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


1451


Whoever disenchants
A single Human soul
By failure of irreverence
Is guilty of the whole.

As guileless as a Bird
As graphic as a star
Till the suggestion sinister
Things are not what they are -

C. 1878 1945


1452


Your thoughts don't have words every day
They come a single time
Like signal esoteric sips
Of the communion Wine
Which while you taste so native seems
So easy so to be
You cannot comprehend its price
Nor its infrequency

C. 1878 1945


1453


A Counterfeit - a Plated Person -
I would not be -
Whatever strata of Iniquity
My Nature underlie -
Truth is good Health - and Safety, and the Sky.
How meagre, what an Exile - is a Lie,
And Vocal - when we die -

C, 1879 1924


1454


Those not live yet
Who doubt to live again -
"Again" is of a twice
But this - is one -
The Ship beneath the Draw
Aground - is he?
Death - so - the Hyphen of the Sea -
Deep is the Schedule
Of the Disk to be -
Costumeless Consciousness -
That is he -

C. 1879 1932


1455


Opinion is a flitting thing,
But Truth, outlasts the Sun -
If then we cannot own them both -
Possess the oldest one -

C. 1879 1924


1456


So gay a flower
Bereaves the Mind
As if it were a Woe -
Is Beauty an Affliction - then?
Tradition ought to know -

C. 1879 1914


1457


It stole along so stealthy
Suspicion it was done
Was dim as to the wealthy
Beginning not to own -

C. 1879 1915


1458


Time's wily Chargers will not wait
At any Gate but Woe's -
But there - so gloat to hesitate
They will not stir for blows -

C. 1879 1932


1459


Belshazzar had a Letter-
He never had but one -
Belshazzar's Correspondent
Concluded and begun
In that immortal Copy
The ConscIence of us all
Can read without its Glasses
On Revelation's Wall -

C. 1879 1890


1460


His Cheek is his Biographer -
As long as he can blush
Perdition is Opprobrium -
Past that, he sins in peace-

C. 1879 1914


1461


"Heavenly Father" - take to thee
The supreme iniquity
Fashioned by thy candid Hand
In a moment contraband -
Though to trust us - seem to us
More respectful - "We are Dust" -
We apologize to thee
For thine own Duplicity -

1879 1914


1462


We knew not that we were to live -
Not when - we are to die -
Our ignorance - our cuirass is -
We wear Mortality
As lightly as an Option Gown
Till asked to take it off -
By his intrusion, God is known -
It is the same with Life -

C. 1879 1894


1463


A Route of Evanescence
With a revolving Wheel -
A Resonance of Emerald -
A Rush of Cochineal -
And every Blossom on the Bush
Adjusts its tumbled Head -
The mail from Tunis, probably,
An easy Morning's Ride -

C. 1879 1891


1464


One thing of it we borrow
And promise to return-
The Booty and the Sorrow
Its Sweetness to have known -
One thing of it we covet -
The power to forget -
The Anguish of the Avarice
Defrays the Dross of it -

C. 1879 1894


1465


Before you thought of Spring
Except as a Surmise
You see - God bless his suddenness -
A Fellow in the Skies
Of independent Hues
A little weather worn
Inspiriting habiliments
Of Indigo and Brown -
With specimens of Song
As if for you to choose -
Discretion in the interval
With gay delays he goes
To some superior Tree
Without a single Leaf
And shouts for joy to Nobody
But his seraphic self -

C. 1871 1891


1466


One of the ones that Midas touched
Who failed to touch us all
Was that confiding Prodigal
The reeling Oriole -

So drunk he disavows it
With badinage divine -
So dazzling we mistake him
For an alighting Mine-

A Pleader - a Dissembler -
An Epicure - a Thief -
Betimes an Oratorio -
An Ecstasy in chief -

The Jesuit of Orchards
He cheats as he enchants
Of an entlre Attar
For his decamping wants -

The splendor of a Burmah
The Meteor of Birds,
Departing like a Pageant
Of Ballads and of Bards -

I never thought that Jason sought
For any Golden Fleece
But then I am a rural man
With thoughts that make for Peace -

But if there were a Jason,
Tradition bear with me
Behold his lost Aggrandizement
Upon the Apple Tree -

