901


Sweet, to have had them lost
For news that they be saved -
The nearer they departed Us
The nearer they, restored,

Shall stand to Our Right Hand -
Most precious and the Dead -
Next precious
Those that rose to go -
Then thought of Us, and stayed.

C. 1864 1935


902


The first Day that I was a Life
I recollect it - How still -
That last Day that I was a Life
I recollect it - as well -

'Twas stiller - though the first
Was still -
Twas empty - but the first
Was full -

This - was my finallest Occasion -
But then
My tenderer Experiment
Toward Men -

"Which choose I"?
That - I cannot say"
"Which choose They"?
Question Memory!

C. 1864 1945


903


I hide myself within my flower,
That fading from your Vase,
You, unsuspecting, feel for me -
Almost a loneliness.

C. 1864 1890


904


Had I not This, or This, I said,
Appealing to Myself,
In moment of prosperity -
Inadequate - were Life -

"Thou hast not Me, nor Me" - it said,
In Moment of Reverse -
"And yet Thou art industrious -
No need - hadst Thou - of us"?

My need - was all I had - I sald -
The need did not reduce -
Because the food - exterminate -
The hunger - does not cease -

But diligence - is sharper -
Proportioned to the Chance -
To feed upon the Retrograde -
Enfeebles - the Advance -

C. 1864 1935


905


Between My Country - and the Others -
There is a Sea -
But Flowers - negotiate between us -
As Ministry.

C. 1864 1935


906


The Admirations - and Contempts - of time -
Show justest - through an Open Tomb -
The Dying - as it were a Height
Reorganizes Estimate
And what We saw not
We distinguish clear -
And mostly - see not
What We saw before -

'Tis Compound Vision -
Light - enabling Light -
The Finite - furnished
with the Infinite -
Convex - and Concave Witness -
Back - toward Time -
And forward -
Toward the God of Him -

C. 1864 1929


907


Till Death - is narrow Loving -
The scantest Heart extant
Will hold you till your privilege
Of Finiteness - be spent -

But He whose loss procures you
Such Destitution that
Your Life too abject for itself
Thenceforward imitate -

Until - Resemblance perfect -
Yourself, for His pursuit
Delight of Nature - abdicate -
Exhibit Love - somewhat -

C. 1864 1929


908


'Tis Sunrise - little Maid - Hast Thou
No Station In the Day?
'Twas not thy wont, to hinder so-
Retrieve thine industry-

'Tis Noon - My little Maid-
Alas - and art thou sleeping yet?
The Lily - waiting to be Wed -
The Bee - Hast thou forgot?

My little Maid - 'Tis Night - Alas
That Night should be to thee
Instead of Morning - Had'st thou broached
Thy little Plan to Die -
Dissuade thee, if I could not, Sweet,
I might have aided - thee -

C. 1864 1896


909


I make His Crescent fill or lack -
His Nature is at Full
Or Quarter - as I signify -
His Tides - do I control -

He holds superior in the Sky
Or gropes, at my Command
Behind inferior Clouds - or round
A Mist's slow Colonnade-

But since We hold a Mutual Disc -
And front a Mutual Day -
Which is the Despot, neither knows -
Nor Whose - the Tyranny -

C. 1864 1929


910


Experience is the Angled Road
Preferred against the Mind
By - Paradox - the Mind itself -
Presuming it to lead

Quite Opposite - How Complicate
The Discipline of Man -
Compelling Him to Choose Himself
His Preappointed Pain -

C. 1864 1929


911


Too little way the House must lie
From every Human Heart
That holds in undisputed Lease
A white inhabitant -

Too narrow is the Right between -
Too imminent the chance -
Each Consciousness must emigrate
And lose its neighbor once -

C. 1864 1935


912


Peace is a fiction of our Faith -
The Bells a Winter Night
Bearing the Neighbor out of Sound
That never did alight.

C. 1864 1945


913


And this of all my Hopes
This, is the silent end
Bountiful colored, my Morning rose
Early and sere, its end

Never Bud from a Stem
Stepped with so gay a Foot
Never a Worm so confident
Bored at so brave a Root

C. 1864 1929


914


I cannot be ashamed
Because I cannot see
The love you offer -
Magnitude
Reverses Modesty

And I cannot be proud
Because a Height so high
Involves Alpine
Requirements
And Services of Snow.

C. 1864 1929


915


Faith - is the Pierless Bridge
Supporting what We see
Unto the Scene that We do not -
Too slender for the eye

It bears the Soul as bold
As it were rocked in Steel
with Arms of Steel at either side -
It joins - behind the Veil

To what, could We presume
The Bridge would cease to be
To Our far, vacillating Feet
A first Necessity

C. 1864 1929


916


His Feet are shod with Gauze -
His Helmet, is of Gold,
His Breast, a Single Onyx
with Chrysophrase, inlaid.

His Labor is a Chant -
His Idleness - a Tune -
Oh, for a Bee's experience
Of Clovers, and of Noon!

C. 1864 1890


917


Love - is anterior to Life -
Posterior - to Death -
Initial of Creation, and
The Exponent of Earth -

C. 1864 1896


918


Only a Shrine, but Mine -
I made the Taper shine -
Madonna dim, to whom all Feet may come,
Regard a Nun -

Thou knowest every Woe -
Needless to tell thee - so -
But can'st thou do
The Grace next to it - heal?

That looks a harder skill to us -
Still - just as easy, if it be thy will
To thee - Grant me -
Thou knowest, though. so Why tell thee?

C. 1864 1929


919


If I can stop one Heart from breaking
I shall not live in vain
If I can ease one Life the Aching
Or cool one Pain

Or help one fainting Robin
Unto his Nest again
I shall not live in Vain.

C. 1864 1890


920


We can but follow to the Sun -
As oft as He go down
He leave Ourselves a Sphere behind-
'Tis mostly - following -

We go no further with the Dust
Than to the Earthen Door -
And then the Panels are reversed -
And we behold - no more.

C. 1864 1955


921


If it had no pencil
Would it try mine -
Worn - now- and dull - sweet,
Writing much to thee.
If it had no word,
Would it make the Daisy,
Most as big as I was,
When it plucked me?

C. 1864 1945


922


Those who have been in the Grave the longest -
Those who begin Today -
Equally perish from our Practise -
Death is the other way -

Foot of the Bold did least attempt it -
It - is the White Exploit -
Once to achieve annuls the power
Once to communicate -

C. 1864 1945


923


How the Waters closed above Him
We shall never know -
How He stretched His Anguish to us
That - is covered too -

Spreads the Pond Her Base of Lilies
Bold above the Boy
Whose unclaimed Hat and Jacket
Sum the History -

C. 1864 1945


924


Love - is that later Thing than Death -
More previous - than Life -
Confirms it at its entrance - And
Usurps it - of itself -

Tastes Death - the first - to hand the song
The Second - to its friend -
Disarms the little interval -
Deposits Him with God -

Then hovers - an inferior Guard -
Lest this Beloved Charge
Need - once in an Eternity -
A smaller than the Large -

C. 1864 1945


925


Struck, was I, not yet by Lightning -
Lightning - lets away
Power to perceive His Process
with Vitality.

Maimed - was I - yet not by Venture -
Stone of stolid Boy -
Nor a Sportsman's Peradventure -
Who mine Enemy?

Robbed - was I - intact to Bandit -
All my Mansion torn -
Sun - withdrawn to Recognition -
Furthest shining - done -

Yet was not the foe - of any -
Not the smallest Bird
In the nearest Orchard dwelling
Be of Me - afraid.

Most - I love the Cause that slew Me.
Often as I die
Its beloved Recognition
Holds a Sun on Me -

Best - at Setting - as is Nature's -
Neither witnessed Rise
Till the infinite Aurora
In the other's eyes.

1945


926


Patience - has a quiet Outer -
Patience - Look within -
Is an Insect's futile forces
Infinites - between -

'Scaping one - against the other
Fruitlesser to Ring -
Patience - is the Smile's exertion
Through the quivering -

C. 1864 1945


927


Absent Place - an April Day-
Daffodils a - blow
Homesick curiosity
To the Souls that snow -

Drift may block within It
Deeper than without -
Daffodil delight but
Him it duplicate -

C. 1864 1945


928


The Heart has narrow Banks
It measures like the Sea
In mighty - unremitting Bass
And Blue Monotony

Till Hurricane bisect
And as itself discerns
Its insufficient Area
The Heart convulsive learns

That Calm is but a Wall
Of unattempted Gauze
An instant's Push demolishes
A Questioning - dissolves.

C. 1864 1945


929


How far is it to Heaven?
As far as Death this way -
Of River or of Ridge beyond
Was no discovery.

How far is it to Hell?
As far as Death this way -
How far left hand the Sepulchre
Defies Topography.

C. 1864 1945


930


There is a June when Corn is cut
And Roses in the Seed -
A Summer briefer than the first
But tenderer indeed

As should a Face supposed the Grave's
Emerge a single Noon
In the Vermilion that it wore
Affect us, and return -

Two Seasons, it is said, exist -
The Summer of the Just,
And this of Ours, diversified
with Prospect, and with Frost -

May not our Second with its First
So infinite compare
That We but recollect the one
Tho other to prefer?

C. 1864 1945


931


Noon - is the Hinge of Day -
Evening - the Tissue Door -
Morning - the East compelling the sill
Till all the World is ajar -

C. 1864 1945


932


My best Acquaintances are those
with Whom I spoke no Word -
The Stars that stated come to Town
Esteemed me never rude
Although to their Celestial Call
I failed to make reply -
My constant- reverential Face
Sufficient Courtesy.

C. 1864 1945


933


Two Travellers perishing in Snow
The Forests as they froze
Together heard them strengthening
Each other with the words

That Heaven if Heaven - must contain
What Either left behind
And then the cheer too solemn grew
For language, and the wind

Long steps across the features took
That Love had touched that Morn
with reverential Hyacinth -
The taleless Days went on

Till Mystery impatient drew
And those They left behind
Led absent, were procured of Heaven
As Those first furnished, said -

C. 1864 1945


934


That is solemn we have ended
Be it but a Play
Or a Glee among the Garret
Or a Holiday

Or a leaving Home, Or later,
Parting with a World
We have understood for better
Still to be explained.


C. 1864 1896


935


Death leaves Us homesick, who behind,
Except that it is gone
Are ignorant of its Concern
As if it were not born.

Through all their former Places, we
Like Individuals go
Who something lost, the seeking for
Is all that's left them, now -

C. 1863 1945


936


This Dust, and its Feature -
Accredited - Today -
Will in a second Future -
Cease to identify -

This Mind, and its measure -
A too minute Area
For its enlarged inspection's
Comparison - appear -

This World, and its species
A too concluded show
For its absorbed Attention's
Remotest scrutiny -

C. 1864 1945


937


I felt a Cleaving in my Mind -
As if my Brain had split -
I tried to match it - Seam by Seam -
But could not make them fit .

The thought behind, I strove to join
Unto the thought before-
But Sequence ravelled out of Sound
Like Balls - upon a Floor.

C. 1864 1896


938


Fairer through Fading - as the Day
Into the Darkness dips away -
Half Her Complexion of the Sun -
Hindering - Haunting - Perishing -

Rallies Her Glow, like a dying Friend-
Teasing with glittering Amend -
Only to aggravate the Dark
Through an expiring - perfect -look -

C. 1864 1945


939


What I see not, I better see -
Through Faith - my Hazel Eye
Has periods of shutting -
But, No lid has Memory -

For frequent, all my sense obscured
I equally behold
As someone held a light unto
The Features so beloved -

And I arise - and in my Dream -
Do Thee distinguished Grace -
Till jealous Daylight interrupt -
And mar thy perfectness -

C. 1864 1945


940


On that dear Frame the Years had worn
Yet precious as the House
In which We first experienced Light
The Witnessing, to Us -

Precious! it was conceiveless fair
As Hands the Grave had grimed
Should softly place within our own
Denying that they died.

C. 1864 1945


941


The Lady feeds Her little Bird
At rarer intervals -
The little Bird would not dissent
But meekly recognize

The Gulf between the Hand and Her
And crumbless and afar
And fainting, on Her yellow Knee
Fall softly, and adore -

C. 1864 1945


942


Snow beneath whose chilly softness
Some that never lay
Make their first Repose this Winter
I admonish Thee

Blanket Wealthier the Neighbor
We so new bestow
Than thine acclimated Creature
Wilt Thou, Austere Snow?

C. 1864 1945


943


A Coffin - is a small Domain.
Yet able to contain
A Citizen of Paradise
In its diminished Plane.

A Grave - is a restricted Breadth -
Yet ampler than the Sun -
And all the Seas He populates
And Lands He looks upon

To Him who on its small Repose
Bestows a single Friend -
Circumference without Relief -
Or Estimate - or End -

C. 1864 1945


944


I learned - at least - what Home could be -
How ignorant I had been
Of pretty ways of Covenant -
How awkward at the Hymn

Round our new Fireside - but for this -
This pattern - of the Way -
Whose Memory drowns me, like the Dip
Of a Celestial Sea-

What Mornings in our Garden - guessed -
What Bees - for us - to hum -
with only Birds to interrupt
The Ripple of our Theme -

And Task for Both -
When Play be done -
Your Problem - of the Brain -
And mine - some foolisher effect -
A Ruffle - or a Tune -

The Afternoons - Together spent -
And Twilight - in the Lanes -
Some ministry to poorer lives -
Seen poorest - thro' our gains -

And then Return - and Night- and Home -

And then away to You to pass -
A new - diviner - care -
Till Sunrise take us back to Scene -
Transmuted - Vivider -

This seems a Home -
And Home is not -
But what that Place could be -
Afflicts me - as a Setting Sun -
Where Dawn - knows how to be -

C. 1864 1945


945


This is a Blossom of the Brain -
A small - italic Seed
Lodged by Design or Happening
The Spirit fructified -

Shy as the Wind of his Chambers
Swift as a Freshet's Tongue
So of the Flower of the Soul
Its process is unknown.

When it is found, a few rejoice
The Wise convey it Home
Carefully cherishing the spot
If other Flower become.

When it is lost, that Day shall be
The Funeral of God,
Upon his Breast, a closing Soul
The Flower of our Lord.

C. 1864 1945


946


It is an honorable Thought
And makes One lift One's Hat
As One met sudden Gendefolk
Upon a daily Street

That We've immortal Place
Though Pyramids decay
And Kingdoms, like the Orchard
Flit Russetly away

C. 1864 1896


947


Of Tolling Bell I ask the cause?
"A Soul has gone to Heaven"
I'm answered in a lonesome tone -
Is Heaven then a Prison?

That Bells should ring till all should know
A Soul had gone to Heaven
Would seem to me the more the way
A Good News should be given.

C. 1864 1896


948


'Twas Crisis - All the length had passed -
That dull - benumbing time
There is in Fever or Event -
And now the Chance had come -

The instant holding in its claw
The privilege to live
Or warrant to report the Soul
The other side the Grave.

The Muscles grappled as wlth leads
That would not let the will -
The Spirit shook the Adamant -
But could not make it feel.

