequate supply
9681Is that great water in the west
9682  Termed immortality.
9683
9684
9685
9686
9687
9688
9689
9690A clock stopped -- not the mantel's;
9691  Geneva's farthest skill
9692Can't put the puppet bowing
9693  That just now dangled still.
9694
9695An awe came on the trinket!
9696  The figures hunched with pain,
9697Then quivered out of decimals
9698  Into degreeless noon.
9699
9700It will not stir for doctors,
9701  This pendulum of snow;
9702The shopman importunes it,
9703  While cool, concernless No
9704
9705Nods from the gilded pointers,
9706  Nods from the seconds slim,
9707Decades of arrogance between
9708  The dial life and him.
9709
9710
9711
9712
9713
9714
9715
9716CHARLOTTE BRONTË'
9717
9718All overgrown by cunning moss,
9719  All interspersed with weed,
9720The little cage of 'Currer Bell,'
9721  In quiet Haworth laid.
9722
9723This bird, observing others,
9724  When frosts too sharp became,
9725Retire to other latitudes,
9726  Quietly did the same,
9727
9728But differed in returning;
9729  Since Yorkshire hills are green,
9730Yet not in all the nests I meet
9731  Can nightingale be seen.
9732
9733Gathered from many wanderings,
9734  Gethsemane can tell
9735Through what transporting anguish
9736  She reached the asphodel!
9737
9738Soft fall the sounds of Eden
9739  Upon her puzzled ear;
9740Oh, what an afternoon for heaven,
9741  When 'Brontë' entered there!
9742
9743
9744
9745
9746
9747
9748
9749A toad can die of light!
9750Death is the common right
9751  Of toads and men, --
9752Of earl and midge
9753The privilege.
9754  Why swagger then?
9755The gnat's supremacy
9756Is large as thine.
9757
9758
9759
9760
9761
9762
9763
9764Far from love the Heavenly Father
9765  Leads the chosen child;
9766Oftener through realm of briar
9767  Than the meadow mild,
9768
9769Oftener by the claw of dragon
9770  Than the hand of friend,
9771Guides the little one predestined
9772  To the native land.
9773
9774
9775
9776
9777
9778
9779
9780
9781
9782A long, long sleep, a famous sleep
9783  That makes no show for dawn
9784By stretch of limb or stir of lid, --
9785  An independent one.
9786
9787Was ever idleness like this?
9788  Within a hut of stone
9789To bask the centuries away
9790  Nor once look up for noon?
9791
9792
9793
9794
9795
9796
9797
9798
9799
9800'T was just this time last year I died.
9801  I know I heard the corn,
9802When I was carried by the farms, --
9803  It had the tassels on.
9804
9805I thought how yellow it would look
9806  When Richard went to mill;
9807And then I wanted to get out,
9808  But something held my will.
9809
9810I thought just how red apples wedged
9811  The stubble's joints between;
9812And carts went stooping round the fields
9813  To take the pumpkins in.
9814
9815I wondered which would miss me least,
9816  And when Thanksgiving came,
9817If father'd multiply the plates
9818  To make an even sum.
9819
9820And if my stocking hung too high,
9821  Would it blur the Christmas glee,
9822That not a Santa Claus could reach
9823  The altitude of me?
9824
9825But this sort grieved myself, and so
9826  I thought how it would be
9827When just this time, some perfect year,
9828  Themselves should come to me.
9829
9830
9831
9832
9833
9834
9835
9836
9837
9838On this wondrous sea,
9839Sailing silently,
9840  Ho! pilot, ho!
9841Knowest thou the shore
9842Where no breakers roar,
9843  Where the storm is o'er?
9844
9845In the silent west
9846Many sails at rest,
9847  Their anchors fast;
9848Thither I pilot thee, --
9849Land, ho! Eternity!
9850  Ashore at last!