1351


You cannot take itself
From any Human soul -
That indestructible estate
Enable him to dwell -
Impregnable as Light
That every man behold
But take away as difficult
As undiscovered Gold -

C. 1875 1945


1352


To his simplicity
To die - was little Fate -
If Duty live - contented
But her Confederate.

C. 1876 1931


1353


The last of Summer is Delight -
Deterred by Retrospect.
'Tis Ecstasy's revealed Review -
Enchantment's Syndicate.

To meet it - nameless as it is -
Without celestial Mail -
Audacious as without a Knock
To walk within the Veil.

C. 1876 1929


1354


The Heart is the Capital of the Mind -
The Mind is a single State -
The Heart and the Mind together make
A single Continent -

One - is the Population -
Numerous enough -
This ecstatic Nation
Seek - it is Yourself.

C. 1876 1929


1355


The Mind lives on the Heart
Like any Parasite -
If that is full of Meat
The Mind is fat.

But if the Heart omit
Emaciate the Wit -
The Aliment of it
So absolute.

C. 1876 1932


1356


The Rat is the concisest Tenant.
He pays no Rent.
Repudiates the Obligation -
On Schemes intent

Balking our Wit
To sound or circumvent -
Hate cannot harm
A Foe so reticent -
Neither Decree prohibit him -
Lawful as Equilibrium

C. 1876 1891


1357


"Faithful to the end" Amended
From the Heavenly Clause -
Constancy with a Proviso
Constancy abhors -

Crowns of Life" are servile Prizes
To the stately Heart,
Given for the Giving, solely,
No Emolument.

Version I
C. 1876 1932


"Faithful to the end" Amended
From the Heavenly clause -
Lucrative indeed the offer
But the Heart withdraws -

"I will give" the base Proviso -
Spare Your "Crown of Life" -
Those it fits, too fair to wear It -
Try it on Yourself-

Version II
c. 1876 1945


1358


The Treason of an accent
Might Ecstasy transfer -
Of her effacing Fathom
Is no Recoverer -

Version I
C. 1876 1931


The Treason of an Accent
Might vilify the Joy -
To breathe - corrode the rapture
Of Sanctity to be -

Version II
C. 1876 1914


1359


The long sigh of the Frog
Upon a Summer's Day
Enacts intoxication
Upon the Revery -
But his receding Swell
Substantiates a Peace
That makes the Ear inordinate
For corporal release -

C. 1876 1914


1360


I sued the News - yet feared - the News
That such a Realm could be -
"The House not made with Hands" it was -
Thrown open wide to me -

C. 1876 1931


1361


The Flake the Wind exasperate
More eloquently he
Than if escorted to lts Down
By Ann of Chivalry.

C. 1876 1931


1362


Of their peculiar light
I keep one ray
To clarify the Sight
To seek them by -

C. 1876 1931


1363


Summer laid her simple Hat
On its boundless Shelf -
Unobserved - a Ribbon slipt,
Snatch it for yourself.

Summer laid her supple Glove
In its sylvan Drawer -
Wheresoe'er, or was she -
The demand of Awe?

C. 1876 1947


1364


How know it from a Summer's Day?
Its Fervors are as firm-
And nothing in the Countenance
But scintillates the same-
Yet Birds examine it and Bee-
And Vans without a name
Inspect the Admonition
And sunder as they came -

C. 1876 1955


1365


Take all away -
The only thing worth larceny
is left - the Immortality

C. 1876 1891


1366A


Brother of Ingots - Ah Peru -
Empty the Hearts that purchased you -

C. 1876 1945


1366B


Sister of Ophir -
Ah, Peru -
Subtle the Sum
That purchase you -

C. 1878 1932


1366C


Brother of Ophir
Bnght Adieu,
Honor, the shortest route
To you.

C. 1880 1894


1367


"Tomorrow" - whose location
The Wise deceives
Though its hallucination
Is last that leaves -
Tomorrow - thou Retriever
Of every tare -
Of Alibi art thou
Or ownest where?

C. 1876 1951


1368


Love's stricken "why"
Is all that love can speak-
Built of but just a syllable
The hugest hearts that break.