The Second poised - debated - shot -
Another had begun -
And Simultaneously, a Soul
Escaped the House unseen -

C. 1864 1945


949


Under the Light, yet under,
Under the Grass and the Dirt,
Under the Beetle's Cellar
Under the Clover's Root,

Further than Arm could stretch
Were it Giant long,
Further than Sunshine could
Were the Day Year long,

Over the Light, yet over,
Over the Arc of the Bird -
Over the Comet's chimney -
Over the Cubit's Head,

Further than Guess can gallop
Further than Riddle ride -
Oh for a Disc to the Distance
Between Ourselves and the Dead!

C. 1864 1945


950


The Sunset stopped on Cottages
Where Sunset hence must be
For treason not of His, but Life's,
Gone westerly, Today -

The Sunset stopped on Cottages
Where Morning just begun -
What difference, after all, Thou mak'st
Thou supercilious Sun?

C. 1864 1945


951


As Frost is best conceived
By force of its Result -
Affliction is inferred
By subsequent effect -

If when the sun reveal,
The Garden keep the Gash -
If as the Days resume
The wilted countenance

Cannot correct the crease
Or counteract the stain -
Presumption is Vitality
Was somewhere put in twain.

C. 1864 1945


952


A Man may make a Remark -
In Itself - a quiet thing
That may furnish the Fuse unto a Spark
In dormant nature - lain -

Let us deport - with skill -
Let us discourse - with care -
Powder exists in Charcoal -
Before it exists in Fire.

C. 1864 1945


953


A Door just opened on a street -
I - lost - was passing by -
An instant's Width of Warmth disclosed -
And Wealth - and Company.

The Door as instant shut - And I -
I - lost - was passing by -
Lost doubly - but by contrast - most -
Informing - misery -

C. 1864 1896


954


The Chemical conviction
That Nought be lost
Enable in Disaster
My fractured Trust -

The Faces of the Atoms
If I shall see
How more the Finished Creatures
Departed me!

C. 1864 1945


955


The Hollows round His eager Eyes
Were Pages where to read
Pathetic Histories - although
Himself had not complained.
Biography to All who passed
Of Unobtrusive Pain
Except for the italic Face
Endured, unhelped - unknown.

C. 1864 1945


956


What shall I do when the Summer troubles -
What, when the Rose is ripe -
What when the Eggs fly off in Music
From the Maple Keep?

What shall I do when the Skies a' chirrup
Drop a Tune on me -
When the Bee hangs all Noon in the Buttercup
What will become of me?

Oh, when the Squirrel fills His Pockets
And the Berries stare
How can I bear their jocund Faces
Thou from Here, so far?

'Twouldn't afflict a Robin -
All His Goods have Wings -
I - do not fly, so wherefore
My Perennial Things?

C. 1864 1945


957


As One does Sickness over
In convalescent Mind,
His scrutiny of Chances
By blessed Health obscured -

As One rewalks a Precipice
And whittles at the Twig
That held Him from Perdition
Sown sidewise in the Crag

A Custom of the Soul
Far after suffering
Identity to question
For evidence 't has been -

C. 1864 1945


958


We met as Sparks - Diverging Flints
Sent various - scattered ways -
We parted as the Central Flint
Were cloven with an Adze -
Subsisting on the Light We bore
Before We felt the Dark -
A Flint unto this Day - perhaps -
But for that single Spark.

C. 1864 1945


959


A loss of something ever felt I -
The first that I could recollect
Bereft I was - of what I knew not
Too young that any should suspect

A Mourner walked among the children
I notwithstanding went about
As one bemoaning a Dominion
Itself the only Prince cast out -

Elder, Today, a session wiser
And fainter, too, as Wiseness is -
I find myself still softly searching
For my Delinquent Palaces-

And a Suspicion, like a Finger
Touches my Forehead now and then
That I am looking oppositely
For the site of the Kingdom of Heaven -

C. 1864 1945


960


As plan for Noon and plan for Night
So differ Life and Death
In positive Prospective -
The Foot upon the Earth

At Distance, and Achievement, strains,
The Foot upon the Grave
Makes effort at conclusion
Assisted faint of Love.

C. 1864 1945


961


Wert Thou but ill - that I might show thee
How long a Day I could endure
Though thine attention stop not on me
Nor the least signal, Me assure-

Wert Thou but Stranger in ungracious country -
And Mine - the Door
Thou paused at, for a passing bounty -
No More -

Accused - wert Thou - and Myself - Tribunal -
Convicted - Sentenced - Ermine - not to Me
Half the Condition, thy Reverse - to follow -
Just to partake - the infamy -

The Tenant of the Narrow Cottage, wert Thou-
Permit to be
The Housewife in thy low attendance
Contenteth Me -

No Service hast Thou, I would not achieve it -
To die - or live -
The first - Sweet, proved I, ere I saw thee -
For Life - be Love -

C. 1864 1945


962


Midsummer, was it, when They died -
A full, and perfect time -
The Summer closed upon Itself
In Consummated Bloom -

The Corn, her furthest kernel filled
Before the coming Flail -
When These - leaned into Perfectness -
Through Haze of Burial -

C. 1864 1929


963


A nearness to Tremendousness -
An Agony procures -
Affliction ranges Boundlessness -
Vicinity to Laws

Contentment's quiet Suburb -
Affliction cannot stay
In Acres - Its Location
Is Illocality -

C. 1864 1935


964


"Unto Me?" I do not know you -
Where may be your House'

"I am Jesus - Late of Judea -
Now - of Paradise"-

Wagons - have you-to convey me?
This is far from Thence -

"Arms of Mine - sufficient Phaeton -
Trust Omnipotence" -

I am spotted - "I am Pardon" -
I am small - "The Least
Is esteemed in Heaven the Chiefest -
Occupy my House" -

C. 1864 1929


965


Denial - is the only fact
Perceived by the Denied -
Whose will - a numb significance -
The Day the Heaven died -

And all the Earth strove common round -
without Delight, or Beam -
What Comfort was it Wisdom - was -
The spoiler of Our Home?

C. 1864 1929


966


All forgot for recollecting
Just a paltry One -
All forsook, for just a Stranger's
New Accompanying -

Grace of Wealth, and Grace of Station
Less accounted than
An unknown Esteem possessing -
Estimate - Who can -

Home effaced - Her faces dwindled -
Nature - altered small -
Sun - if shone - or Storm - if shattered -
Overlooked I all -

Dropped - my fate - a timid Pebble -
In thy bolder Sea -
Prove - me - Sweet - if I regret It -
Prove Myself - of Thee -

C. 1864 1929


967


Pain - expands the Time -
Ages coil within
The minute Circumference
Of a single Brain -

Pain contracts - the Time -
Occupied with Shot
Gamuts of Eternities
Are as they were not -

C. 1864 1929


968


Fitter to see Him, I may be
For the long Hindrance - Grace - to Me -
with Summers, and with Winters, grow,
Some passing Year - A trait bestow

To make Me fairest of the Earth -
The Waiting - then - will seem so worth
I shall impute with half a pain
The blame that I was chosen - then -

Time to anticipate His Gaze -
It's first - Delight - and then - Surprise -
The turning o'er and o'er my face
For Evidence it be the Grace -

He left behind One Day - So less
He seek Conviction, That - be This -
I only must not grow so new
That He'll mistake - and ask for me

Of me - when first unto the Door
I go - to Elsewhere go no more -
I only must not change so fair
He'll sigh - "The Other - She - is Where?"

The Love, tho', will array me right
I shall be perfect - in His sight -
If He perceive the other Truth-
Upon an Excellenter Youth -

How sweet I shall not lack in Vain -
But gain - thro' loss - Through Grief - obtain -
The Beauty that reward Him best -
The Beauty of Demand - at Rest -

C. 1864 1930


969


He who in Himself believes -
Fraud cannot presume -
Faith is Constancy's Result -
And assumes - from Home -

Cannot perish, though it fail
Every second time -
But defaced Vicariously -
For Some Other Shame -

C. 1864 1929


970


Color - Caste - Denomination -
These - are Time's Affair -
Death's diviner Classifying
Does not know they are -

As in sleep - All Hue forgotten -
Tenets - put behind -
Death's large - Democratic fingers
Rub away the Brand -

If Circassian - He is careless -
If He put away
Chrysalis of Blonde - or Umber -
Equal Butterfly -

They emerge from His Obscuring -
What Death - knows so well -
Our minuter intuitions -
Deem unplausible -

C. 1864 1945


971


Robbed by Death - but that was easy -
To the failing Eye
I could hold the latest Glowing -
Robbed by Liberty

For Her Jugular Defences -
This, too, I endured -
Hint of Glory - it afforded -
For the Brave Beloved -

Fraud of Distance - Fraud of Danger,
Fraud of Death - to bear -
It is Bounty - to Suspense's
Vague Calamity -

Staking our entire Possession
On a Hair's result -
Then - Seesawing - coolly - on it -
Trying if it split -

C. 1864 1945


972


Unfulfilled to Observation -
Incomplete - to Eye -
But to Faith - a Revolution
In Locality -

Unto Us - the Suns extinguish -
To our Opposite -
New Horizons - they embellish -
Fronting Us - wlth Night.

C. 1864 1935


973


'Twas awkward, but it fitted me -
An Ancient fashioned Heart -
Its only lore - its Steadfastness -
In Change - unerudite -

It only moved as do the Suns -
For merit of Return -
Or Birds - confirmed perpetual
By Alternating Zone -

I only have it not Tonight
In its established place -
For technicality of Death -
Omitted in the Lease -

C. 1864 1935


974


The Soul's distinct connection
with immortality
Is best disclosed by Danger
Or quick Calamity -

As Lightning on a Landscape
Exhibits Sheets of Place -
Not yet suspected - but for Flash -
And Click - and Suddenness

C. 1864 1929


975


The Mountain sat upon the Plain
In his tremendous Chair -
His observation omnifold,
His inquest, everywhere -

The Seasons played around his knees
Like Children round a sire -
Grandfather of the Days is He
Of Dawn, the Ancestor -

C. 1864 1890


976


Death is a Dialogue between
The Spirit and the Dust.
"Dissolve" says Death - The Spirit "Sir
I have another Trust"-

Death doubts it - Argues from the Ground -
The Spirit turns away
Just laying off for evidence
An Overcoat of Clay.

C. 1864 1890


977


Besides this May
We know
There is Another-
How fair
Our Speculations of the Foreigner!

Some know Him whom We knew-
Sweet Wonder -
A Nature be
Where Saints, and our plain going Neighbor
Keep May!

C. 1864 1945


978


It bloomed and dropt, a Single Noon -
The Flower - distinct and Red -
I, passing, thought another Noon
Another in its stead

Will equal glow, and thought no More
But came another Day
To find the Species disappeared -
The Same Locality -

The Sun in place - no other fraud
On Nature's perfect Sum -
Had I but lingered Yesterday -
Was my retrieveless blame -

Much Flowers of this and further Zones
Have perished in my Hands
For seeking its Resemblance -
But unapproached it stands -

The single Flower of the Earth
That I, in passing by
Unconscious was - Great Nature's Face
Passed infinite by Me -

C. 1864 1955


979


This Merit hath the worst -
It cannot be again -
When Fate hath taunted last
And thrown Her furthest Stone -

The Maimed may pause, and breathe,
And glance securely round -
The Deer attracts no further
Than it resists - the Hound -

C. 1864 1891


980


Purple - is fashionable twlce -
This season of the year,
And when a soul perceives itself
To be an Emperor.

C. 1864 1945


981


As Sleigh Bells seem in summer
Or Bees, at Christmas show -
So fairy - so fictitious
The individuals do
Repealed from observation-
A Party that we knew -
More distant in an Instant
Than Dawn in Timbuctoo.

C. 1864 1945


982


No Other can reduce
Our mortal Consequence
Like the remembering it be nought
A Period from hence
But Contemplation for
Contemporaneous Nought
Our Single Competition
Jehovah's Estimate.

C. 1865 1914


983


Ideals are the Fairy Oil
with which we help the Wheel
But when the Vital Axle turns
The Eye rejects the Oil.

C. 1865 1945


984


'Tis Anguish grander than Delight
'Tis Resurrection Pain -
The meeting Bands of smitten Face
We questioned to, again.

'Tis Transport wild as thrills the Graves
When Cerements let go
And Creatures clad in Miracle
Go up by Two and Two.

C. 1865 1945


985


The Missing All - prevented Me
From missing minor Things.
If nothing larger than a World's
Departure from a Hinge -
Or Sun's extinction, be observed -
'Twas not so large that I
Could lift my Forehead from my work
For Curiosity.

C. 1865 19l4


986


A narrow Fellow in the Grass
Occasionally rides -
You may have met Him - did you not
His notice sudden is -

The Grass divides as with a Comb -
A spotted shaft is seen -
And then it closes at your feet
And opens further on -

He likes a Boggy Acre
A Floor too cool for Corn -
Yet when a Boy, and Barefoot -
I more than once at Noon
Have passed, I thought, a Whip lash
Unbraiding in the Sun
When stooping to secure it
It wrinkled, and was gone-

Several of Nature's People
I know, and they know me-
I feel for them a transport
Of cordiality -

But never met this Fellow
Attended, or alone
without a tIghter breathing
And Zero at the Bone -

C. 1865 1866


987


The Leaves like Women interchange
Exclusive Confidence -
Somewhat of nods and somewhat
Portentous inference.

The Parties in both cases
Enjoining secrecy -
Inviolable compact
To notoriety.

C. 1865 1891


988


The Definition of Beauty is
That Definition is none -
Of Heaven, easing Analysis,
Since Heaven and He are one.

C. 1865 1924


989


Gratitude - is not the mention
Of a Tenderness,
But lts still appreciation
Out of Plumb of Speech.

When the Sea return no Answer
By the Line and Lead
Proves it there's no Sea, or rather
A remoter Bed?

C. 1865 1947


990


Not all die early, dying young -
Maturity of Fate
Is consummated equally
In Ages, or a Night -

A Hoary Boy, I've known to drop
Whole statured - by the side
Of Junior of Fourscore - 'twas Act
Not Period - that died.

C. 1865 1894


991


She sped as Petals of a Rose
Offended by the Wind -
A frail Aristocrat of Time
Indemnity to find-
Leaving on nature - a Default
As Cricket or as Bee-
But Andes in the Bosoms where
She had begun to lie-

C. 1865 1932


992 *


The Dust behind I strove to join
Unto the Disk before -
But Sequence ravelled out of Sound
like Balls upon a Floor -

(* See poem 937.)

C. 1865 1955


993


We miss Her, not because We see -
The Absence of an Eye -
Except its Mind accompany
Abridge Society

As slightly as the Routes of Stars -
Ourselves - asleep below -
We know that their superior Eyes
IncIude Us - as they go -

C. 1865 1945


994


Partake as doth the Bee,
Abstemiously.
The Rose is an Estate -
In Sicily.

C. 1865 1945


995


This was in the White of the Year -
That - was in the Green -
Drifts were as difficult then to think
As Daisies now to be seen-

Looking back is best that is left
Or if it be - before -
Retrospection is Prospect's half,
Sometimes, almost more.

C. 1865 1894


996


We'll pass without the parting
So to spare
Certificate of Absence -
Deeming where

I left Her I could find Her
If I tried-
This way, I keep from missing
Those that died.

C. 1865 1894


997


Crumbling is not an instant's Act
A fundamental pause
Dilapidation is processes
Are organIzed Decays.