C. 1879 1891


1467


A little overflowing word
That any, hearing, had inferred
For Ardor or for Tears,
Though Generations pass away,
Traditions ripen and decay,
As eloquent appears -


1468


A winged spark doth soar about -
I never met it near
For Lightning it is oft mistook
When nights are hot and sere -

Its twinkling Travels it pursues
Above the Haunts of men -
A speck of Rapture - first perceived
By feeling it is gone -
Rekindled by some action quaint

C. 1879 1945


1469


If wrecked upon the Shoal of Thought
How is it with the Sea?
The only Vessel that is shunned
Is safe - Simplicity -

C. 1879 1945


1470


The Sweets of Pillage, can be known
To no one but the Thief -
Compassion for Integrity
Is his divinest Grief -

C. 1879 1914


1471


Their Barricade against the Sky
The martial Trees withdraw
And with a Flag at every turn
Their Armies are no more.

What Russet Halts in Nature's March
They indicate Or cause
An inference of Mexico
Effaces the Surmise -

Recurrent to the After Mind
That Massacre of Air -
The Wound that was not Wound nor Scar
But Holidays of War -

C. 1879 1945


1472


To see the Summer Sky
Is Poetry, though never in a Book it lie -
True Poems flee -

C. 1879 1945


1473


We talked with each other about each other
Though neither of us spoke -
We were listening to the seconds' Races
And the Hoofs of the Clock -
Pausing in Front of our Palsied Faces
Time compassion took -
Arks of Reprieve he offered to us -
Ararats - we took -

C. 1879 1945


1474


Estranged from Beauty - none can be -
For Beauty is Infinity -
And power to be finite ceased
Before Identity was leased.

C. 1879 1945


1475


Fame is the one that does not stay -
Its occupant must die
Or out of sight of estimate
Ascend incessantly -
Or be that most insolvent thing
A Lightning in the Germ -
Electrical the embryo
But we demand the Flame

C. 1879 1945


1476


His voice decrepit was with Joy -
Her words did totter so
How old the News of Love must be
To make Lips elderly
That purled a moment since with Glee -
Is it Delight or Woe -
Or Terror - that do decorate
This livid interview -

C. 1879 1945


1477


How destitute is he
Whose Gold is firm
Who finds it every time
The small stale Sum -
When Love with but a Pence
Will so display
As is a disrespect
To India.

C. 1879 1914


1478


Look back on Time, with kindly eyes -
He doubtless did his best -
How softly sinks that trembling sun
In Human Nature's West -

C. 1879 1890


1479


The Devil - had he fidelity
Would be the best friend -
Because he has ability -
But Devils cannot mend -
Perfidy is the virtue
That would but he resign
The Devil - without question
Were thoroughly divine

C. 1879 1914


1480


The fascinating chill that music leaves
Is Earth's corroboration
Of Ecstasy's impediment -
'Tis Rapture's germination
In timid and tumultuous soil
A fine - estranging creature -
To something upper wooing us
But not to our Creator -

C. 1879 I945


1481


The way Hope builds his House
It is not with a sill -
Nor Rafter - has that Edifice
But only Pinnacle -

Abode in as supreme
This superficies
As if it were of Ledges smit
Or mortised with the Laws -


C. 1879 1945


1482


'Tis whiter than an Indian Pipe -
'Tis dimmer than a Lace -
No stature has it, like a Fog
When you approach the place -
Not any voice imply it here
Or intimate it there
A spirit - how doth it accost -
What function hath the Air?
This limitless Hyperbole
Each one of us shall be -
'Tis Drama - if Hypothesis
It be not Tragedy -

C. 1879 1896


1483


The Robin is a Gabriel
In humble circumstances -
His Dress denotes him socially,
Of Transport's Working Classes -
He has the punctuality
Of the New England Farmer -
The same oblique integrity,
A Vista vastly warmer -

A small but sturdy Residence,
A self denying Household,
The Guests of Perspicacity
Are all that cross his Threshold -
As covert as a Fugitive,
Cajoling Consternatlon
By Ditties to the Enemy
And Sylvan Punctuation -

C. 1880 1894


1484


We shall find the Cube of the Rainbow.
Of that, there is no doubt.
But the Arc of a Lover's conjecture
Eludes the finding out.