C. 1876 1894


1369


Trusty as the stars
Who quit their shining working
Prompt as when I lit them
In Genesis' new house,
Durable as dawn
Whose antiquated blossom
Makes a world's suspense
Perish and rejoice.

C. 1876 1894


1370


Gathered into the Earth,
And out of story -
Gathered to that strange Fame -
That lonesome Glory
That hath no omen here - but Awe -

C. 1876 1945


1371


How fits his Umber Coat
The Tailor of the Nut?
Combined without a seam
Like Raiment of a Dream -

Who spun the Auburn Cloth?
Computed how the girth?
The Chestnut aged grows
In those primeval Clothes -

We know that we are wise -
Accomplished in Surprise -
Yet by this Countryman -
This nature - how undone!

C. 1876 1945


1372


The Sun is one - and on the Tare
He doth as punctual call
As on the conscientious Flower
And estimates them all -

C. 1876 1945


1373


The worthlessness of Earthly things
The Ditty is that Nature Sings -
And then - enforces their delight
Till Synods are inordinate-

C. 1876 1945


1374


A Saucer holds a Cup
In sordid human Life
But in a Squirrel's estimate
A Saucer hold a Loaf.

A Table of a Tree
Demands the little King
And every Breeze that run along
His Dining Room do swing.

His Cutlery - he keeps
Within his Russet Lips -
To see it flashing when he dines
Do Birmingham eclipse -

Convicted - could we be
Of our Minutiae
The smallest Citizen that flies
Is heartier than we -

C. 1876 1945


1375


Death warrants are supposed to be
An enginery of equity
A merciful mistake
A pencil in an Idol's Hand
A Devotee has oft consigned
To Crucifix or Block

C. 1876 1945


1376


Dreams are the subtle Dower
That make us rich an Hour-
Then fling us poor
Out of the purple Door
Into the Precinct raw
Possessed before -

.
C. 1876 1945


1377


Forbidden Fruit a flavor has
That lawful Orchards mocks-
How luscious lies within the Pod
The Pea that Duty locks -

C. 1876 1896


1378


His Heart was darker than the starless night
For that there is a morn
But in this black Receptacle
Can be no Bode of Dawn

C. 1876 1945


1379


His Mansion in the Pool
The Frog forsakes -
He rises on a Log
And statements makes -
His Auditors two Worlds
Deducting me -
The Orator of April 1
Is hoarse Today-
His Mittens at his Feet
No Hand hath he-
His eloquence a Bubble
As Fame should be-
Applaud him to discover
To your chagrin
Demosthenes has vanished
In Waters Green -

1876 1945


1380


How much the present moment means
To those who've nothing more -
The Fop - the Carp - the Atheist -
Stake an entire store
Upon a Moment's shallow Run
While their commuted Feet
The Torrents of Eternity
Do all but inundate -

C. 1876 1945


1381


I suppose the time will come
Aid it in the coming
When the Bird will crowd the Tree
And the Bee be booming.

I suppose the time will come
Hinder it a little
When the Corn in Silk will dress
And in Chintz the Apple

I believe the Day will be
When the Jay will giggle
At his new white House the Earth
That, too, halt a little -

C. 1876 1945


1382


In many and reportless places
We feel a Joy -
Reportless, also, but sincere as Nature
Or Deity -

It comes, without a consternation -
Dissolves - the same -
But leaves a sumptuous Destitution -
without a Name -

Profane it by a search - we cannot
It has no home -
Nor we who having once inhaled it -
Thereafter roam.

C. 1876 1945


1383


Long Years apart - can make no
Breach a second cannot fill-
The absence of the Witch does not
Invalidate the spell-

The embers of a Thousand Years
Uncovered by the Hand
That fondled them when they were Fire
Will stir and understand -

C. 1876 1945


1384


Praise it - 'tis dead -
It cannot glow -
Warm this inclement Ear
With the encomium it earned
Since it was gathered here -
Invest this alabaster Zest
In the Delights of Dust -
Remitted - since it flItted it
In recusance august.