'Tis first a Cobweb on the Soul
A Cuticle of Dust
A Borer in the Axis
An Elemental Rust-

Ruin is formal - Devil's work
Consecutive and slow -
Fail in an instant, no man did
Slipping - is Crash's law.

C. 1865 1945


998


Best Things dwell out of Sight
The Pearl - the Just - Our Thought.

Most shun the Public Air
Legitimate, and Rare-

The Capsule of the Wind
The Capsule of the Mind

Exhibit here, as doth a Burr -
Germ's Germ be where?

C. 1865 1945


999


Superfluous were the Sun
When Excellence be dead
He were superfluous every Day
For every Day be said

That syllable whose Faith
Just saves it from Despair
And whose "I'll meet You" hesitates
If Love inquire 'Where"?

Upon His dateless Fame
Our Periods may lie
As Stars that drop anonymous
From an abundant sky.

C. 1865 1896


1000


The Fingers of the Light
Tapped soft upon the Town
with "I am great and cannot wait
So therefore let me in."

"You're soon," the Town replied,
"My Faces are asleep -
But swear, and I will let you by,
You will not wake them up."

The easy Guest complied
But once within the Town
The transport of His Countenance
Awakened Maid and Man

The Neighbor in the Pool
Upon His Hip elate
Made loud obeisance and the Gnat
Held up His Cup for Light.

C. 1865 1945


1001


The Stimulus, beyond the Grave
His Countenance to see
Supports me like Imperial Drams
Afforded Day by Day.

C. 1865 1896


1002


Aurora is the effort
Of the Celestial Face
Unconsciousness of Perfectness
To simulate, to Us.

C. 1865 1945


1003


Dying at my music!
Bubble! Bubble!
Hold me till the Octave's run!
Quick! Burst the Windows!
Ritardando!
Phials left, and the Sun!

C. 1865 1945


1004


There is no Silence in the Earth - so silent
As that endured
Which uttered, would discourage Nature
And haunt the World.

C. 1865 1945


1005


Bind me - I still can sing-
Banish - my mandolin
Strikes true within -

Slay - and my Soul shall rise
Chanting to Paradise-
Still thine.

C. 1865 1945


1006


The first We knew of Him was Death -
The second - was - Renown-
Except the first had justified
The second had not been.

C. 1865 1945


1007


Falsehood of Thee could I suppose
'T would undermine the Sill
To which my Faith pinned Block by Block
Her Cedar Citadel.

C. 1865 1945


1008


How still the Bells in Steeples stand
Till swollen with the Sky
They leap upon their silver Feet
In frantic Melody!

C. 1865 1896


1009


I was a Phoebe - nothing more -
A Phoebe - nothing less -
The little note that others dropt
I fitted into place -

I dwelt too low that any seek -
Too shy, that any blame -
A Phoebe makes a little print
Upon the Floors of Fame -

C. 1865 1945


1010


Up Life's Hill with my little Bundle
If I prove it steep -
If a Discouragement withhold me -
If my newest step

Older feel than the Hope that prompted -
Spotless be from blame
Heart that proposed as Heart that accepted
Homelessness, for Home -

C. 1865 1945


1011


She rose as high as His Occasion
Then sought the Dust -
And lower lay in low Westminster
For Her brief Crest -

C. 1865 1945


1012


Which is best? Heaven -
Or only Heaven to come
with that old Codicil of Doubt?
I cannot help esteem
The "Bird within the Hand"
Superior to the one
The "Bush" may yield me
Or may not
Too late to choose again.

C. 1865 1945


1013


Too scanty 'twas to die for you,
The merest Greek could that
The living, Sweet, is costlier -
I offer even that -

The Dying, is a trifle, past,
But living, this include
The dying multifold - without
The Respite to be dead.

C. 1865 1945


1014


Did We abolish Frost
The Summer would not cease-
If Seasons perish or prevail
Is optional with Us -

C. 1865 1945


1015


Were it but Me that gained the Height-
Were it but They, that failed!
How many things the Dying play
Might they but live, they would!

C. 1865 1945


1016


The Hills in Purple syllables
The Day's Adventures tell
To little Groups of Continents
Just going Home from School.

C. 1865 1945


1017


To die - without the Dying
And live - without the Life
This is the hardest Miracle
Propounded to Belief.

C. 1865 1945


1018


Who saw no Sunrise cannot say
The Countenance 'twould be.
Who guess at seeing, guess at loss
Of the Ability.

The Emigrant of Light, it is
Afflicted for the Day.
The Blindness that beheld and blest-
And could not find Its Eye.

C. 1865 1945


1019


My Season's furthest Flower -
I tenderer commend
Because I found Her Kinsmanless,
A Grace without a Friend.

C. 1865 1945


1020


Trudging to Eden, looking backward,
I met Somebody's little Boy
Asked him his name - He lisped me "Trotwood" -
Lady, dId He belong to thee?

Would it comfort - to know I met him -
And that He didn't look afraid?
I couldn't weep - for so many smiling
New Acquaintance - this Baby made-

C. 1865 1945


1021


Far from Love the Heavenly Father
Leads the Chosen Child,
Oftener through Realm of Briar
Than the Meadow mild.

Oftener by the Claw of Dragon
Than the Hand of Friend
Guides the little One predestined
To the Native Land.

C. 1865 1896


1022


I knew that I had gained
And yet I knew not how
By Dimunution it was not
But Discipline unto

A Rigor unrelieved
Except by the Content
Another bear its Duplicate
In other Continent.

C. 1865 1945


1023


It rises - passes - on our South
Inscribes a simple Noon -
Cajoles a Moment with the Spires
And infinite is gone -

C. 1865 1945


1024


So large my will
The little that I may
Embarrasses
Like gentle infamy -

Affront to Him
For whom the Whole were small
Affront to me
Who know His Meed of all.

Earth at the best
Is but a scanty Toy -
Bought, carried Home
To Immortality.

It looks so small
We chiefly wonder then
At our Conceit
In purchasing.

C. 1865 1945


1025


The Products of my Farm are these
Sufficient for my Own
And here and there a Benefit
Unto a NeIghbor's Bin.

with Us, 'tis Harvest all the Year
For when the Frosts begin
We just reverse the Zodiac
And fetch the Acres in.

C. 1865 1945


1026


The Dying need but little, Dear,
A Glass of Water's all,
A Flower's unobtrusive Face
To punctuate the Wall,
A Fan, perhaps, a Friend's Regret
And Certainty that one
No color in the Rainbow
Perceive, when you are gone.

C. 1865 1896


1027


My Heart upon a little Plate
Her Palate to delight
A Berry or a Bun, would be,
Might it an Apricot!

C. 1865 1945


1028


'Twas my one Glory -
Let It be
Remembered
I was owned of Thee-

C. 1865 1945


1029


Nor Mountain hinder Me
Nor Sea -
Who's Baltlc -
Who's Cordillera?

C. 1865 1945


1030


That Such have died enable Us
The tranquiller to die -
That Such have lived,
Certificate for Immortality.

C. 1865 1896


1031


Fate slew Him, but He did not drop -
She felled - He did not fall -
Impaled Him on Her fiercest stakes -
He neutralized them all-

She stung Him - sapped His firm Advance -
But when Her Worst was done
And He - unmoved regarded Her -
Acknowledged Him a Man.

C. 1865 1896


1032


Who is the East?
The Yellow Man
Who may be Purple if He can
That carries in the Sun.

Who is the West?
The Purple Man
Who may be Yellow if He can
That lets Him out again.

C. 1865 1945


1033


said Death to Passion
"Give of thine an Acre unto me."
said Passion, through contracting Breaths
"A Thousand Times Thee Nay."

Bore Death from Passion
All His East
He - sovereign as the Sun
Resituated in the West
And the Debate was done.

C. 1865 1945


1034


His Bill an Auger is
His Head, a Cap and Frill
He laboreth at every Tree
A Worm, His utmost Goal.

C. 1865 1945


1035


Bee! I'm expecting you!
Was saying Yesterday
To Somebody you know
That you were due -

The Frogs got Home last Week -
Are settled, and at work -
Birds, mostly back -
The Clover warm and thick -

You'll get my Letter by
The seventeenth, Reply
Or better, be with me
Yours, Fly.

C. 1865 1945


1036


SatisfactIon - is the Agent
Of Satiety -
Want - a quiet Commissary
For Infinity.
To possess, is past the instant
We achieve the Joy -
Immortality contented
Were Anomaly.

C. 1865 1945


1037


Here, where the Daisies fit my Head
'Tis easiest to be
And every Grass that plays outside
Is sorry, Some, for me.

Where I am not afraid to go
I may confide my Flower -
Who was not Enemy of Me
Will gentle be, to Her

Nor separate, Herself and Me
By Distances become -
A Single Bloom we constitute
Departed, or at Home -

C. 1865 1945


1038


Her little Parasol to lift
And once to let it down
Her whole Responsibility -
To imitate be Mine.

A Summer further I must wear,
Content if Nature's Drawer
Present me from sepulchral Crease
As blemishless, as Her.

C. 1865 1945


1039


I heard, as if I had no Ear
Until a Vital Word
Came all the way from Life to me
And then I knew I heard.

I saw, as if my Eye were on
Another, till a Thing
And now I know 'twas Light, because
It fitted them, came in.

I dwelt, as if Myself were out,
My Body but within
Until a Might detected me
And set my kernel in

And Spirit turned unto the Dust
"Old FrIend, thou knowest me, "
And Tune went out to tell the News
And met Eternity

C. 1865 1945


1040


Not so the infinite Relations - Below
Division is Adhesion's forfeit - On High
Affliction but a Speculation - And Woe
A Fallacy, a Figment, We knew -

C. 1865 1945


1041


Somewhat, to hope for,
Be it ne'er so far
Is Capital against Despair -

Somewhat, to suffer,
Be it ne'er so keen -
If terminable, may be borne.

C. 1865 1945


1042


Spring comes on the World -
I sight the Aprils -
Hueless to me until thou come
As, till the Bee
Blossoms stand negative,
Touched to Conditions
By a Hum.

C. 1865 1945


1043


Lest this be Heaven indeed
An Obstacle is given
That always gauges a Degree
Between Ourself and Heaven.

C. 1865 1945


1044


A Sickness of this World it most occasions
When Best Men die.
A Wishfulness their far Condition
To occupy.

A Chief indifference, as Foreign
A Word must be
Themselves forsake - contented,
For Deity.

C. 1865 1896


1045


Nature rarer uses Yellow
Than another Hue.
Saves she all of that for Sunsets
Prodigal of Blue

Spending Scarlet, like a Woman
Yellow she affords
Only scantly and selectly
Like a Lover's Words.

C. 1865 1891


1046


I've dropped my Brain - My Soul is numb -
The Veins that used to run
Stop palsied - 'tis Paralysis
Done perfecter on stone

Vitality is Carved and cool.
My nerve in Marble lies -
A Breathing Woman
Yesterday - Endowed with Paradise.

Not dumb - I had a sort that moved -
A Sense that smote and stirred -
Instincts for Dance - a caper part -
An Aptitude for Bird -

Who wrought Carrara in me
And chiselled all my tune
Were it a Witchcraft - were it Death -
I've still a chance to strain

To Being, somewhere - Motion - Breath -
Though Centuries beyond,
And every limit a Decade -
I'll shiver, satisfied.

C. 1865 1945


1047


The Opening and the Close
Of Being, are alike
Or differ, if they do,
As Bloom upon a Stalk.

That from an equal Seed
Unto an equal Bud
Go parallel, perfected
In that they have decayed.

C. 1865 1945


1048


Reportless Subjects, to the Quick
Continual addressed -
But foreign as the Dialect
Of Danes, unto the rest.

Reportless Measures, to the Ear
Susceptlve - stimulus -
But like an Oriental Tale
To others, fabulous -

C. 1865 1945


1049


Pain has but one Acquaintance
And that is Death -
Each one unto the other
Society enough.

Pain is the Junior Party
By just a Second's right-
Death tenderly assists Him
And then absconds from Sight.

C. 1865 1945


1050


As willing lid o'er weary eye
The Evening on the Day leans
Till of all our nature's House
Remains but Balcony

C. 1865 1945


1051


I cannot meet the Spring unmoved -
I feel the old desire -
A Hurry with a lingering, mixed,
A Warrant to be fair -

A Competition in my sense
with something hid in Her -
And as she vanishes, Remorse
I saw no more of Her.

C. 1865 1945


1052


I never saw a Moor -
I never saw the Sea -
Yet know I how the Heather looks
And what a Billow be.

I never spoke with God
Nor visited In Heaven -
Yet certain am I of the spot
As if the Checks were given -

C. 1865 1890


1053


It was a quiet way -
He asked if I was his -
I made no answer of the Tongue
But answer of the Eyes -
And then He bore me on
Before this mortal noise
with swiftness, as of Chariots
And distance, as of Wheels.
This World did drop away
As Acres from the feet
Of one that leaneth from Balloon
Upon an Ether street.
The Gulf behind was not,
The Continents were new -
Eternity it was before
Eternity was due.
No Seasons were to us -
It was not Night nor Morn -
But Sunrise stopped upon the place
And fastened it in Dawn.

C. 1865 1929


1054


Not to discover weakness is
The Artifice of strength -
ImpregnabilIty inheres
As much through Consciousness

Of faith of others in itself
As Pyramidal Nerve
Behind the most unconscious clock
What skilful Pointers move -

C. 1865 1945


1055


The Soul should always stand ajar
That if the Heaven inquire
He will not be obliged to wait
Or shy of troubling Her

Depart, before the Host have slid
The Bolt unto the Door -
To search for the accomplished Guest,
Her Visitor, no more -

C. 1865 1896


1056


There is a Zone whose even Years
No Solstice interrupt -
Whose Sun constructs perpetual Noon
Whose perfect Seasons wait -

Whose Summer set in Summer, till
The Centuries of June
And CenturIes of August cease
And Consciousness - is Noon.

C. 1865 1945


1057


I had a daily Bliss
I half indlfferent viewed
Till sudden I perceived it stir -
It grew as I pursued

Till when around a Height
It wasted from my sight
Increased beyond my utmost scope
I learned to estimate.


C. 1865 1896


1058


Bloom - is Result - to meet a Flower
And casually glance
Would scarcely cause one to suspect
The minor Circumstance

Assisting in the Bright Affair
So intricately done
Then offered as a Butterfly
To the Meridlan -

To pack the Bud - oppose the Worm -
Obtain its right of Dew -
Adjust the Heat - elude the Wind -
Escape the prowling Bee

Great Nature not to disappoint
Awaiting Her that Day -
To be a Flower, is profound
Responsibility -

C. 1865 1945


1059


Sang from the Heart, Sire,
Dipped my Beak in it,
If the Tune drip too much
Have a tint too Red

Pardon the Cochineal -
Suffer the Vermilion -
Death is the Wealth
Of the Poorest Bird.

Bear with the Ballad -
Awkward - faltering -
Death twists the strings -
'Twasn't my blame -

Pause in your Liturgies -
Wait your Chorals -
While I repeat your
Hallowed name -

C. 1865 1945


1060


Air has no Residence, no Neighbor,
No Ear, no Door,
No Apprehension of Another
Oh, Happy Air!