C. 1880 1894


1485


Love is done when Love's begun,
Sages say,
But have Sages known?
Truth adjourn your Boon
Without Day.

C. 1880 1894


1486


Her spirit rose to such a height
Her countenance it did inflate
Like one that fed on awe.
More prudent to assault the dawn
Than merit the ethereal scorn
That effervesced from her.

C. 1880 1932


1487


The Savior must have been
A docile Gentleman -
To come so far so cold a Day
For little Fellowmen -
The Road to Bethlehem
Since He and I were Boys
Was leveled, but for that 'twould be
A rugged billion Miles -

C. 1880 1915


1488


Birthday of but a single pang
That there are less to come-
Afflictive is the Adjective
But affluent the doom -

C. 1880 1915


1489


A Dimple in the Tomb
Makes that ferocIous Room
A Home -

C. 1880 1931


1490


The Face in evanescence lain
Is more distinct than ours -
And ours surrendered for its sake
As Capsules are for Flower's-
Or is it the confiding sheen
Dissenting to be won
Descending to enamor us
Of Detriment divine?

C. 1880 1931


1491


The Road to Paradise is plain,
And holds scarce one.
Not that it is not firm
But we presume
A Dimpled Road
Is more preferred.
The Belles of Paradise are few -
Not me - nor you -
But unsuspected things -
Mines have no Wings.

C. 1880 1945


1492


"And with what body do they come!" -
Then they do come - Rejoice!
What Door - What Hour - Run - run - My Soul!
Illuminate the House!
"Body!" Then real - a Face and Eyes -
To know that it is them! -
Paul knew the Man that knew the News -
He passed through Bethlehem -

C. 1880 1894


1493


Could that sweet Darkness where they dwell
Be once disclosed to us
The clamor for their loveliness
Would burst the Loneliness -

? 1894


1494


The competitions of the sky
Corrodeless ply.

C. 1880 1931


1495


The Thrill came slowly like a Boon for
Centuries delayed
Its fitness growing like the Flood
In sumptuous solitude -
The desolation only missed
While Rapture changed its Dress
And stood amazed before the Change
In ravished Holiness -

C. 1880 1945


1496


All that I do
Is in review
To his enamored mind
I know his eye
Where e'er I ply
Is pushing close behind
Not any Port
Nor any flight
But he doth there preside
What omnipresence lies in wait
For her to be a Bride

C. 1880 1945


1497


Facts by our side are never sudden
Until they look around
And then they scare us like a spectre
Protruding from the Ground -
The height of our portentous Neighbor
We never know -
Till summoned to his recognition
By an Adieu -
Adieu for whence
The sage cannot conjecture
The bravest die
As ignorant of their resumption
As you or I -

C. 1880 1945


1498


Glass was the Street - in tinsel Peril
Tree and Traveller stood -
Filled was the Air with merry venture
Hearty with Boys the Road -
Shot the lithe Sleds like shod vibrations
Emphasized and gone
It is the Past's supreme italic
Makes this Present mean -

C. 1880 1945


1499


How firm Eternity must look
To crumbling men like me
The only Adamant Estate
In all Identity -
How mlghty to the insecure
Thy Physiognomy
To whom not any Face cohere -
Unless concealed in thee

C. 1880 1945


1500


It came his turn to beg -
The begging for the life
Is different from another Alms
'Tis Penury in Chief -

I scanned his narrow realm
I gave him leave to live
Lest Gratitude revive the snake
Though smuggled his reprieve

C. 1880 1945


1501


Its little Ether Hood
Doth sit upon its Head -
The millinery supple
Of the sagacious God -

Till when it slip away
A nothing at a time -
And Dandelion's Drama
Expires in a stem.