C. 1876 1945


1385


"Secrets" is a dally word
Yet does not exist -
Muffled - it remits surmise -
Murmured - It has ceased -
Dungeoned In the Human Breast
Doubtless secrets lie -
But that Grate inviolate -
Goes nor comes away
Nothing with a Tongue or Ear -
Secrets stapled there
Will emerge but once - and dumb -
To the Sepulchre -

C. 1879 1945


1386


Summer - we all have seen -
A few of us - believed -
A few - the more aspiring
Unquestionably loved -

But Summer does not care -
She goes her spacious way
As eligible as the moon
To our Temerity -

The Doom to be adored -
The Affluence conferred -
Unknown as to an Ecstasy
The Embryo endowed -

C. 1876 1945


1387


The Butterfly's Numidian Gown
With spots of Burnish roasted on
Is proof against the Sun
Yet prone to shut its spotted Fan
And panting on a Clover lean
As if it were undone -

C. 1876 1945


1388


Those Cattle smaller than a Bee
That herd upon the eye -
Whose Tillage is the passing Crumb -
Those Cattle are the Fly -
Of Barns for Winter - blameless -
Extemporaneous stalls
They found to our objection -
On eligible walls -
Reserving the presumption
To suddenly descend
And gallop on the Furniture -
Or odiouser offend -
Of their peculiar calling
Unqualified to judge
To Nature we remand them
To justify or scourge -

C. 1876 1945


1389


Touch lightly Nature's sweet Guitar
Unless thou know'st the Tune
Or every Bird will point at thee
Because a Bard too soon -

C. 1876 1945


1390


These held their Wick above the West -
Till when the Red declined -
Or how the Amber aided it -
Defied to be defined -

Then waned without disparagement
In a dissembling Hue
That would not let the Eye decide
Did it abide or no -

C. 1877 1951


1391


They might not need me - yet they might -
I'll let my Heart be just in sight -
A smile so small as mine might be
Precisely their necessity -

C. 1877 1894


1392


Hope is a strange invention-
A Patent of the Heart-
In unremittlng action
Yet never wearing out-

Of this electric Adjunct
Not anything is known
But its unique momentum
Embellish all we own -

C. 1877 1931


1393


Lay this Laurel on the One
Too intrinsic for Renown-
Laurel - veil your deathless tree-
Him you chasten, that is He!

C. 1877 1891


1394


Whose Pink career may have a close
Portentous as our own, who knows?
To imitate these NeIghbors fleet
In awe and innocence, were meet.

C. 1877 1894


1395


After all Birds have been investigated and laid aside -
Nature Imparts the little Blue-Bird - assured
Her conscientious Voice will soar unmoved
Above ostensible Vicissitude.

First at the March - competing with the Wind -
Her panting note exalts us - like a friend -
Last to adhere when Summer cleaves away -
Elegy of Integrity.

C. 1877 1932


1396


She laid her docile Crescent down
And this confiding Stone
Still states to Dates that have forgot
The News that she is gone -
So constant to its stolid trust,
The Shaft that never knew -
It shames the Constancy that fled
Before its emblem flew -

C. 1877 1896


1397


It sounded as if the Streets were running
And then - the Streets stood still -
Eclipse - was all we could see at the Window
And Awe - was all we could feel.
By and by - the boldest stole out of his Covert
To see if Time was there -
Nature was in an Opal Apron,
Mixing fresher Air.

C. 1877 189I


1398


I have no Life but this-
To lead it here -
Nor any Death - but lest
Dispelled from there -

Nor tie to Earths to come -
Nor Action new -
Except through this extent -
The Realm of you -


C. 1877 I891


1399


Perhaps they do not go so far
As we who stay, suppose -
Perhaps come closer, for the lapse
Of their corporeal clothes -

It may be know so certainly
How short we have to fear
That comprehension antedates
And estimates us there -

C. 1877 1947


1400


What mystery pervades a well!
That water lives so far -
A neighbor from another world
Residing in a jar

Whose limit none have ever seen,
But just his lid of glass -
Like looking every time you please
In an abyss's face!

The grass does not appear afraid,
I often wonder he
Can stand so close and look so bold
At what is awe to me.

Related somehow they may be,
The sedge stands next the sea -
Where he is floorless
And does no timidity betray

But nature is a stranger yet;
The ones that Cite her most
Have never passed her haunted house,
Nor simplified her ghost.

To pity those that know her not
Is helped by the regret
That those who know her, know her less
The nearer her they get.