Ethereal Guest at e'en an Outcast's Pillow -
Essential Host, in Life's faint, wailing Inn,
Later than Light thy Consciousness accost me
Till it depart, persuading Mine -

C. 1865 1945


1061


Three Weeks passed since I had seen Her -
Some Disease had vext
'Twas with Text and Village Singing
I beheld Her next

And a Company - our pleasure
To discourse alone -
Gracious now to me as any -
Gracious unto none -

Borne without dissent of Either
To the Parish night -
Of the Separated Parties
Which be out of sight?


C. 1865 1896


1062


He scanned it - staggered -
Dropped the Loop
To Past or Period -
Caught helpless at a sense as If
His Mind were going blind -

Groped up, to see if God was there -
Groped backward at Himself
Caressed a Trigger absently
And wandered out of Life.

C. 1865 1945


1063


Ashes denote that Fire was -
Revere the Grayest Pile
For the Departed Creature's sake
That hovered there awhile -

Ere exists the first in light
And then consolidates
Only the Chemist can disclose
Into what Carbonates.

C. 1865 1896


1064


To help our Bleaker Parts
Salubrious Hours are given
Which if they do not fit for Earth
Drill silently for Heaven -

C. 1865 1896


1065


Let down the Bars, Oh Death -
The tired Flocks come in
Whose bleating ceases to repeat
Whose wandering is done -

Thine is the stillest night
Thine the securest Fold
Too near Thou art for seeking Thee
Too tender, to be told.

C. 1865 1891


1066


Fame's Boys and Girls, who never die
And are too seldom born -

C. 1865 1945


1067


Except the smaller size
No lives are round -
These - hurry to a sphere
And show and end -

The larger - slower grow
And later hang -
The Summers of Hesperides
Are long.

C. 1866 1891


1068


Further in Summer than the Birds
Pathetic from the Grass
A minor Nation celebrates
Its unobtrusive Mass.

No Ordinance be seen
So gradual the Grace
A pensive Custom it becomes
Enlarging Loneliness.

Antiquest felt at Noon
When August burning low
Arise this spectral Canticle
Repose to typify

Remit as yet no Grace
No Furrow on the Glow
Yet a Druidic Difference
Enhances Nature now

C. 1866 1891


1069


Paradise is of the option.
Whosoever will
Own in Eden notwithstanding
Adam and Repeal

C. 1866 1931


1070


To undertake is to achieve
Be Undertaking blent
with fortitude of obstacle
And toward encouragement

That fine Suspicion, Natures must
Permitted to revere
Departed Standards and the few
Criterion Sources here

C. 1865 1932


1071


Perception of an object costs
Precise the Object's loss -
Perception in itself a Gain
Replying to its Price -

The Object Absolute - is nought -
Perception sets it fair
And then upbraids a Perfectness
That situates so far -

C. 1866 1914


1072


Title divine - is mine!
The Wife - without the Sign!
Acute Degree - conferred on me -
Empress of Calvary!
Royal - all but the Crown!
Betrothed - without the swoon
God sends us Women-
When you - hold - Garnet to Garnet -
Gold - to Gold -
Born - Bridalled - Shrouded -
In a Day -
Tri Victory
"My Husband" - women say -
Stroking the Melody -
Is this - the way?

C. 1862 1924


1073


Experiment to me
Is every one I meet
If it contain a Kernel?
The Figure of a Nut

Presents upon a Tree
Equally plausibly,
But Meat within, is requisite
To Squirrels, and to Me.

C. 1865 1891


1074


Count not that far that can be had,
Though sunset lie between -
Nor that adjacent, that beside,
Is further than the sun.

C. 1866 1894


1075


The Sky is low - the Clouds are mean.
A Travelling Flake of Snow
Across a Barn or through a Rut
Debates if it will go -

A Narrow Wind complains all Day
How some one treated him
Nature, like us is sometimes caught
without her Diadem.

C. 1866 1890


1076


Just Once! Oh least Request!
Could Adamant refuse
So small a Grace
So scanty put,
Such agonizing terms?
Would not a God of Flint
Be conscious of a sigh
As down His Heaven dropt remote
"Just Once" Sweet Deity?

C. 1862 1924


1077


These are the Signs to Nature's Inns-
Her invitation broad
To Whosoever famishing
To taste her mystic Bread-
These are the rites of Nature's House-
The Hospitality
That opens with an equal width
To Beggar and to Bee
For Sureties of her staunch Estate
Her undecaying Cheer
The Purple in the East is set
And in the North, the Star -

C. 1866 1929


1078


The Bustle in a House
The Morning after Death
Is solemnest of industries
Enacted upon Earth-

The Sweeping up the Heart
And putting Love away
We shall not want to use again
Until Eternity.

C. 1866 1890


1079


The Sun went down - no Man looked on -
The Earth and I, alone,
Were present at the Majesty -
He triumphed, and went on -

The Sun went up - no Man looked on-
The Earth and I and One
A nameless Bird - a Stranger
Were Witness for the Crown -

C. 1866 1929


1080


When they come back - if Blossoms do -
I always feel a doubt
If Blossoms can be born again
When once the Art is out -

When they begin, if Robins may,
I alwavs had a fear
I dId not tell, it was their last Expenment
Last Year,

When it is May, if May return,
Had nobody a pang
Lest In a Face so beautiful
He mIght not look again?

If I am there - One does not know
What Party - One may be
Tomorrow, but if I am there
I take back all I say -

C. 1866 1929


1081


Superiority to Fate
Is difficult to gain
'Tis not conferred of Any
But possible to earn

A pittance at a time
Until to Her surprise
The Soul with strict economy
Subsist till Paradise.

C. 1866 1896


1082


Revolution is the Pod
Systems rattle from
When the Winds of will are stirred
Excellent is Bloom

But except its Russet Base
Every Summer be
The Entomber of itself,
So of Llberty-

Left inactive on the Stalk
All its Purple fled
Revolution shakes it for
Test if it be dead.

C. 1866 1929


1083


We learn in the Retreating
How vast an one
Was recently among us -
A Perished Sun

Endear in the departure
How doubly more
Than all the Golden presence
It was - before-

C. 1866 1896


1084


At Half past Three, a single Bird
Unto a silent Sky
Propounded but a single term
Of cautious melody.

At Half past Four, Experiment
Had subjugated test
And lo, Her silver Principle
Supplanted all the rest.

At Half past Seven, Element
Nor Implement, be seen-
And Place was where the Presence was
Circumference between.

C. 1866 1891


1085


If Nature smiles - the Mother must
I'm sure, at many a whim
Of Her eccentric Family-
Is She so much to blame?

C. 1866 1929


1086


What Twigs We held by -
Oh the View
When Life's swift River striven through
We pause before a further plunge
To take Momentum -
As the Fringe

Upon a former Garment shows
The Garment cast,
Our Props disclose
So scant, so eminently small
Of Might to help, so pitiful
To sink, if We had labored, fond
The diligence were not more blind

How scant, by everlasting Light
The Discs that satisfied Our Sight -
How dimmer than a Saturn's Bar
The Things esteemed, for Things that are!

C. 1866 1935


1087


We miss a Kinsman more
When warranted to see
Than when withheld of Oceans
From possibility

A Furlong than a League
Inflicts a pricklier pain,
Till We, who smiled at Pyrenees -
Of Parishes, complain.

C. 1866 1929


1088


Ended, ere it begun -
The Title was scarcely told
When the Preface perished from Consciousness
The Story, unrevealed -

Had it been mine, to print!
Had it been yours, to read!
That it was not Our privilege
The interdict of God -

C. 1866 1932


1089


Myself can read the Telegrams
A Letter chief to me
The Stock's advance and Retrograde
And what the Markets say

The Weather - how the Rains
In Counties have begun.
'Tis News as null as nothing,
But sweeter so - than none.

C. 1866 1945


1090


I am afraid to own a Body -
I am afraid to own a Soul -
Profound - precarious Property -
Possession, not optional-

Double Estate - entailed at pleasure
Upon an unsuspecting Heir -
Duke in a moment of Deathlessness
And God, for a Frontier.

C. 1866 1935


1091


The Well upon the Brook
Were foolish to depend-
Let Brooks - renew of Brooks -
But Wells - of failless Ground!

C. 1866 1945


1092


It was not Saint - it was too large -
Nor Snow - it was too small -
It only held itself aloof
Like something spiritual -

C. 1866 1929


1093


Because 'twas Riches I could own,
Myself had earned it - Me,
I knew the Dollars by their names -
It feels like Poverty

An Earldom out of Sight to hold,
An Income in the Air,
Possession - has a sweeter chink
Unto a Miser's Ear-

C. 1866 1935


1094


Themself are all I have -
Myself a freckled - be -
I thought you'd choose a Velvet Cheek
Or one of Ivory -
Would you - instead of Me?

C. 1866 1935


1095


To Whom the Mornings stand for Nights,
What must the Midnights - be!

C. 1866 1935


1096


These Strangers, in a foreign World,
Protection asked of me -
Befriend them, lest Yourself In Heaven
Be found a Refugee -

C. 1866 1945


1097


Dew - is the Freshet in the Grass -
'Tis many a tiny Mill
Turns unperceived beneath our feet
And Artisan lies still-

We spy the Forests and the Hills
The Tents to Nature's Show
Mistake the Outside for the in
And mention what we saw.

Could Commentators on the Sign
Of Nature's Caravan
Obtain "Admission" as a Child
Some Wednesday Afternoon.

C. 1866 1914


1098


Of the Heart that goes in, and closes the Door
Shall the Playfellow Heart complain
Though the Ring is unwhole, and the Company broke
Can never be fitted again?

C. 1866 1945


1099


My Cocoon tightens - Colors tease -
I'm feeling for the Air -
A dim capacity for Wings
Demeans the Dress I wear -

A power of Butterfly must be -
The Aptitude to fly
Meadows of Majesty Implies
And easy Sweeps of Sky -

So I must baffle at the Hint
And cipher at the Sign
And make much blunder, if at last
I take the clue divine -

C. 1866 1890


1100


The last Night that She lived
It was a Common Night
Except the Dying - this to Us
Made Nature different

We noticed smallest things -
Things overlooked before
By this great light upon our Minds
Italicized - as'twere.

As We went out and in
Between Her final Room
And Rooms where Those to be alive
Tomorrow were, a Blame

That Others could exist
While She must finish quite
A Jealousy for Her arose
So nearly infinite-

We waited while She passed -
It was a narrow time -
Too jostled were Our Souls to speak
At length the notice came.

She mentioned, and forgot -
Then lightly as a Reed
Bent to the Water, struggled scarce -
Consented, and was dead -

And We - We placed the Hair -
And drew the Head erect -
And then an awful leisure was
Belief to regulate -

C. 1866 1890


1101


Between the form of Life and Life
The difference is as big
As Liquor at the Lip between
And Liquor in the Jug
The latter - excellent to keep -
But for ecstatic need
The corkless is superior -
I know for I have tried

C. 1866 1945


1102


His Bill is clasped - his Eye forsook -
His Feathers wilted low -
The Claws that clung, like lifeless Gloves
Indifferent hanging now -

The Joy that in his happy Throat
Was waiting to be poured
Gored through and through with Death, to be
Assassin of a Bird

Resembles to my outraged mind
The firing In Heaven,
On Angels - squandering for you
Their Miracles of Tune -

C. 1866 1945


1103


The spry Arms of the Wind
If I could crawl between
I have an errand imminent
To an adjoining Zone -

I should not care to stop
My Process is not long
The Wind could wait without the Gate
Or stroll the Town among.

To ascertain the House
And is the soul at Home
And hold the Wick of mine to It
To light, and then return -

C. 1866 1945


1104


The Crickets sang
And set the Sun
And Workmen finished one by one
Their Seam the Day upon.

The low Grass loaded with the Dew
The Twilight stood, as Strangers do
with Hat in Hand, polite and new
To stay as if, or go.

A Vastness, as a Neighbor, came,
A Wisdom, without Face, or Name,
A Peace, as Hemispheres at Home
And so the Night became.

C. 1866 1896


1105


Like Men and Women Shadows walk
Upon the Hills Today -
with here and there a mighty Bow
Or trailing Courtesy
To Neighbors doubtless of their own
Not quickened to perceive
Minuter landscape as Ourselves
And Boroughs where we live -

C. 1867 1914


1106


We do not know the time we lose -
The awful moment is
And takes its fundamental place
Among the certainties -

A firm appearance still inflates
The card - the chance - the friend -
The spectre of solidities
Whose substances are sand -

C. 1867 1932


1107


The Bird did prance - the Bee did play -
The Sun ran miles away
So blind with joy he could not choose
Between his Holiday

The morn was up - the meadows out
The Fences all but ran,
Republic of Delight, I thought
Where each is Citizen -

From Heavy laden Lands to thee
Were seas to cross to come
A Caspian were crowded -
Too near thou art for Fame -

C. 1867 1945


1108


A Diamond on the Hand
To Custom Common grown
Subsides from its significance
The Gem were best unknown -
within a Seller's Shrine
How many sight and sigh
And cannot, but are mad for fear
That any other buy.

C. 1867 1932


1109


I fit for them -
I seek the Dark
Till I am thorough fit.
The labor is a sober one
with this sufficient sweet
That abstinence of mine produce
A purer food for them, if I succeed,
If not I had
The transport of the Aim -

C. 1867 1914


1110


None who saw it ever told it
'Tis as hid as Death
Had for that specific treasure
A departing breath -
Surfaces may be invested
Did the Diamond grow
General as the Dandelion
Would you serve it so?

C. 1867 1945


1111


Some Wretched creature, savior take
Who would exult to die
And leave for thy sweet mercy's sake
Another Hour to me

C. 1867 1945


1112


That this should feel the need of Death
The same as those that lived
Is such a Feat of Irony
As never was - achieved -

Not satisfied to ape the Great
In his simplicity
The small must die, as well as He -
Oh the Audacity -

C. 1867 1945


1113


There is a strength in proving that it can be borne
Although it tear -
What are the sinews of such cordage for
Except to bear
The ship might be of satin had it not to fight -
To walk on seas requires cedar Feet

C. 1867 1945


1114


The largest Fire ever known
Occurs each Afternoon -
Discovered is without surprise
Proceeds without concern -
Consumes and no report to men
An Occidental Town,
Rebuilt another morning
To be burned down again.

C. 1864 1914


1115


The murmuring of Bees, has ceased
But murmuring of some
Posterior, prophetic,
Has simultaneous come.
The lower metres of the Year
When Nature's laugh is done
The Revelations of the Book
Whose Genesis was June
Appropriate Creatures to her change
The Typic Mother sends
As Accent fades to interval
with separating Friends
Till what we speculate, has been
And thoughts we will not show
More intimate with us become
Than Persons, that we know.

C. 1868 1947


1116


There is another Loneliness
That many die without -
Not want of friend occasions it
Or circumstance of Lot

But nature, sometimes, sometimes thought
And whoso it befall
Is richer than could be revealed
By mortal numeral -

C. 1868 1914


1117


A Mine there is no Man would own
But must it be conferred,
Demeaning by exclusive wealth
A Universe beside -

Potosi never to be spent
But hoarded in the mind
What Misers wring their hands tonight
For Indies in the Ground!