C. 1880 1945


1502


I saw the wind within her
I knew it blew for me -
But she must buy my shelter
I asked Humility

C. 1880 1955


1503


More than the Grave is closed to me -
The Grave and that Eternity
To which the Grave adheres -
I cling to nowhere till I fall -
The Crash of nothing, yet of all -
How similar appears -

C. 1880 1945


1504


Of whom so dear
The name to hear
Illumines with a Glow
As intimate - as fugitive
As Sunset on the snow -

C. 1880 1945


1505


She could not live upon the Past
The Present did not know her
And so she sought this sweet at last
And nature gently owned her
The mother that has not a knell
for either Duke or Robin

C. 1880 1945


1506


Summer is shorter than any one -
Life is shorter than Summer -
Seventy Years is spent as quick
As an only Dollar -

Sorrow - now - is polite - and stays -
See how well we spurn him -
Equally to abhor Delight -
Equally retain him -

C. 1880 1945


1507


The Pile of Years is not so high
As when you came before
But it is rising every Day
From recollection's Floor
And while by standing on my Heart
I still can reach the top
Efface the mountain with your face
And catch me ere I drop

C. 1880 1945


1508


You cannot make Remembrance grow
When it has lost its Root -
The tightening the Soil around
And setting it upright
Deceives perhaps the Universe
But not retrieves the Plant -
Real Memory, like Cedar Feet
Is shod with Adamant -
Nor can you cut Remembrance down
When it shall once have grown -
Its Iron Buds will sprout anew
However overthrown -

C. 1880 1945


1509


Mine Enemy is growing old -
I have at last Revenge-
The Palate of the Hate departs -
If any would avenge

Let him be quick - the Viand flits -
It is a faded Meat -
Anger as soon as fed is dead -
Tis starving makes it fat -

C. 1881 1891


1510


How happy is the little Stone
That rambles in the Road alone,
And doesn't care about Careers
And Exigencies never fears -
Whose Coat of elemental Brown
A passing Universe put on,
And independent as the Sun
Associates or glows alone,
Fulfilling absolute Decree
In casual simplicity -

C. 1881 1891


1511


My country need not change her gown,
Her triple suit as sweet
As when 'twas cut at Lexington,
And first pronounced "a fit."

Great Britain disapproves, "the stars";
Disparagement discreet,-
There's something in their attitude
That taunts her bayonet.

C. 1881 1891


1512


All things swept sole away
This - is immensity -

C. 1881 1931


1513


"Go traveling with us!"
Her travels daily be
By routes of ecstasy
To Evening's Sea -

C. 1881 1931


1514


An Antiquated Tree
Is cherished of the Crow
Because that Junior Foliage is disrespectful now
To venerable Birds
Whose Corporation Coat
Would decorate Oblivion's
Remotest Consulate.

C. 1881 1945


1515


The Things that never can come back, are several -
Childhood - some forms of Hope - the Dead -
Though Joys - like Men - may sometunes make a Journey -
And still abide -
We do not mourn for Traveler, or Sailor,
Their Routes are fair -
But think enlarged of all that they will tell us
Returning here -
"Here!" There are typic "Heres" -
Foretold Locations -
The Spirit does not stand -
Himself - at whatsoever Fathom
His Native Land

C. 1881 1945


1516


No Autumn's intercepting Chill
Appalls this Tropic Breast -
But African Exuberance
And Asiatic rest.

C. 1881 1914


1517


How much of Source escapes with thee -
How chief thy sessions be -
For thou hast borne a universe
Entirely away.

C. 1881 1894


1518


Not seeing, still we know -
Not knowing, guess -
Not guessing, smile and hide
And half caress -

And quake - and turn away,
Seraphic fear -
Is Eden's innuendo
"If you dare"?

C. 1881 1894


1519


The Dandelion's pallid tube
Astonishes the Grass,
And Winter instantly becomes
An infinite Alas -

The tube uplifts a signal Bud
And then a shouting Flower,
The Proclamation of the Suns
That sepulture is o'er.

C. 1881 1894


1520


The stem of a departed Flower
Has still a silent rank
The Bearer from an Emerald Court
Of a Despatch of Pink.