C. 1877 1896


1401


To own a Susan of my own
Is of itself a Bliss -
Whatever Realm I forfeit, Lord,
Continue me in this!

C. 1877 1932


1402


To the stanch Dust
We safe commit thee -
Tongue If it hath,
Inviolate to thee -
Silence - denote -
And Sanctity - enforce thee -
Passenger - of Infinity -

C. 1877 1914


1403


My Maker - let me be
Enamored most of thee-
But nearer this
I more should miss -

C. 1877 1915


1404


March is the Month of Expectation.
The things we do not know-
The Persons of prognostication
Are coming now -
We try to show becoming firmness -
But pompous Joy
Betrays us, as his first Betrothal
Betrays a Boy.

C. 1877 1914


1405


Bees are Black, with Gilt Surcingles-
Buccaneers of Buzz.
Ride abroad in ostentation
And subsist on Fuzz.

Fuzz ordained - not Fuzz contingent-
Marrows of the Hill.
Jugs - a Universe's fracture
Could not jar or spill.

C. 1877 1945


1406


No Passenger was known to flee -
That lodged a night in memory -
That wily - subterranean Inn
Contrives that none go out again -

C. 1877 1945


1407


A Field of Stubble, lying sere
Beneath the second Sun -
Its Toils to Brindled People thrust -
Its Triumphs - to the Bin -
Accosted by a timid Bird
Irresolute of Alms -
Is often seen - but seldom felt,
On our New England Farms -

C. 1877 1932


1408


The Fact that Earth is Heaven -
Whether Heaven is Heaven or not
If not an Affidavit
Of that specific Spot
Not only must confirm us
That it is not for us
But that it would affront us
To dwell in such a place -

C. 1877 1945


1409


Could mortal lip divine
The undeveloped Freight
Of a delivered syllable
'Twould crumble with the weight.

C. 1877 1894


1410


I shall not murmur if at last
The ones I loved below
Permission have to understand
For what I shunned them so -
Divulging it would rest my Heart
But it would ravage theirs -
Why, Katie, Treason has a Voice -
But mine - dispels - in Tears.

C. 1877 1945


1411


Of Paradise' existence
All we know
Is the uncertain certainty -
But its vicinity infer,
By its Bisecting
Messenger-

C. 1877 1945


1412


Shame is the shawl of Pink
In which we wrap the Soul
To keep it from infesting Eyes -
The elemental Veil
Which helpless Nature drops
When pushed upon a scene
Repugnant to her probity -
Shame is the tint divine.

C. 1877 1945


1413


Sweet Skepticism of the Heart -
That knows - and does not know -
And tosses like a Fleet of Balm -
Affronted by the snow -
Invites and then retards the Truth
Lest Certainty be sere
Compared with the delicious throe
Of transport thrilled with Fear -

C. 1877 1945


1414


Unworthy of her Breast
Though by that scathing test
What Soul survive?
By her exacting light
How counterfeit the white
We chiefly have!

C. 1877 1945


1415


A wild Blue sky abreast of Winds
That threatened it - did run
And crouched behind his Yellow Door
Was the defiant sun -
Some conflict with those upper friends
So genial in the main
That we deplore peculiarly
Their arrogant campaign -

C. 1877 1945


1416


Crisis is sweet and yet the Heart
Upon the hither side
Has Dowers of Prospective
To Denizens denied

Inquire of the closing Rose
Which rapture she preferred
And she will point you sighing
To her rescinded Bud.

c. 1877 1914


1417


How Human Nature dotes
On what it can't detect.
The moment that a Plot is plumbed
Prospective is extinct-

Prospective is the friend
Reserved for us to know
When Constancy is clarified
Of Curiosity -

Of subjects that resist
Redoubtablest is this
Where go we -
Go we anywhere
Creation after this?