C. 1868 1932


1118


Exhilaration is the Breeze
That lifts us from the Ground
And leaves us in another place
Whose statement is not found -

Returns us not, but after time
We soberly descend
A little newer for the term
Upon Enchanted Ground -

C. 1868 1914


1119


Paradise is that old mansion
Many owned before -
Occupied by each an instant
Then reversed the Door -
Bliss is frugal of her Leases
Adam taught her Thrift
Bankrupt once through his excesses -

C. 1868 1945
(unfinished)


1120


This slow Day moved along-
I heard its axles go
As if they could not hoist themselves
They hated motion so -

I told my soul to come -
It was no use to wait -
We went and played and came again
And it was out of sight -

C. 1868 1945


1121


Time does go on -
I tell it gay to those who suffer now -
They shall survive -
There is a sun -
They don't believe it now -

C. 1868 1945


1122


'Tis my first night beneath the Sun
If I should spend it here -
Above him is too low a height
For his Barometer
Who Airs of expectation breathes
And takes the Wind at prime -
But Distance his Delights confides
To those who visit him -

C. 1868 1945


1123


A great Hope fell
You heard no noise
The Ruin was within
Oh cunning wreck that told no tale
And let no Witness in

The mind was built for mighty Freight
For dread occasion planned
How often foundering at Sea
Ostensibly, on Land

A not admitting of the wound
Until it grew so wide
That all my Life had entered it
And there were troughs beside

A closing of the simple lid
That opened to the sun
Until the tender Carpenter
Perpetual nail it down -

C. 1868 I945


1124


Had we known the Ton she bore
We had helped the terror
But she straighter walked for Freight
So be hers the error -

C. 1868 I945


1125


Oh Sumptuous moment
Slower go
That I may gloat on thee-
'Twill never be the same to starve
Now I abundance see -

Which was to famish, then or now -
The difference of Day
Ask him unto the Gallows led -
with morning in the sky -

C. 1868 1945


1126


Shall I take thee, the Poet said
To the propounded word?
Be stationed with the Candidates
Till I have finer tried -

The Poet searched Philology
And when about to ring
For the suspended Candidate
There came unsummoned in -

That portion of the Vision
The World applied to fill
Not unto nomination
The Cherubim reveal -

C. 1868 1945


1127


Soft as the massacre of Suns
By Evening's Sabres slam

C. 1868 1945


1128


These are the Nights that Beetles love -
From Emmence remote
Drives ponderous perpendicular
His figure intimate
The terror of the Children
The merriment of men
Depositing his Thunder
He hoists abroad again -
A Bomb upon the Ceiling
Is an improving thing-
It keeps the nerves progressive
Conjecture flourishing -
Too dear the Summer evening
without discreet alarm -
Supplied by Entomology
with its remaining charm -

C. 1868 1945


1129


Tell all the Truth but tell it slant-
Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth's superb surprise
As Lightning to the Children eased
with explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind -

C. 1868 1945


1130


That odd old man is dead a year -
We miss his stated Hat
'Twas such an evening bright and stiff
His faded lamp went out.

Who miss his antiquated Wick -
Are any hoar for him?
Waits any indurated mate
His wrinkled coming Home?

Oh Life, begun in fluent Blood
And consummated dull!
Achievement contemplating thee -
Feels transitive and cool.

C. 1868 1945


1131


The Merchant of the Picturesque
A Counter has and sales
But is within or negative
Precisely as the calls -
To Children he is small in price
And large in courtesy -
It suits him better than a check
Their artless currency -
Of Counterfeits he is so shy
Do one advance so near
As to behold his ample flight -

C. 1868 1945
(unfinished)


1132


The smouldering embers blush -
Oh Hearts within the Coal
Hast thou survived so many years?
The smouldering embers smile -
Soft stirs the news of Light
The stolid seconds glow
One requisite has Fire that lasts
Prometheus never knew -

C. 1868 1945
(unfiinshed)


1133


The Snow that never drifts -
The transient, fragrant snow
That comes a single time a Year
Is softly driving now -

So thorough in the Tree
At night beneath the star
That it was February's Foot
Experience would swear -

Like Winter as a Face
We stern and former knew
Repaired of all but Loneliness
By Nature's Alibi -

Were every storm so spice
The Value could not be -
We buy with contrast - Pang is good
As near as memory -

C. 1868 1945


1134


The Wind took up the Northern Things
And piled them in the south -
Then gave the East unto the West
And opening his mouth

The four Divisions of the Earth
Did make as to devour
While everything to corners slunk
Behind the awful power -

The Wind - unto his Chambers went
And nature ventured out -
Her subjects scattered into place
Her systems ranged about

Again the smoke from Dwellings rose
The Day abroad was heard -
How intimate, a tempest past
The Transport of the Bird -

C. 1868 1945


1135


Too cold is this
To warm with Sun -
Too stiff to bended be,
To joint this Agate were a work -
Outstaring Masonry -

How went the Agile Kernel out
Contusion of the Husk
Nor Rip, nor wrinkle indicate
But just an Asterisk.

C. 1868 1914


1136


The Frost of Death was on the Pane -
"Secure your Flower" said he.
Like Sailors fighting with a Leak
We fought Mortality.

Our passive Flower we held to Sea -
To Mountain - To the Sun -
Yet even on his Scarlet shelf
To crawl the Frost begun -

We pried him back
Ourselves we wedged
Himself and her between,
Yet easy as the narrow Snake
He forked his way along

Till all her helpless beauty bent
And then our wrath begun -
We hunted him to his Ravine
We chased him to his Den -

We hated Death and hated Life
And nowhere was to go -
Than Sea and continent there is
A larger - it is Woe -


C. 1869 1945


1137


The duties of the Wind are few,
To cast the ships, at Sea,
Establish March, the Floods escort,
And usher Liberty.

The pleasures of the Wind are broad,
To dwell Extent among,
Remain, or wander,
Speculate, or Forests entertain.

The kinsmen of the Wind are Peaks
Azof - the Equinox,
Also with Bird and Asteroid
A bowing intercourse.

The limitations of the Wind
Do he exist, or die,
Too Wise he seems for Wakelessness,
However, know not I.

C. 1869 1945


1138


A Spider sewed at Night
without a Light
Upon an Arc of White.

If Ruff it was of Dame
Or Shroud of Gnome
Himself himself inform.

Of Immortality
His Strategy
Was Physiognomy.

C. 1869 1891


1139


Her sovereign People
Nature knows as well
And is as fond of signifying
As if fallible -

C. 1869 1952


1140


The Day grew small, surrounded tight
By early, stooping Night -
The Afternoon in Evening deep
Its Yellow shortness dropt -
The Winds went out their martial ways
The Leaves obtained excuse -
November hung his Granite Hat
Upon a nail of Plush -

C. 1869 1945


1141


The Face we choose to miss -
Be it but for a Day
As absent as a Hundred Years,
When it has rode away.

C. 1869 1914


1142


The Props assist the House
Until the House is built
And then the Props withdraw
And adequate, erect,
The House support itself
And cease to recollect
The Auger and the Carpenter-
Just such a retrospect
Hath the perfected Life -
A past of Plank and Nail
And slowness - then the Scaffolds drop
Affirming it a Soul

C. 1863 1914


1143


The Work of Her that went,
The Toil of Fellows done -
In Ovens green our Mother bakes,
By Fires of the Sun.

C. 1869 1955


1144


Ourselves we do inter with sweet derision.
The channel of the dust who once achieves
Invalidates the balm of that religion
That doubts as fervently as it believes.

C. 1869 1894


1145


In thy long Paradise of Light
No moment will there be
When I shall long for Earthly Play
And mortal Company -

C. 1869 1945


1146


When Etna basks and purrs
Naples is more afraid
Than when she shows her Garnet Tooth -
Security is loud -

C. 1869 1914


1147


After a hundred years
Nobody knows the Place
Agony that enacted there
Motionless as Peace

Weeds triumphant ranged
Strangers strolled and spelled
At the lone Orthography
Of the Elder Dead

Winds of Summer Fields
Recollect the way -
Instinct picking up the Key
Dropped by memory -

C. 1869 1891


1148


After the Sun comes out
How it alters the World -
Waggons like messengers hurry about
Yesterday is old -

All men meet as if
Each foreclosed a news -
Fresh as a Cargo from Batize
Nature's qualities -

C, 1869 1955


1149


I noticed People disappeared
When but a little child -
Supposed they visited remote
Or settled Regions wild -
Now know I - They both visited
And settled Regions wild
But did because they died
A Fact withheld the little child -

C. 1869 1891
(unfinished)


1150


How many schemes may die
In one short Afternoon
Entirely unknown
To those they most concern -
The man that was not lost
Because by accident
He varied by a Ribbon's width
From his accustomed route -
The Love that would not try
Because beside the Door
It must be competitions
Some unsuspecting Horse was tied
Surveying his Despair

C. 1869 1945


1151


Soul, take thy risk,
with Death to be
Were better than be not
with thee

C. 1869 1945


1152


Tell as a Marksman - were forgotten
Tell - this Day endures
Ruddy as that coeval Apple
The Tradition bears -

Fresh as Mankind that humble story
Though a statelier Tale
Grown in the Repetition hoary
Scarcely would prevail -

Tell had a son - The ones that knew It
Need not linger here -
Those who did not to Human Nature
Will subscribe a Tear -

Tell would not bare his Head
In Presence
Of the Ducal Hat -
Threatened for that with Death - by Gessler -
Tyranny bethought

Make of his only Boy a Target
That surpasses Death -
Stolid to Love's supreme entreaty
Not forsook of Faith -

Mercy of the Almighty begging -
Tell his Arrow sent -
God it is said replies in Person
When the cry is meant -

C. 1869 1945


1153


Through what transports of Patience
I reached the stolid Bliss
To breathe my Blank without thee
Attest me this and this -
By that bleak exultation
I won as near as this
Thy privilege of dying
Abbreviate me this -

C. 1874 1945


1154


A full fed Rose on meals of Tint
A Dinner for a Bee
In process of the Noon became -
Each bright Mortality
The Forfeit is of Creature fair
Itself, adored before
Submitting for our unknown sake
To be esteemed no more -

C. 1870 1955


1155


Distance - is not the Realm of Fox
Nor by Relay of Bird
Abated - Distance is
Until thyself, Beloved.

C. 1870 1914


1156


Lest any doubt that we are glad that they were born Today
Whose having lived is held by us in noble Holiday
without the date, like Consciousness or Immortality -

C. 1870 1932


1157


Some Days retired from the rest
In soft distinction lie
The Day that a Companion came
Or was obliged to die

C. 1870 1914


1158


Best Witchcraft is Geometry
To the magician's mind -
His ordinary acts are feats
To thinking of mankind.

C. 1870 1932


1159


Great Streets of silence led away
To Neighborhoods of Pause -
Here was no Notice - no Dissent
No Universe - no Laws -

By Clocks, 'twas Morning, and for Night
The Bells at Distance called -
But Epoch had no basis here
For Period exhaled.

C. 1870 1891


1160


He is alive, this morning -
He is alive - and awake -
Birds are resuming for Him -
Blossoms - dress for His Sake.
Bees - to their Loaves of Honey
Add an Amber Crumb
Him - to regale - Me - Only -
Motion, and am dumb.

C. 1870 1955


1161


Trust adjusts her "Peradventure" -
Phantoms entered "and not you. "

C. 1870 1931


1162


The Life we have is very great.
The Life that we shall see
Surpasses it, we know, because
It is Infinity.
But when all Space has been beheld
And all Dominion shown
The smallest Human Heart's extent
Reduces it to none.

C. 1870 1945


1163


God made no act without a cause,
Nor heart without an aim,
Our inference is premature,
Our premises to blame.

C. 1870 1894


1164


Were it to be the last
How infinite would be
What we did not suspect was marked -
Our final interview.

C. 1870 1955


1165


Contained in this short Life
Are magical extents
The soul returning soft at night
To steal securer thence
As Children strictest kept
Turn soonest to the sea
Whose nameless Fathoms slink away
Beside infinity

C. 1870 1945


1166



Of Paul and Silas it is said
They were in Prison laid
But when they went to take them out
They were not there instead

Security the same insures
To our assaulted Minds -
The staple must be optional
That an Immortal binds.

C. 1870 1945


1167


Alone and in a Circumstance
Reluctant to be told
A spider on my reticence
Assiduously crawled

And so much more at Home than I
Immediately grew
I felt myself a visitor
And hurriedly withdrew

Revisiting my late abode
with articles of claim
I found it quietly assumed
As a Gymnasium
Where Tax asleep and Title off
The inmates of the Air
Perpetual presumption took
As each were special Heir -
If any strike me on the street
I can return the Blow -
If any take my property
According to the Law
The Statute is my Learned friend
But what redress can be
For an offense nor here nor there
So not in Equity -
That Larceny of time and mind
The marrow of the Day
By spider, or forbid it Lord
That I should specify.

C. 1870 1945


1168


As old as Woe -
How old is that?
Some eighteen thousand years -
As old as Bliss
How old is that
They are of equal years

Together chiefest they are found
But seldom side by side
From neither of them tho' he try
Can Human nature hide

C. 1870 1945


1169


Lest they should come - is all my fear
When sweet incarcerated here

C. 1870 1945


1170


Nature affects to be sedate
Upon occasion, grand
But let our observation shut
Her practices extend -

To Necromancy and the Trades
Remote to understand
Behold our spacious Citizen
Unto a Juggler turned -

C. 1870 1945


1171


On the World you colored
Morning painted rose-
Idle his Vermilion
Aimless crept the Glows
Over Realms of Orchards
I the Day before
Conquered with the Robin -
Misery, how fair
Till your wrinkled Finger
Shored the sun away
Midnight's awful Pattern
In the Goods of Day -

C. 1870 1945


1172


The Clouds their Backs together laid
The North begun to push
The Forests galloped Till they fell
The Lightning played like mice

The Thunder crumbled like a stuff
How good to be in Tombs
Where Nature's Temper cannot reach
Nor missile ever comes

C. 1870 1890


1173


The Lightning is a yellow Fork
From Tables in the sky
By inadvertent fingers dropt
The awful Cutlery

Of mansions never quite disclosed
And never quite concealed
The Apparatus of the Dark
To ignorance revealed.

C. 1870 1945


1174


There's the Battle of Burgoyne -
Over, every Day,
By the Time that Man and Beast
Put their work away
"Sunset" sounds majestic -
But that solemn War
Could you comprehend it
You would chastened stare -

C. 1870 1945


1175


We like a Hairbreadth 'scape
It tingles in the Mind
Far after Act or Accident
Like paragraphs of Wind

If we had ventured less
The Breeze were not so fine
That reaches to our utmost Hair
Its Tentacles divine.

C. 1870 1945


1176


We never know how high we are
Till we are asked to rise
And then if we are true to plan
Our statures touch the skies -

The Heroism we recite
Would be a normal thing
Did not ourselves the Cubits warp
For fear to be a King -

C. 1870 1896


1177


A prompt - executive Bird is the Jay -
Bold as a Bailiff's Hymn -
Brittle and Brief in quality -
Warrant in every line-

Sitting a Bough like a Brigadier
Confident and straight -
Much is the mien of him in March
As a Magistrate -

C. 1865 1914


1178


My God - He sees thee -
Shine thy best -
Fling up thy Balls of Gold
Till every Cubit play with thee
And every Crescent hold -
Elate the Acre at his feet -
Upon his Atom swim -
Oh Sun - but just a Second's right
In thy long Race with him!