C. 1881 1894


1521


The Butterfly upon the Sky,
That doesn't know its Name
And hasn't any tax to pay
And hasn't any Home
Is just as high as you and I,
And higher, I believe,
So soar away and never sigh
And that's the way to grieve -

C. 1881 1894


1522


His little Hearse like Figure
Unto itself a Dirge
To a delusive Lilac
The vanity divulge
Of Industry and Morals
And every righteous thing
For the divine Perdition
Of Idleness and Spring

C. 1881 1915


1523


We never know we go when we are going -
We jest and shut the Door -
Fate - following - behind us bolts it -
And we accost no more -

C. 1881 1894


1524


A faded Boy - in sallow Clothes
Who drove a lonesome Cow
To pastures of Oblivion -
A statesman's Embryo -

The Boys that whistled are extinct -
The Cows that fed and thanked
Remanded to a Ballad's Barn
Or Clover's Retrospect -

C. 1881 1945


1525


He lived the Life of Ambush
And went the way of Dusk
And now against his subtle name
There stands an Asterisk
As confident of him as we -
Impregnable we are -
The whole of Immortality intrenched
within a star

C. 1881 1945


1526


His oriental heresies
Exhilarate the Bee,
And filling all the Earth and Air
With gay apostasy

Fatigued at last, a Clover plain
Allures his jaded eye
That lowly Breast where Butterflies
Have felt it meet to die -

C. 1881 1945


1527


Oh give it Motion - deck it sweet
With Artery and Vein -
Upon its fastened Lips lay words -
Affiance it again
To that Pink stranger we call Dust -
Acquainted more with that
Than with this horizontal one
That will not lift - its Hat -

C. 1881 1945


1528


The Moon upon her fluent Route
Defiant of a Road -
The Star's Etruscan Argument
Substantiate a God -

If Aims impel these Astral Ones
The ones allowed to know
Know that which makes them as forgot
As Dawn forgets them - now -

C. 1881 1914


1529


'Tis Seasons since the Dimpled War
In which we each were Conqueror
And each of us were slain
And Centuries 'twill be and more
Another Massacre before
So modest and so vain -
Without a Formula we fought
Each was to each the Pink Redoubt -

C. 1881 1945


1530


A Pang is more conspicuous in Spring
In contrast with the things that sing
Not Birds entirely - but Minds -
Minute Effulgencies and Winds -
When what they sung for is undone
Who cares about a Blue Bird's Tune -
Why, Resurrection had to wait
Till they had moved a Stone -

C. 1881 1945


1531


Above Oblivion's Tide there is a Pier
And an effaceless "Few" are lifted there -
Nay - lift themselves - Fame has no Arms -
And but one smile - that meagres Balms-

C. 1881 1945


1532


From all the Jails the Boys and Girls
Ecstatically leap -
Beloved only Afternoon
That Prison doesn't keep

They storm the Earth and stun the Air,
A Mob of solid Bliss -
Alas - that Frowns should lie in wait
For such a Foe as this -

C. 1881 1945


1533


On that specific Pillow
Our projects Hit away -
The Night's tremendous Morrow
And whether sleep will stay
Or usher us - a stranger -
To situations new
The effort to comprise it
Is all the soul can do.

C. 1881 1945


1534


Society for me my misery
Since Gift of Thee -

C. 1881 1945


1535


The Life that tied too tight escapes
Will ever after run
With a prudential look behind
And spectres of the Rein -
The Horse that scents the living Grass
And sees the Pastures smile
Will be retaken with a shot
If he is caught at all -

C. 1881 1945


1536


There comes a warning like a spy
A shorter breath of Day
A stealing that is not a stealth
And Summers are away -

C. 1881 1945


1537


Candor - my tepid friend -
Come not to play with me -
The Myrrhs, and Mochas, of the Mind
Are its iniquity -

C. 1881 1914


1538


Follow wise Orion
Till you waste your Eye -
Dazzingly decamping
He is just as high -

C. 1882 1914


1539


Now I lay thee down to Sleep -
Pray the Lord thy Dust to keep -
And if thou live before thou wake -
I pray the Lord thy Soul to make -

C. 1882 1924


1540


As imperceptibly as Grief
The Summer lapsed away -
Too Imperceptible at last
To seem like Perfidy -
A Quietness distilled
As Twilight long begun,
Or Nature spending with herself
Sequestered Afternoon -
The Dusk drew earlier in -
The Morning foreign shone -
A courteous, yet harrowing Grace,
As Guest, that would be gone -
And thus, without a Wing
Or service of a Keel
Our Summer made her light escape
Into the Beautiful.