C. 1877 1945


1418


How lonesome the Wind must feel Nights -
When people have put out the Lights
And everything that has an Inn
Closes the shutter and goes in-

How pompous the Wind must feel Noons
Stepping to incorporeal Tunes
Correcting errors of the sky
And clarifying scenery

How mighty the Wind must feel Morns
Encamping on a thousand dawns
Espousing each and spurning all
Then soaring to his Temple Tall-

C. 1877 1945


1419


It was a quiet seeming Day -
There was no harm in earth or sky -
Till with the closing sun
There strayed an accidental Red
A Strolling Hue, one would have said
To westward of the Town

But when the Earth began to jar
And Houses vanished with a roar
And Human Nature hid
We comprehended by the Awe
As those that Dlssolution saw
The Poppy in the Cloud

C. 1877 1945


1420


One Joy of so much anguish
Sweet nature has for me
I shun it as I do Despair
Or dear iniquity-
Why Birds, a Summer morning
Before the Quick of Day
Should stab my ravished Splrit
With Dirks of Melody
Is part of an inquiry
That wlll receive reply
When Flesh and Spirit sunder
In Death's Immediately-

C. 1877 1945


1421


Such are the inlets of the mind -
His outlets - would you see
Ascend with me the eminence
Of immortality -

C. 1877 1945


1422


Summer has two Beginnings -
Beginning once in June -
Beginning in October
Affectingly again -

Without, perhaps, the Riot
But graphicker for Grace -
As finer is a going
Than a remaining Face -

Departing then - forever -
Forever - until May -
Forever is deciduous -
Except to those who die -

C. 1877 1945


1423


The fairest Home I ever knew
Was founded in an Hour
By Parties also that I knew
A spider and a Flower -
A manse of mechlin and of Floss -

C. 1877 1945


1424


The Gentian has a parched Corolla -
Like azure dried
'Tis Nature's buoyant juices
Beatified -
Without a vaunt or sheen
As casual as Rain
And as benign -

When most is past - it comes -
Nor isolate it seems
Its Bond its Friend -
To fill its Fringed career
And aid an aged Year
Abundant end -

Its lot - were it forgot -
This Truth endear -
Fidelity is gain
Creation o'er

C. 1877 1945


1425


The inundation of the Spring
Enlarges every soul -
It sweeps the tenement away
But leaves the Water whole -

In which the soul at first estranged -
Seeks faintly for its shore
But acclimated - pines no more
For that Peninsula -

C. 1877 1914


1426


The pretty Rain from those sweet Eaves
Her unintending Eyes -
Took her own Heart, including ours,
By innocent Surprise -

The wrestle in her simple Throat
To hold the feeling down
That vanquished her - defeated Feat -
Was Fervor's sudden Crown -

C. 1877 1945


1427


To earn it by disdaining it
Is Fame's consummate Fee -
He loves what spurns him -
Look behind - He is pursuing thee.

So let us gather - every Day -
The Aggregate of
Life's Bouquet
Be Honor and not shame -

C. 1877 1945


1428


Water makes many Beds
For those averse to sleep -
Its awful chamber open stands -
Its Curtains blandly sweep -
Abhorrent is the Rest
In undulating Rooms
Whose Amplitude no end invades -
Whose Axis never comes.

C. 1877 1945


1429


We shun because we prize her Face
Lest sight's ineffable disgrace
Our Adoration stain

C. 1877 1945


1430


Who never wanted - maddest Joy
Remains to him unknown -
The Banquet of Abstemiousness
Defaces that of Wine -

Within its reach, though yet ungrasped
Desire's perfect Goal -
No nearer - lest the Actual -
Should disenthrall thy soul -

C. 1877 1896


1431


With Pinions of Disdain
The soul can farther fly
Than any feather specified
in Ornithology -
It wafts this sordid Flesh
Beyond its dull - control
And during its electric gale -
The body is a soul instructing
by the same -
How little work it be -
To put off filaments like this
for immortality

C. 1877 1945


1432


Spurn the temerity -
Rashness of Calvary -
Gay were Gethsemane
Knew we of Thee

C. 1878 1927


1433


How brittle are the Piers
On which our Faith doth tread -
No Bridge below doth totter so -
Yet none hath such a Crowd.

It is as old as God -
Indeed - 'twas built by him -
He sent his Son to test the Plank,
And he pronounced it firm.

C. 1878 1894


1434


Go not too near a House of Rose -
The depredation of a Breeze
Or inundation of a Dew
Alarms its walls away -

Nor try to tie the Butterfly,
Nor climb the Bars of Ecstasy,
In insecurity to lie
is Joy's insuring quality.