C. 1871 1932


1179


Of so divine a Loss
We enter but the Gain,
Indemnity for Loneliness
That such a Bliss has been.

C. 1871 1914


1180


"Remember me" implored the Thief!
Oh Hospitality!
My Guest "Today in Paradise"
I give thee guaranty.

That Courtesy will fair remain
When the Delight is Dust
with which we cite this mightiest case
Of compensated Trust.

Of all we are allowed to hope
But Affidavit stands
That this was due where most we fear
Be unexpected Friends.

C. 1871 1914


1181


When I hoped I feared -
Since I hoped I dared
Everywhere alone
As a Church remain -
Spectre cannot harm -
Serpent cannot charm -
He deposes Doom
Who hath suffered him -

C. 1862 1891


1182


Remembrance has a Rear and Front -
Tis something like a House-
It has a Garret also
For Refuse and the Mouse.

Besides the deepest Cellar
That ever Mason laid -
Look to it by its Fathoms
Ourselves be not pursued -

C. 1871 1896


1183


Step lightly on this narrow spot -
The broadest Land that grows
Is not so ample as the Breast
These Emerald Seams enclose.

Step lofty, for this name be told
As far as Cannon dwell
Or Flag subsist or Fame export
Her deathless Syllable.

C. 1871 1891


1184


The Days that we can spare
Are those a Function die
Or Friend or Nature - stranded then
In our Economy

Our Estimates a Scheme -
Our Ultimates a Sham -
We let go all of Time without
Arithmetic of him -　　　　　　　　　NOTES

C. 1871 1932


1185


A little Dog that wags his tall
And knows no other joy
Of such a little Dog am I
Reminded by a Boy

Who gambols all the living Day
without an earthly cause
Because he is a little Boy
I honestly suppose -

The Cat that in the Corner dwells
Her martial Day forgot
The Mouse but a Tradition now
Of her desireless Lot

Another class remind me
Who neither please nor play
But not to make a "bit of noise"
Beseech each little Boy -

C. 1871 1945


1186


Too few the mornings be,
Too scant the nights.
No lodging can be had
For the delights
That come to earth to stay,
But no apartment find
And ride away.

C. 1871 1894


1187


Oh Shadow on the Grass,
Art thou a Step or not?
Go make thee fair my Candidate
My nominated Heart -
Oh Shadow on the Grass
While I delay to guess
Some other thou wilt consecrate -
Oh Unelected Face -

C. 1871 1929


1188


'Twas fighting for his Life he was -
That sort accomplish well -
The Ordnance of Vitality
Is frugal of its Ball.
It aims once - kills once - conquers once -
There is no second War
In that Campaign inscrutable
Of the Interior.

C. 1871 1945


1189


The Voice that stands for Floods to me
Is sterile borne to some -
The Face that makes the Morning mean
Glows Impotent on them -

What difference in Substance lies
That what is Sum to me
By other Financiers be deemed
Exclusive Poverty!

C. 1871 1945


1190


The Sun and Fog contested
The Government of Day -
The Sun took down his Yellow Whip
And drove the Fog away -

C. 1871 1945


1191


The pungent atom in the Air
Admits of no debate -
All that is named of Summer Days
Relinquished our Estate -

For what Department of Delight
As positive are we
As Limit of Dominion
Or Dams - of Ecstasy -

C. 187I 1945


1192


An honest Tear
Is durabler than Bronze -
This Cenotaph
May each that dies -

Reared by Itself -
No Deputy suffice -
Gratitude bears
When Obelisk decays

C. 1871 1945


1193


All men for Honor hardest work
But are not known to earn -
Paid after they have ceased to work
In Infamy or Urn -

C. 1871 1945


1194


Somehow myself survived the Night
And entered with the Day -
That it be saved the Saved suffice
without the Formula.

Henceforth I take my living place
As one commuted led -
A Candidate for Morning Chance
But dated with the Dead.

C. I871 1935


1195


What we see we know somewhat
Be it but a little -
What we don't surmise we do
Though it shows so fickle
I shall vote for Lands with Locks
Granted I can pick' em -
Transport's doubtful Dividend
Patented by Adam.

C. 1871 1945


1196


To make Routine a Stimulus
Remember it can cease-
Capacity to Terminate
Is a Specific Grace -
Of Retrospect the Arrow
That power to repair
Departed with the Torment
Become, alas, more fair -

C. 1871 1947


1197


I should not dare to be so sad
So many Years again -
A Load is first impossible
When we have put it down -

The Superhuman then withdraws
And we who never saw
The Giant at the other side
Begin to perish now.

C. 1871 1929


1198


A soft Sea washed around the House
A Sea of Summer Air
And rose and fell the magic Planks
That sailed without a care -
For Captain was the Butterfly
For Helmsman was the Bee
And an entire universe
For the delighted crew.

C. 1871 1945


1199


Are Friends Delight or Pain?
Could Bounty but remain
Riches were good -

But if they only stay
Ampler to fly away
Riches are sad.

C. 1871 1896


1200


Because my Brook is fluent
I know 'tis dry -
Because my Brook is silent
It is the Sea -

And startled at its rising
I try to flee
To where the Strong assure me
Is "no more Sea" -

C. 1871 1945


1201


So I pull my Stockings off
Wading in the Water
For the Disobedience' Sake
Boy that lived for "or'ter"

Went to Heaven perhaps at Death
And perhaps he didn't
Moses wasn't fairly used-
Ananias wasn't -　　　　　　　　NOTES

C. 1871 1945


1202


The Frost was never seen -
If met, too rapid passed,
Or in too unsubstantial Team -
The Flowers notice first

A Stranger hovering round
A Symptom of alarm
In Villages remotely set
But search effaces him

Till some retrieveless Night
Our Vigilance at waste
The Garden gets the only shot
That never could be traced

Unproved is much we know -
Unknown the worst we fear -
Of Strangers is the Earth the Inn
Of Secrets is the Air-

To analyze perhaps
A Philip would prefer
But Labor vaster than myself
I find it to infer.

C. 1871 1945


1203


The Past is such a curious Creature
To look her in the Face
A Transport may receipt us
Or a Disgrace -

Unarmed if any meet her
I charge him fly
Her faded Ammunition
Might yet reply.

C. 1871 1896


1204


Whatever it is - she has tried It -
Awful Father of Love -
Is not Ours the chastising -
Do not chastise the Dove -

Not for Ourselves, petition -
Nothing is left to pray -
When a subject is finished -
Words are handed away -

Only lest she be lonely
In thy beautiful House
Give her for her Transgression
License to think of us -

C. 1871 1945


1205


lmmortal is an ample word
When what we need is by
But when it leaves us for a time
'Tis a necessity.

Of Heaven above the firmest proof
We fundamental know
Except for its marauding Hand
It had been Heaven below.

C. 1872 1896


1206


The Show is not the Show
But they that go -
Menagerie to me
My Neighbor be -
Fair Play -
Both went to see -


C. 1872 1891


1207


He preached upon "Breadth" till it argued him narrow -
The Broad are too broad to define
And of "Truth" until it proclaimed him a liar -
The Truth never Haunted a Sign -

Simplicity fled from his counterfeit presence
As Gold the Pyrites would shun -
What confusion would cover the innocent Jesus
To meet so enabled a Man!

C. 1872 1891


1208


Our Own possessions - though our own -
Tis well to hoard anew -
Remembering the Dimensions
Of Possibility.

C. 1872 1894


1209


To disappear enhances -
The Man that runs away
Is tinctured for an instant
With Immortality

But yesterday a Vagrant -
Today in Memory lain
With superstitious value
We tamper with "Again"

But "Never" far as Honor
Withdraws the Worthless thing
And impotent to cherish
We hasten to adorn -

Of Death the sternest function
That just as we discern
The Excellence defies us -
Securest gathered then

The Fruit perverse to plucking,
But leaning to the Sight
With the ecstatic limit
Of unobtained Delight -

C. 1872 1894


1210


The Sea said "Come" to the Brook-
The Brook said "Let me grow" -
The Sea said "Then you will be a Sea -
I want a Brook - Come now"!

The Sea said "Go" to the Sea -
The Sea said "I am he
You cherished" - "Learned Waters -
Wisdom is stale - to Me"

C. 1872 1947


1211


A Sparrow took a Slice of Twig
And thought it very nice
I think, because his empty Plate
Was handed Nature twice

Invigorated, waded
In all the deepest Sky
Until his little Figure
Was forfeited away -　　　　　NOTES

C. 1872 1945


1212


A word is dead
When it is said.,
Some say.

I say it just
Begins to live
That day.

C. 1872 1894


1213


We like March.
His Shoes are Purple-
He is new and high -
Makes he Mud for Dog and Peddler,
Makes he Forests dry.
Knows the Adder Tongue his coming
And presents her Spot -
Stands the Sun so close and mighty
That our Minds are hot

News is he of all the others-
Bold it were to die
with the Blue Birds exercising
On his British Sky.

version of 1872 1955

We like March - his shoes are Purple.
He is new and high -
Makes he Mud for Dog and Peddler -
Makes he Forests Dry -
Knows the Adder's Tongue his coming
And begets her spot -
Stands the Sun so close and mighty -
That our Minds are hot
News is he of all the others -
Bold it were to die
with the Blue Birds buccaneering
On his British sky

version of 1878 1896


1214


We introduce ourselves
To Planets and to Flowers
But with ourselves
Have etiquettes
Embarrassments
And awes

C. 1872 1945


1215


I bet with every Wind that blew
Till Nature in chagrin
Employed a Fact to visit me
And scuttle my Balloon -

C. 1872 1914


1216


A Deed knocks first at Thought
And then - It knocks at will -
That is the manufacturing spot
And will at Home and well

It then goes out an Act
Or is entombed so still
That only to the ear of God
Its Doom is audible -

C. 1872 1891


1217


Fortitude incarnate
Here is laid away
In the swift Partitions
Of the awful Sea -

Babble of the Happy
Cavil of the Bold
Hoary the Fruition
But the Sea is old

Edifice of Ocean
Thy tumultuous Rooms
Suit me at a venture
Better than the Tombs

C. 1872 1945


1218


Let my first Knowing be of thee
With morning's warming Light -
And my first Fearing, lest Unknowns
Engulf thee in the night -

C. 1878 1945


1219


Now I knew I lost her -
Not that she was gone -
But Remoteness travelled
On her Face and Tongue.

Alien, though adjoining
As a Foreign Race -
Traversed she though pausing
Latitudeless Place.

Elements Unaltered -
Universe the same
But Love's transmigration -
Somehow this had come -

Henceforth to remember
Nature took the Day
I had paid so much for -
His is Penury
Not who tolls for Freedom
Or for Family
But the Restitution
Of Idolatry.

C. 1872 1945


1220


Of Nature I shall have enough
When I have entered these
Entitled to a Bumble bee's
Familiarities.

C. 1872 1945


1221


Some we see no more, Tenements of Wonder
Occupy to us though perhaps to them
Simpler are the Days than the Supposition
Their removing Manners
Leave us to presume

That oblique Belief which we call Conjecture
Grapples with a Theme stubborn as Sublime
Able as the Dust to equip its feature
Adequate as Drums
To enlist the Tomb

C. 1872 1945


1222


The Riddle we can guess
We speedily despise -
Not anything is stale so long
As Yesterday's surprise-

C. 1870 1945


1223


Who goes to dine must take his Feast
Or find the Banquet mean -
The Table is not laid without
Till it is laid within.
For Pattern is the Mind bestowed
That imitating her
Our most Ignoble Services
Exhibit worthier.

C. 1872 1945


1224


Like Trains of Cars on Tracks of Plush
I hear the level Bee -
A Jar across the Flowers goes
Their Velvet Masonry

Withstands until the sweet Assault
Their Chivalry consumes-
While He, victorious tilts away
To vanquish other Blooms.

C. 1872 1890


1225


Its Hour with Itself
The Spirit never shows.
What Terror would enthrall the Street
Could Countenance disclose

The Subterranean Freight
The Cellars of the Soul-
Thank God the loudest Place he made
Is licensed to be still.

C. 1872 1929


1226


The Popular Heart is a Cannon first -
Subsequent a Drum -
Bells for an Auxiliary
And an Afterward of Rum -

Not a Tomorrow to know its name
Nor a Past to stare -
Ditches for Realms and a Trip to Jail
For a Souvenir -

C. 1872 1929


1227


My Triumph lasted Till the Drums
Had left the Dead alone
And then I dropped my Victory
And chastened stole along
To where the finished Faces
Conclusion turned on me
And then I hated Glory
And wished myself were They.

What is to be is best descried
When it has also been -
Could Prospect taste of Retrospect
The tyrannies of Men
Were Tenderer - diviner
The Transitive toward.
A Bayonet's contrition
Is nothing to the Dead.

C. 1872 1935


1228


So much of Heaven has gone from Earth
That there must be a Heaven
If only to enclose the Saints
To Affidavit given.

The Missionary to the Mole
Must prove there is a Sky
Location doubtless he would plead
But what excuse have I?

Too much of Proof affronts Belief
The Turtle will not try
Unless you leave him - then return
And he has hauled away.

C. 1872 1947


1229


Because He loves Her
We will pry and see if she is fair
What difference is on her Face
From Features others wear.

It will not harm her magic pace
That we so far behind -
Her Distances propitiate
As Forests touch the Wind

Not hoping for his notice vast
But nearer to adore
'Tis Glory's far sufficiency
That makes our trying poor.

C. 1872 1945


1230


It came at last but prompter Death
Had occupied the House -
His pallid Furniture arranged
And his metallic Peace -

Oh faithful Frost that kept the Date
Had Love as punctual been
Delight had aggrandized the Gate
And blocked the coming in.

C. 1872 1945


1231


Somewhere upon the general Earth
Itself exist Today -
The Magic passive but extant
That consecrated me -

Indifferent Seasons doubtless play
Where I for right to be -
Would pay each Atom that I am
But Immortality -

Reserving that but just to prove
Another Date of Thee -
Oh God of Width, do not for us
Curtail Eternity!

C. 1872 1945


1232


The Clover's simple Fame
Remembered of the Cow -
Is better than enameled Realms
Of notabilty.
Renown perceives itself
And that degrades the Flower -
The Daisy that has looked behind
Has compromised its power-

C. 1872 1945


1233


Had I not seen the Sun
I could have borne the shade
But Light a newer Wilderness
My Wilderness has made-

C. 1872 1945


1234


If my Bark sink
'Tis to another sea -
Mortality's Ground Floor
Is Immortality -

C. 1872 1945


1235


Like Rain it sounded till it curved
And then I knew 'twas Wind -
It walked as wet as any Wave
But swept as dry as sand -
When it had pushed itself away
To some remotest Plain
A coming as of Hosts was heard
That was indeed the Rain -
It filled the Wells, it pleased the Pools
It warbled in the Road -
It pulled the spigot from the Hills
And let the Floods abroad -
It loosened acres, lifted seas
The sItes of Centres stirred
Then like Elijah rode away
Upon a Wheel of Cloud.