C. 1865 1891


1541


No matter where the Saints abide,
They make their Circuit fair
Behold how great a Firmament
Accompanies a Star.

C. 1882? 1914


1542


Come show thy Durham Breast
To her who loves thee best,
Delicious Robin -
And if it be not me
At least within my Tree
Do the avowing -
Thy Nuptial so minute
Perhaps is more astute
Than vaster suing -
For so to soar away
Is our propensity
The Day ensuing -

C. 1882 1894


1543


Obtaining but our own Extent
In whatsoever Realm -
'Twas Christ's own personal Expanse
That bore him from the Tomb

C. 1882 1947


1544


Who has not found the Heaven - below -
Will fail of it above -
For Angels rent the House next ours,
Wherever we remove -

C. 1883 1896


1545


The Bible is an antique Volume -
Written by faded Men
At the suggestion of Holy Spectres -
Subjects - Bethlehem -
Eden - the ancient Homestead -
Satan - the Brigadier -
Judas - the Great Defaulter -
David - the Troubadour-
Sin - a distinguished Precipice
Others must resist-
Boys that "believe" are very lonesome -
Other Boys are "lost" -
Had but the Tale a warbling Teller -
All the Boys would come -
Orpheus' Sermon captivated -
It did not condemn -

C. 1882 1924


1546


Sweet Pirate of the heart,
Not Pirate of the Sea,
What wrecketh thee?
Some spice's Mutiny -
Some Attar's perfidy?
Confide in me.

C. 1882 1894


1547


Hope is a subtle Glutton -
He feeds upon the Fair -
And yet - inspected closely
What Abstinence is there -

His is the Halcyon Table -
That never seats but One -
And whatsoever is consumed
The same amount remain -

C. 1882 1896


1548


Meeting by Accident,
We hovered by design -
As often as a Century
An error so divine
Is ratified by Destiny,
But Destiny is old
And economical of Bliss
As Midas is of Gold -

C. 1882 1945


1549


My Wars are laid away in Books -
I have one Battle more -
A Foe whom I have never seen
But oft has scanned me o'er -
And hesitated me between
And others at my side,
But chose the best - Neglecting me - till
All the rest, have died -
How sweet if I am not forgot
By Chums that passed away -
Since Playmates at threescore and ten
Are such a scarcity -

C. 1882 1945


1550


The pattern of the sun
Can fit but him alone
For sheen must have a Disk
To be a sun -

C. 1882 1945


1551


Those - dying then,
Knew where they went -
They went to God's Right Hand -
That Hand is amputated now
And God cannot be found -

The abdication of Belief
Makes the Behavior small -
Better an ignis fatuus
Than no illume at all -

C. 1882 1945


1552


Within thy Grave!
Oh no, but on some other flight -
Thou only camest to mankind
To rend it with Good night -

C. 1882 1945


1553


Bliss is the plaything of the child -
The secret of the man
The sacred stealth of Boy and Girl
Rebuke it if we can

C. 1882 1945


1554


"Go tell It" - What a Message -
To whom - is specified -
Not murmur - not endearment -
But simply - we - obeyed -
Obeyed - a Lure - a Longing?
Oh Nature - none of this -
To Law - said sweet Thermopylae
I give my dying Kiss -

C. 1882 1945


1555


I groped for him before I knew
With solemn nameless need
All other bounty sudden chaff
For this foreshadowed Food
WhIch others taste and spurn and sneer -
Though I within suppose
That consecrated it could be
The only Food that grows

C. 1882 1945


1556


Image of Light, Adieu -
Thanks for the interview -
So long - so short -
Preceptor of the whole -
Coeval Cardinal -
Impart - Depart -

C. 1882 1945


1557


Lives he in any other world
My faith cannot reply
Before it was imperative
'Twas all distinct to me -

C. 1882 1945


1558


Of Death I try to think like this -
The Well in which they lay us
Is but the likeness of the Brook
That menaced not to slay us,
But to invite by that Dismay
Which is the Zest of sweetness
To the same Flower Hesperian,
Decoying but to greet us -

I do remember when a Child
Wwith bolder Playmates straying
To where a Brook that seemed a Sea
Withheld us by its roaring
From just a Purple Flower beyond
Until constrained to clutch It
If Doom itself were the result,
The boldest leaped, and clutched it -