C. 1878 1894


1435


Not that he goes - we love him more
Who led us while he stayed.
Beyond earth's trafficking frontier,
For what he moved, he made.

C. 1878 1894


1436


Than Heaven more remote,
For Heaven is the root,
But these the flitted seed,
More flown indeed
Than ones that never were,
Or those that hide, and are.

What madness, by their sIde,
A vision to provide
Of future days
They cannot pralse.

My soul, to find them, come,
They cannot call, they're dumb,
Nor prove, nor woo,
But that they have abode
Is absolute as God,
And instant, too.

C. 1877 1894


1437


A Dew sufficed itself -
And satisfied a Leaf
And felt "how vast a destiny" -
"How trivial is Life!"

The Sun went out to work -
The Day went out to play
And not again that Dew be seen
By Physiognomy

Whether by Day Abducted
Or emptied by the Sun
Into the Sea in passing
Eternally unknown

Attested to this Day
That awful Tragedy
By Transport's instability
And Doom's celerity.

C. 1877 1896


1438


Behold this little Bane -
The Boon of all alive -
As common as it is unknown
The name of it is Love -

To lack of it is Woe -
To own of it is Wound -
Not elsewhere - if in Paradise
Its Tantamount be found -

C. 1877 1945


1439


How ruthless are the gentle -
How cruel are the kind -
God broke his contract to his Lamb
To qualify the Wind -

C. 1878 1945


1440


The healed Heart shows its shallow scar
With confidential moan -
Not mended by Mortality
Are Fabrics truly torn -
To go its convalescent way
So shameless is to see
More genuine were Perfidy
Than such Fidelity.

C. 1877 1914


1441


These Fevered Days - to take them to the Forest
Where Waters cool around the mosses crawl -
And shade is all that devastates the stlllness
Seems it sometimes this would be all -

C. 1878 1945


1442


To mend each tattered Faith
There is a needle fair
Though no appearance indicate -
Tis threaded in the Air -

And though it do not wear
As if it never Tore
'Tis very comfortable indeed
And spacious as before -

C. 1878 1945


1443


A chilly Peace infests the Grass
The Sun respectful lies -
Not any Trance of industry
These shadows scrutinize-

Whose Allies go no more astray
For service or for Glee-
But all mankind deliver here
From whatsoever sea -

C. 1878 1945


1444


A little Snow was here and there
Disseminated in her Hair -
Since she and I had met and played
Decade had gathered to Decade -

But Time had added not obtained
Impregnable the Rose
For summer too indelible
Too obdurate for Snows -

C. 1878 1945


1445


Death is the supple Suitor
That wins at last -
It is a stealthy Wooing
Conducted first
By pallid innuendoes
And dim approach
But brave at last with Bugles
And a bisected Coach
It bears away in triumph
To Troth unknown
And Kindred as responsive
As Porcelain.

C. 1878 1945


1446


His Mind like Fabrics of the East
Displayed to the despair
Of everyone but here and there
An humble Purchaser -
For though his price was not of Gold -
More arduous there is -
That one should comprehend the worth
Was all the price there was -

C. 1878 1945


1447


How good his Lava Bed,
To thls laborious Boy -
Who must be up to call the World
And dress the sleepy Day -

C. 1878 1945


1448


How soft a Caterpillar steps-
I find one on my Hand
From such a velvet world it comes
Such plushes at command
Its soundless travels just arrest
My slow - terrestrial eye
Intent upon its own career
What use has it for me -

C. 1878 1945


1449


I thought the Train would never come -
How slow the whistle sang -
I don't believe a peevlsh Bird
So whimpered for the Spring -
I taught my Heart a hundred times
Precisely what to say -
Provoking Lover, when you came
Its Treatise flew away
To hide my strategy too late
To wiser be too soon -
For miseries so halcyon
The happiness atone -

C. 1878 1945


1450


The Road was lit with Moon and star -
The Trees were bright and still -
Descried I - by the distant Light
A Traveller on a Hill -
To magic Perpendiculars
Ascending, though Terrene -
Unknown his shimmering ultimate -
But he indorsed the sheen -

C. 1878 1945