C. 1872 1945


1236


Like Time's insidious wrinkle
On a beloved Face
We clutch the Grace the tighter
Though we resent the crease

The Frost himself so comely
Dishevels every prime
Asserting from his Prism
That none can punish him

C. 1872 1945


1237


My Heart ran so to thee
It would not wait for me
And I affronted grew
And drew away
For whatsoe' er my pace
He first achieve thy Face
How general a Grace
Allotted two -

Not in malignity
Mentioned I this to thee -
Had he obliquity
Soonest to share
But for the Greed of him -
Boasting my Premium -
Basking In Bethlehem
Ere I be there -

C. 1878 1945


1238


Power is a familiar growth -
Not foreign - not to be -
Beslde us like a bland Abyss
In every company-
Escape it - there is but a chance -
When consciousness and clay
Lean forward for a final glance -
Disprove that and you may -

C. 1872 1945


1239


Risk is the Hair that holds the Tun
Seductive in the Air -
That Tun is hollow - but the Tun -
With Hundred Weights - to spare -

Too ponderous to suspect the snare
Espies that fickle chair
And seats itself to be let go
By that perfidious Hair -

The "foolish Tun" the Critics say -
While that delusive Hair
Persuasive as Perdition,
Decoys its Traveller.

C. 1872 1945


1240


The Beggar at the Door for Fame
Were easily supplied
But Bread is that Diviner thing
Disclosed to be denied

C. 1872 1945


1241


The Lilac is an ancient shrub
But ancienter than that
The Firmamental Lilac
Upon the Hill tonight -
The Sun subsiding on his Course
Bequeaths this final Plant
To Contemplation - not to Touch -
The Flower of Occident
Of one Corolla is the West -
The Calyx is the Earth -
The Capsules burnished Seeds the Stars
The Scientist of Faith
His research has but just begun -
Above his synthesis
The Flora unimpeachable
To Time's Analysis -
"Eye hath not seen" may possibly
Be current with the Blind
But let not Revelation
By theses be detained -

C. 1872 1945


1242


To flee from memory
Had we the Wings
Many would fly
Inured to slower things
Birds with surprise
Would scan the cowering Van
Of men escaping
From the mind of man

C. 1872 1945


1243


Safe Despair it is that raves-
Agony is frugal.
Puts itself severe away
For its own perusal.

Garrisoned no Soul can be
In the Front of Trouble -
Love is one, not aggregate -
Nor is Dying double -

C. 1873 1914


1244


The Butterfly's Assumption Gown
In Chrysoprase Apartments hung
This afternoon put on -

How condescending to descend
And be of Buttercups the friend
In a New England Town -

C. 1873 1890


1245


The Suburbs of a Secret
A Strategist should keep,
Better than on a Dream intrude
To scrutinize the Sleep.

C. 1873 1914


1246


The Butterfly in honored Dust
Assuredly will lie
But none will pass the Catacomb
So chastened as the FIy -

C. 1873 1915


1247


To pile like Thunder to its close
Then crumble grand away
While Everything created hid
This - would be Poetry -

Or Love - the two coeval come-
We both and neither prove -
Experience either and consume -
For None see God and live -

C. 1873 1914


1248


The incidents of love
Are more than its Events-
Investment's best Expositor
Is the minute Per Cents -

C. 1873 1914


1249


The Stars are old, that stood for me -
The West a little worn -
Yet newer glows the only Gold
I ever cared to earn -

Presuming on that lone result
Her infinite disdain
But vanquished her with my defeat
'Twas Victory was slain.

C. 1873 1914


1250


White as an Indian Pipe
Red as a Cardinal Flower
Fabulous as a Moon at Noon
February Hour-

C. 1873 1914


1251


Silence is all we dread.
There's Ransom in a Voice -
But Silence is Infinity.
Himself have not a face.

C. 1873 1932


1252


Like Brooms of Steel
The Snow and Wind
Had swept the Winter Street -
The House was hooked
The Sun sent out
Faint Deputies of Heat -
Where rode the Bird
The Silence tied
His ample - plodding Steed
The Apple in the Cellar snug
Was all the one that played.

C. 1873 1914


1253


Had this one Day not been,
Or could it cease to be
How smitten, how superfluous,
Were every other Day!

Lest Love should value less
What Loss would value more
Had it the stricken privilege,
It cherishes before.

C. 1873 1914


1254


Elijah's Wagon knew no thill
Was innocent of Wheel
Elijah's horses as unique
As was his vehicle -

Elijah's journey to portray
Expire with him the skill
Who justified Elijah
In feats inscrutable -

C. 1873 1914


1255


Longing is like the Seed
That wrestles in the Ground,
Believing if it intercede
It shall at length be found.

The Hour, and the Clime -
Each Circumstance unknown,
What Constancy must be achieved
Before it see the Sun!

C. 1873 1929


1256


Not any higher stands the Grave
For Heroes than for Men -
Not any nearer for the Child
Than numb Three Score and Ten -

This latest Leisure equal lulls
The Beggar and his Queen
Propitiate this Democrat
A Summer's Afternoon -

C. 1873 1896


1257


Dominion lasts until obtained -
Possession just as long -
But these - endowing as they Hit
Eternally belong.

How everlasting are the Lips
Known only to the Dew -
These are the Brides of permanence
Supplanting me and you.

C. 1873 1932


1258


Who were "the Father and the Son"
We pondered when a child,
And what had they to do with us
And when portentous told

With inference appalling
By Childhood fortified
We thought, at least they are no worse
Than they have been described.

Who are "the Father and the Son"
Did we demand Today
"The Father and the Son" himself
Would doubtless specify -

But had they the felicity
When we desired to know,
We better Friends had been, perhaps,
Than time ensue to be-

We start - to learn that we believe
But once - entlrely -
Belief, it does not fit so well
When altered frequently -

We blush, that Heaven if we achieve -
Event ineffable -
We shall have shunned until ashamed
To own the Miracle -

C. 1873 1914


1259


A Wind that rose
Though not a Leaf
In any Forest stirred
But with itself did cold engage
Beyond the Realm of Bird -
A Wind that woke a lone Delight
Like Separation's Swell
Restored in Arctic Confidence
To the Invisible -

C. 1873 1932


1260


Because that you are going
And never coming back
And I, however absolute,
May overlook your Track -

Because that Death is final,
However first it be,
This instant be suspended
Above Mortality -

Significance that each has lived
The other to detect
Discovery not God himself
Could now annihilate

Eternity, Presumption
The Instant I perceive
That you, who were Existence
Yourself forgot to live -

The "Life that is" will then have been
A thing I never knew -
As Paradise fictitious
Until the Realm of you-

The "Life that is to be," to me,
A Residence too plain
Unless in my Redeemer's Face
I recognize your own -

Of Immortality who doubts
He may exchange with me
Curtailed by your obscuring Face
Of everything but He -

Of Heaven and Hell I also yield
The Right to reprehend
To whoso would commute this Face
For his less priceless Friend.

If "God is Love" as he admits
We think that he must be
Because he is a "jealous God"
He tells us certainly

If "All is possible with" him
As he besides concedes
He will refund us finally
Our confiscated Gods -

C. 1873


1261


A Word dropped careless on a Page
May stimulate an eye
When folded in perpetual seam
The Wrinkled Maker lie

Infection in the sentence breeds
We may inhale Despair
At distances of Centuries
From the Malaria -

C. 1873 1947


1262


I cannot see my soul but know 'tis there
Nor ever saw his house nor furniture,
Who has invited me with him to dwell;
But a confiding guest consult as well,
What raiment honor him the most,
That I be adequately dressed,
For he insures to none
Lest men specifical adorn
Procuring him perpetual drest
By dating it a sudden feast.

C. 1873 1894


1263


There is no Frigate like a Book
To take us Lands away
Nor any Coursers like a Page
Of prancing Poetry -
This Traverse may the poorest take
Without oppress of Toll -
How frugal is the Chariot
That bears the Human soul.

C. 1873 1894


1264


This is the place they hoped before,
Where I am hoping now.
The seed of disappointment grew
Within a capsule gay,
Too distant to arrest the feet
That walk this plank of balm -
Before them lies escapeless sea -
The way is closed they came.

C. 1873 1894


1265


The most triumphant Bird I ever knew or met
Embarked upon a twig today
And Till Dominion set
I famish to behold so eminent a sight
And sang for nothing scrutable
But intimate Delight.
Retired, and resumed his transitive Estate -
To what delicious Accident
Does finest Glory fit!

C. 1873 1894


1266


When Memory is full
Put on the perfect Lid -
This Morning's finest syllable
Presumptuous Evening said -

C. 1873 1951


1267


I saw that the Flake was on it
But plotted with Time to dispute -
"Unchanged" I urged with a candor
That cost me my honest Heart -

But "you" - she returned with valor
Sagacious of my mistake
"Have altered - Accept the pillage
For the progress' sake" -

C. 1873 1915


1268


ConfirmIng All who analyze
In the Opinion fair
That Eloquence is when the Heart
Has not a Voice to spare -

C. 1873 1932


1269


I worked for chaff and earning Wheat
Was haughty and betrayed.
What right had Fields to arbitrate
In matters ratified?
I tasted Wheat and hated Chaff
And thanked the ample friend -
Wisdom is more becoming viewed
At distance than at hand.

C. 1873 1896


1270


Is Heaven a Physician?
They say that He can heal -
But Medicine Posthumous
Is unavailable -
Is Heaven an Exchequer?
They speak of what we owe -
But that negotiation
I'm not a Party to -


1271


September's Baccalaureate
A combination is
Of Crickets - Crows - and Retrospects
And a dissembling Breeze

That hints without assuming -
An Innuendo sear
That makes the Heart put up Its Fun
And turn Philosopher.

C. 1873 1892


1272


So proud she was to die
It made us all ashamed
That what we cherished, so unknown
To her desire seemed -
So satisfied to go
Where none of us should be
Immediately - that Anguish stooped
Almost to Jealousy -

C. 1873 1896


1273


That sacred Closet when you sweep -
Entitled "Memory" -
Select a reverential Broom -
And do it silently.

'Twill be a Labor of surprise -
Besides Identity
Of other Interlocutors
A probability -

August the Dust of that Domain -
Unchallenged - let it lie -
You cannot supersede itself
But it can silence you -

C. 1873 1945


1274


The Bone that has no Marrow,
What Ultimate for that?
It is not fit for Table
For Beggar or for Cat.

A Bone has obligations -
A Being has the same -
A Marrowless Assembly
Is culpabler than shame.

But how shall finished Creatures
A function fresh obtain?
Old Nicodemus' Phantom
Confronting us again!

C. 1873 1896


1275


The Spider as an Artist
Has never been employed -
Though his surpassing Merit
Is freely certified

By every Broom and Bridget
Throughout a Christian Land -
Neglected Son of Genius
I take thee by the Hand -

C. 1873 1896


1276


'Twas later when the Summer went
Than when the Cricket came -
And yet we knew that gentle Clock
Meant nought but Going Home -
'Twas sooner when the Cricket went
Than when the Winter came
Yet that pathetic Pendulum
Keeps esoteric Time.

C. 1873 1890


1277


While we were fearing it, it came -
But came with less of fear
Because that fearing it so long
Had almost made it fair -

There is a Fitting - a Dismay -
A Fitting - a Despair -
'Tis harder knowing it is Due
Than knowing it is Here.

The Trying on the Utmost
The Morning it is new
Is Terribler than wearing it
A whole existence through.

C. 1873 1896


1278


The Mountains stood in Haze -
The Valleys stopped below
And went or waited as they liked
The River and the Sky.

At leisure was the Sun -
His interests of Fire
A little from remark withdrawn -
The Twilght spoke the Spire,

So soft upon the Scene
The Act of evening fell
We felt how neighborly a Thing
Was the InvisIble
.
C. 1873 1945


1279


The Way to know the Bobolink
From every other Bird
Precisely as the Joy of him -
Obliged to be inferred.

Of impudent Habiliment
Attired to defy,
Impertinence subordinate
At times to Majesty

Of Sentiments seditious
Amenable to Law -
As Heresies of Transport
Or Puck's Apostacy.

Extrinsic to Attention
Too intimate with Joy -
He compliments existence
Until allured away

By Seasons or his Children -
Adult and urgent grown -
Or unforeseen aggrandizement
Or, happily, Renown -

By Contrast certifying
The Bird of Birds is gone -
How nullified the Meadow -
Her Sorcerer withdrawn!

C. 1873


1280


The harm of Years is on him -
The infamy of Time -
Depose him like a Fashion
And give Dominion room.

Forget his Morning Forces -
The Glory of Decay
Is a minuter Pageant
Than least Vitality.

C. 1873 1945


1281


A stagnant pleasure like a Pool
That lets its Rushes grow
Until they heedless tumble in
And make the Water slow

Impeding navigation bright
Of Shadows going down
Yet even this shall rouse itself
When freshets come along

C. 1873 1945


1282


Art thou the thing I wanted?
Begone - my Tooth has grown -
Supply the minor Palate
That has not starved so long -
I tell thee While I waited
The mystery of Food
Increased Till I abjured it
And dine without like God -

rough draft I

Art thou the thing I wanted?
Begone - my Tooth has grown -
Affront a minor palate
Thou could'st not goad so long -

I tell thee While I waited -
The mystery of Food
Increased Till I abjured it
Subsisting now like God -

rough draft 11

C. 1873 1945


1283


Could Hope inspect her Basis
Her Craft were done -
Has a fictitious Charter
Or it has none -

Balked in the vastest instance
But to renew -
Felled by but one assassin-
Prosperity -

C. 1873 1945


1284


Had we our senses
But perhaps 'tis well they're not at Home
So intimate with Madness
He's liable with them

Had we the eyes within our Head -
How well that we are Blind -
We could not look upon the Earth -
So utterly unmoved -

C. 1873 1945


1285


I know Suspense - it steps so terse
And turns so weak away -
Besides - Suspense is neighborly
When I am riding by -

Is always at the Window
Though lately I descry
And mention to my Horses
The need is not of me -


C. 1873 1945


1286


I thought that nature was enough
Till Human nature came
But that the other did absorb
As Parallax a Flame -

Of Human nature just aware
There added the Divine
Brief struggle for capacity
The power to contain

Is always as the contents
But give a Giant room
And you will lodge a Giant
And not a smaller man

C. 1873 1945


1287


In this short Life
That only lasts an hour
How much - how little - is
Within our power

C. 1873 1945


1288


Lain in Nature - so suffice us
The enchantless Pod
When we advertise existence
For the missing Seed -

Maddest Heart that God created
Cannot move a sod
Pasted by the simple summer
On the Longed for Dead

C. 1873 1945


1289


Left in immortal Youth
On that low Plain
That hath nor Retrospection
Nor Again -
Ransomed from years-
Sequestered from Decay
Canceled like Dawn
In comprehenslve Day -

C. 1873 1945


1290


The most pathetlc thing I do
Is play I hear from you -
I make believe until my Heart
Almost believes it too
But when I break it with the news
You knew it was not true
I wish I had not broken it-
Goliah - so would you -

C. 1873 1945


1291


Until the Desert knows
That Water grows
His Sands suffice
But let him once suspect
That Caspian Fact
Sahara dies

Utmost is relative -
Have not or Have
Adjacent sums
Enough - the first Abode
On the familiar Road
Galloped in Dreams -

C. 1873 1945


1292


Yesterday is History,
'Tis so far away -
Yesterday is Poetry -
'Tis Philosophy -
Yesterday is mystery -
Where it is Today
While we shrewdly speculate
Flutter both away

C. 1873 1945


1293


The things we thought that we should do
We other things have done
But those peculiar industries
Have never been begun -

The Lands we thought that we should seek
When large enough to run
By Speculation ceded
To Speculation's Son -

The Heaven, in which we hoped to pause
When Discipline was done
Untenable to Logic
But possibly the one -

C. 1874 1931


1294


Of Life to own -
From Life to draw -
But never touch the reservoir -

C. 1874 193


1295


Two Lengths has every Day -
Its absolute extent
And Area superior
By Hope or Horror lent -

Eternity will be
Velocity or Pause
At Fundamental Signals
From Fundamental Laws

To die is not to go -
On Doom's consummate Chart
No Territory new is staked -
Remain thou as thou art.