C. 1882 1945


1559


Tried always and Condemned by thee
Permit me this reprieve
That dying I may earn the look
For which I cease to live-

C. 1882 1945


1560


To be forgot by thee
Surpasses Memory
Of other minds
The Heart cannot forget
Unless it contemplate
What it declines
I was regarded then
Raised from oblivion
A single time
To be remembered what -
Worthy to be forgot
Is my renown

C. 1883 1945


1561


No Brigadier throughout the Year
So civic as the Jay -
A Neighbor and a Warrior too
With shrill felicity
Pursuing Winds that censure us
A February Day,
The Brother of the Universe
Was never blown away -
The Snow and he are intimate -
I've often seen them play
When Heaven looked upon us all
With such severity
I felt apology were due
To an insulted sky
Whose pompous frown was Nutriment
To their Temerity -
The Pillow of this daring Head
Is pungent Evergreens -
His Larder - terse and Militant -
Unknown - refreshing things -
His Character - a Tonic -
His Future - a Dispute -
Unfair an Immortality
That leaves this Neighbor out -

C. 1883 1891


1562


Her Losses make our Gains ashamed -
She bore Life's empty Pack
As gallantly as if the East
Were swinging at her Back.
Life's empty Pack is heaviest,
As every Porter knows -
In vain to punish Honey -
It only sweeter grows.

C. 1883 1894


1563


By homely gift and hindered Words
The human heart is told
Of Nothing -
"Nothing" is the force
That renovates the World -

C. 1883 1955


1564


Pass to thy Rendezvous of Light,
Pangless except for us -
Who slowly ford the Mystery
Which thou hast leaped across!

C. 1883 1924


1565


Some Arrows slay but whom they strike -
But this slew all but him -
Who so appareled his Escape -
Too trackless for a Tomb -

C. 1883 1932


1566


Climbing to reach the costly Hearts
To which he gave the worth,
He broke them, fearing punishment
He ran away from Earth -

C. 1883 1931


1567


The Heart has many Doors -
I can but knock -
For any sweet "Come in"
Impelled to hark -
Not saddened by repulse,
Repast to me
That somewhere, there exists,
Supremacy -

C. 1883 1955


1568


To see her is a Picture -
To hear her is a Tune -
To know her an Intemperance
As innocent as June -
To know her not - Affliction -
To own her for a Friend
A warmth as near as if the Sun
Were shining in your Hand.

C. 1883 1945


1569


The Clock strikes one that just struck two -
Some schism in the Sum -
A Vagabond for Genesis
Has wrecked the Pendulum -

C. 1883 1894


1570


Forever honored be the Tree
Whose Apple Winterworn
Enticed to Breakfast from the Sky
Two Gabriels Yestermorn.

They regtstered in Nature's Book
As Robins - Sire and Son -
But Angels have that modest way
To screen them from Renown

C. 1883 1914


1571


How slow the Wind -
How slow the sea -
How late their Feathers be!

C. 1883 1894


1572


We wear our sober Dresses when we die,
But Summer, frilled as for a Holiday
Adjourns her sigh-

C. 1883 1894


1573


To the bright east she lies,
Brothers of Paradise
Remit her home,
Without a change of wings,
Or Love's convenient things,
Enticed to come.

Fashioning what she is,
Fathoming what she was,
We deem we dream -
And that dissolves the days
Through which existence strays
Homeless at home.

C. 1883 1894


1574


No ladder needs the bird but skies
To situate its wings,
Nor any leader's grim baton
Arraigns it as it sings.
The implements of bliss are few -
As Jesus says of Him,
"Come unto me" the moiety
That wafts the cherubim.

C. 1883? 1894


1575


The Bat is dun, with wrinkled Wings -
Like fallow Article -
And not a song pervade his Lips -
Or none perceptible.

His small Umbrella quaintly halved
Describing in the Air
An Arc alike inscrutable
Elate Philosopher.