C. 1874 1914


1296


Death's Waylaying not the sharpest
Of the thefts of Time -
There Marauds a sorer Robber,
Silence - is his name -

No Assault, nor any Menace
Doth betoken him
But from Life's consummate Cluster -
He supplants the Balm.

C. 1874 1931


1297


Go slow, my soul, to feed thyself
Upon his rare approach -
Go rapid, lest Competing Death
Prevail upon the Coach -
Go timid, should his final eye
Determine thee amiss -
Go boldly - for thou paid'st his price
Redemption - for a Kiss -

C. 1874 1894


1298


The Mushroom is the Elf of Plants -
At Evening, it is not -
At Morning in a Truffled Hut
It stop upon a Spot

As if it tarried always
And yet its whole Career
Is shorter than a Snake's Delay
And fleeter than a Tare-

'Tis Vegetation's Juggler-
The Germ of Alibi -
Doth like a Bubble antedate
And like a Bubble, hie -

I feel as if the Grass was pleased
To have it interrnit-
This surreptitious scion
Of Summer's circumspect.

Had Nature any supple Face
Or could she one con temn -
Had Nature an Apostate -
That Mushroom - It is Him!

C. 1874 1891


1299


Delight's Despair at setting
Is that Delight is less
Than the sufficing Longing
That so impoverish.

Enchantment's Perihelion
Mistaken oft has been
For the Authentic orbit
Of its Anterior Sun.

C. 1874 1945


1300


From his slim Palace in the Dust
He relegates the Realm,
More loyal for the exody
That has befallen him.

C. 1874 1945


1301


I cannot want it more -
I cannot want it less-
My Human Nature's fullest force
Expends Itself on this

And yet it nothing is
To him who easy owns is
Worth Itself or Distance
He fathoms who obtains.

C. 1874 1945


1302


I think that the Root of the Wind is Water -
It would not sound so deep
Were it a Firmamental Product -
Airs no Oceans keep -
Mediterranean intonations -
To a Current's Ear -
There is a maritime conviction
In the Atmosphere-

C. 1874 1914


1303


Not One by Heaven defrauded stay -
Although he seem to steal
He restitutes in some sweet way
Secreted in his will -

C. 1874 1914


1304


Not with a Club, the Heart is broken
Nor with a Stone -
A Whip so small you could not see it
I've known

To lash the Magic Creature
Till it fell,
Yet that Whip's Name
Too noble then to tell.

Magnanimous as Bird
By Boy descried-
Singing unto the Stone
Of which it died -

Shame need not crouch
In such an Earth as Ours -
Shame - stand erect -
The Universe is yours.

C. 1874 1896


1305


Recollect the Face of me
When in thy Felicity,
Due in Paradise today
Guest of mine assuredly -

Other Courtesies have been -
Other Courtesy may be -
We commend ourselves to thee
Paragon of Chivalry.

C. 1874 1945


1306


Surprise is like a thrilling - pungent-
Upon a tasteless meat
Alone - too acrid - but combined
An edible Delight.

C. 1874 1945


1307


That short - potential stir
That each can make but once -
That Bustle so illustrious
'Tis almost Consequence -

Is the eclat of Death -
Oh, thou unknown Renown
That not a Beggar would accept
Had he the power to spurn -

C. 1874 1890


1308


The Day she goes
Or Day she stays
Are equally supreme -
Existence has a stated Width
Departed, or at Home -

C. 1874 1945


1309


The Infinite a sudden Guest
Has been assumed to be -
But how can that stupendous come
Which never went away?

C. 1874 1945


1310


The Notice that is called the Spring
Is but a month from here -
Put up my Heart thy Hoary work
And take a Rosy Chair.

Not any House the Flowers keep -
The Birds enamor Care -
Our salary the longest Day
Is nothing but a Bier.

C. 1874 1945


1311


This dirty - little - Heart
Is freely mine
I won it with a Bun -
A Freckled shrine -

But eligibly fair
To him who sees
The Visage of the Soul
And not the knees.

C. 1874 1945


1312


To break so vast a Heart
Required a Blow as vast -
No Zephyr felled this Cedar straight -
'Twas undeserved Blast -

C. 1874 1945


1313


Warm in her Hand these accents lie
While faithful and afar
The Grace so awkward for her sake
Its fond subjection wear -

C. 1874 1945


1314


When a Lover is a Beggar
Abject is his Knee -
When a Lover is an Owner
Different is he -

What he begged is then the Beggar -
Oh disparity -
Bread of Heaven resents bestowal
Like an obloquy -

C. 1878 1945


1315


Which is the best - the Moon or the Crescent?
Neither - said the Moon -
That is best which is not - Achieve it -
You efface the Sheen.

Not of detention is Fruition -
Shudder to attain.
Transport's decomposition follows -
He is Prism born.

C. 1874 1945


1316


Winter is good - his Hoar Delights
Italic flavor Yield -
To Intellects inebriate
With Summer, or the World -

Generic as a Quarry
And hearty - as a Rose -
Invited with Asperity
But welcome when he goes.

C. 1874 1945


1317


Abraham to kill him
Was distinctly told -
Isaac was an Urchin -
Abraham was old -

Not a hesitation -
Abraham complied -
Flattered by Obeisance
Tyranny demurred-

Isaac - to his children
Lived to tell the tale -
Moral - with a Mastiff
Manners may prevail.

C. 1874 1945


1318


Frigid and sweet Her parting Face -
Frigid and fleet my Feet-
Alien and vain whatever Clime
Acrid whatever Fate.

Given to me without the Suit
Riches and Name and Realm -
Who was She to withhold from me
Penury and Home?

C. 1874 1945


1319


How News must feel when travelling
If News have any Heart
Alighting at the Dwelling
'T will enter like a Dart!

What News must think when pondering
If News have any Thought
Concerning the stupendousness
Of its perceiveless freight!

What News will do when every Man
Shall comprehend as one
And not in all the Universe
A thing to tell remain?

C. 1874 1945


1320


Dear March - Come in -
How glad I am -
I hoped for you before -
Put down your Hat -
You must have walked -
How out of Breath you are-
Dear March, how are you, and the Rest -
Did you leave Nature well-
Oh March, Come right up stairs with me -
I have so much to tell -

I got your Letter, and the Birds -
The Maples never knew that you were coming - Till I called
I declare - how Red their Faces grew -
But March, forgive me - and
All those Hills you left for me to Hue -
There was no Purple suitable -
You took it all with you -

Who knocks? That April.
Lock the Door-
I will not be pursued -
He stayed away a Year to call
When I am occupied -
But trifles look so trivial
As soon as you have come

That Blame is just as dear as Praise
And Praise as mere as Blame -

C. 1874 1896


1321


Elizabeth told Essex
That she could not forgive
The clemency of Deity
However - might survive -
That secondary succor
We trust that she partook
When suing - like her Essex
For a reprieving Look -

C. 1874 1945


1322


Floss won't save you from an Abyss
But a Rope will -
Notwithstanding a Rope for a Souvenir
Is not beautiful -

But I tell you every step is a Trough -
And every stop a Well -
Now will you have the Rope or the Floss?
Prices reasonable -

C. 1874 1945


1323


I never hear that one is dead
Without the chance of Life
Afresh annihilating me
That mightiest Belief,

Too mighty for the Daily mind
That Tilling its abyss,
Had Madness, had it once or twice
The yawning Consciousness,

Beliefs are Bandaged, like the Tongue
When Terror were it told
In any Tone commensurate
Would strike us instant Dead

I do not know the man so bold
He dare in lonely Place
That awful stranger Consciousness
Deliberately face

C. 1874 1945


1324


I send you a decrepit flower
That nature sent to me
At parting - she was going south
And I designed to stay -

Her motive for the souvenir
If sentiment for me
Or circumstance prudential
Withheld invincibly -

C. 1874 1945


1325


Knock with tremor -
These are Caesars -
Should they be at Home
Flee as if you trod unthinking
On the Foot of Doom -

These receded to accostal
Centuries ago -
Should they rend you with "How are you"
What have you to show?

C. 1874 1945


1326


Our little secrets slink away -
Beside God's shall not tell -
He kept his word a Trillion years
And might we not as well -
But for the niggardly delight
To make each other stare
Is there no sweet beneath the sun
With this that may compare -

C. 1874 1945


1327


The Symptom of the Gale -
The Second of Dismay -
Between its Rumor and its Face -
Is almost Revelry -

The Houses firmer root -
The Heavens cannot be found -
The Upper Surfaces of things
Take covert in the Ground -

The Mem'ry of the Sun
Not Any can recall -
Although by Nature's sterling Watch
So scant an interval -

And when the Noise is caught
And Nature looks around -
"We dreamed it"? She interrogates -
"Good Morning" - We propound?

C. 1874 1955


1328


The vastest earthly Day
Is shrunken small
By one Defaulting Face
Behind a Pall -

C. 1874 1945


1329


Whether they have forgotten
Or are forgetting now
Or never remembered -
Safer not to know -

Miseries of conjecture
Axe a softer woe
Than a Fact of Iron
Hardened with I know -

C. 1874 1945


1330


Without a smile - without a Throe
A Summer's soft Assemblies go
To their entrancing end
Unknown - for all the times we met -
Estranged, however intimate -
What a dissembling Friend -

C. 1874 1945


1331


Wonder - is not preclsely Knowing
And not precisely Knowing not -
A beautiful but bleak conditlon
He has not lived who has not felt -

Suspense - is his maturer Sister -
Whether Adult Delight is Pain
Or of itself a new misgiving -
This is the Gnat that mangles men -

C. 1874 1945


1332


Pink - small - and punctual -
Aromatic - low -
Covert - in April -
Candid - in May -
Dear to the Moss -
Known to the Knoll -
Next to the Robin
In every human Soul -
Bold little Beauty
Bedecked with thee
Nature forswears
Antiquity -

C. 1875 1890


1333


A little Madness in the Spring
Is wholesome even for the King,
But God be with the Clown -
Who ponders this tremendous scene -
This whole Experiment of Green -
As if it were his own!

C. 1875 1914


1334


How soft this Prison is
How sweet these sullen bars
No Despot but the King of Down
Invented this repose

Of Fate if this is All
Has he no added Realm
A Dungeon but a Kinsman is
Incarceration - Home.

C. 1875 1951


1335


Let me not mar that perfect Dream
By an Auroral stain
But so adjust my daily Night
That it will come again.

Not when we know, the Power accosts -
The Garment of Surprise
Was all our timid Mother wore
At Home - in Paradise.

C. 1875 1947


1336


Nature assigns the Sun -
That - is Astronomy -
Nature cannot enact a Friend -
That - is Astrology.

C. 1875 1951


1337


Upon a Lilac Sea
To toss incessantly
His Plush Alarm
Who fleeing from the Spring
The Spring avenging fling
To Dooms of Balm -

C. 1875 1945


1338


What tenements of clover
Are fitting for the bee,
What edifices azure
For butterflIes and me -
What residences nimble
Arise and evanesce
Without a rhythmic rumor
Or an assaulting guess.

C. 1875 1894


1339


A Bee his burnished Carriage
Drove boldly to a Rose -
Combinedly alighting -
Himself - his Carriage was -
The Rose received his visit
With frank tranquillity
Withholding not a Crescent
To his Cupidity -
Their Moment consummated -
Remained for him - to flee -
Remained for her - of rapture
But the humility.

C. 1875 1945


1340


A Rat surrendered here
A brief career of Cheer
And Fraud and Fear.

Of Ignominy's due
Let all addicted to
Beware.

The most obliging Trap
Its tendency to snap
Cannot resist -

Temptation is the Friend
Repugnantly resigned
At last.

C. 1875 1945


1341


Unto the Whole - how add?
Has "All" a further Realm -
Or Utmost an Ulterior?
Oh, Subsidy of Balm!

C. 1875 1945


1342


"Was not" was all the Statement.
The Unpretension stuns -
Perhaps - the Comprehension -
They wore no Lexicons -

But lest our Speculation
In inanition die
Because "God took him" mention -
That was Philology -

C. 1875 1945


1343


A single Clover Plank
Was all that saved a Bee
A Bee I personally knew
From sinking in the sky -

'Twixt Firmament above
And Firmament below
The Billows of Circumference
Were sweeping him away -

The idly swaying Plank
Responsible to nought
A sudden Freight of Wind assumed
And Bumble Bee was not -

This harrowing event
Transpiring in the Grass
Did not so much as wring from him
A wandering "Alas" -

C. 1875 1945


1344


Not any more to be lacked -
Not anymore to be known -
Denizen of Significance
For a span so worn -

Even Nature herself
Has forgot it is there -
Sedulous of her Multitudes
Notwithstanding Despair -

Of the Ones that pursued it
Suing it not to go
Some have solaced the longing
To accompany -

Some - rescinded the Wrench -
Others - Shall I say
Plated the residue of Adz
With Monotony.

C. 1875 1929


1345


An antiquated Grace
Becomes that cherished Face
As well as prime
Enjoining us to part
We and our pouting Heart
Good friends with time

C. 1875 1945


1346


As Summer into Autumn slips
And yet we sooner say
"The Summer" than "the Autumn," lest
We turn the sun away,

And almost count it an Affront
The presence to concede
Of one however lovely, not
The one that we have loved -

So we evade the charge of Years
On one attempting shy
The Circumvention of the Shaft
Of Life's Declivity.

C. 1875 1894


1347


Escape is such a thankful Word
I often in the Night
Consider it unto myself
No spectacle in sight

Escape - it is the Basket
In which the Heart is caught
When down some awful Battlement
The rest of Life is dropt-

'Tis not to sight the savior -
It is to be the saved-
And that is why I lay my Head
Upon this trusty word -

C. 1875 1945


1348


Lift it - with the Feathers
Not alone we fly -
Launch it - the aquatic
Not the only sea-
Advocate the Azure
To the lower Eyes -
He has obligation
Who has Paradise -

C. 1875 1945


1349


I'd rather recollect a setting
Than own a rising sun
Though one is beautiful forgetting -
And true the other one.

Because in going is a Drama
Staying cannot confer
To die divinely once a Twilight -
Than wane is easier -

C. 1875 1945


1350


Luck is not chance -
It's Toll -
Fortune's expensive smile
Is earned -
The Father of the Mine
Is that old-fashioned Coin
We spurned -

C. 1875 1945



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