Deputed from what Firmament -
Of what Astute Abode -
Empowered with what Malignity
Auspiciously withheld -

To his adroit Creator
Ascribe no less the praise -
Beneficent, believe me,
His Eccentricities

C. 1876 1896


1576


The Spirit lasts - but in what mode -
Below, the Body speaks,
But as the Spirit furnishes -
Apart, it never talks -
The Music in the Violin
Does not emerge alone
But Arm in Arm with Touch, yet Touch
Alone - is not a Tune -
The Spirit lurks within the Flesh
Like Tides within the Sea
That make the Water live, estranged
What would the Either be -
Does that know - now - or does it cease -
That which to this is done,
Resuming at a mutual date
With every future one?
Instinct pursues the Adamant,
Exacting this Reply -
Adversity if it may be, or
Wild Prosperity,
The Rumor's Gate was shut so tight
Before my Mind was sown,
Not even a Prognostic's Push
Could make a Dent thereon -

C. 1883 1894


1577


Morning is due to all -
To some - the Night -
To an imperial few -
The Auroral light.

C. 1882 1931


1578


Blossoms will run away,
Cakes reign but a Day,
But Memory like Melody
Is pink Eternally.

C. 1883 1939


1579


It would not know if it were spurned,
This gallant little flower -
How therefore safe to be a flower
If One would tamper there.

To enter, it would not aspire-
But may it not despair
That it is not a Cavalier,
To dare and perish there?

C. 1882 1945


1580


We shun it ere it comes,
Afraid of Joy,
Then sue it to delay
And lest it fly,
Beguile it more and more-
May not this be
Old Suitor Heaven,
Like our dismay at thee?

C. 1882 1894


1581


The farthest Thunder that I heard
Was nearer than the Sky
And rumbles still, though torrid Noons
Have lain their missiles by -
The Lightning that preceded it
Struck no one but myself -
But I would not exchange the Bolt
For all the rest of Life -
Indebtedness to Oxygen
The Happy may repay,
But not the obligation
To Electricity -
It founds the Homes and decks the Days
And every clamor bright
is but the gleam concomitant
Of that waylaying Liight -
The Thought is quiet as a Flake -
A Crash without a Sound,
How Life's reverberatlon
Its Explanation found -

C. 1883 1932


1582


Where Roses would not dare to go,
What Heart would risk the way-
And so I send my Crimson Scouts
To sound the Enemy -

C. 1883 1945


1583


Witchcraft was hung, in History,
But History and I
Find all the Witchcraft that we need
Around us, every Day -

C. 1883 1945


1584


Expanse cannot be lost -
Not Joy, but a Decree
Is Deity -
His Scene, Infinity -
Whose rumor's Gate was shut so tight
Before my Beam was sown,
Not even a Prognostic's push
Could make a Dent thereon-

The World that thou hast opened
Shuts for thee,
But not alone,
We all have followed thee -
Escape more slowly
To thy Tracts of Sheen -
The Tent is listening,
But the Troops are gone!

C. 1883 1955


1585


The Bird her punctual music brings
And lays it in its place -
Its place is in the Human Heart
And in the Heavenly Grace -
What respite from her thrilling toil
Did Beauty ever take -
But Work might be electric Rest
To those that Magic make -

C. 1883 1955


1586


To her derided Home
A Weed of Summer came -
She did not know her station low
Nor Ignominy's Name -
Bestowed a summer long
Upon a fameless Bower -
Then swept as lightly from disdain
As Lady from her Bower -
Of Bliss the Codes are few -
As Jesus cites of Him -
"Come unto me" the moiety
That wafts the Seraphim -

C. 1883 1945


1587


He ate and drank the precious Words -
His Spirit grew robust -
He knew no more that he was poor,
Nor that his frame was Dust -

He danced along the dingy Days
And this Bequest of Wings
Was but a Book - What Liberty
A loosened spirit brings -

C. 1883 1890


1588


This Me - that walks and works - must die,
Some fair or stormy Day,
Adversity if it may be
Or wild prosperity
The Rumor's Gate was shut so tight
Before my mind was born
Not even a Prognostic's push
Can make a Dent thereon -

C. 1883 1945


1589


Cosmopolites without a plea
Alight in every Land
The compliments of Paradise
From those within my Hand

Their dappled Journey to themselves
A compensation fair
Knock and it shall be opened
Is their Theology

C. 1883 1945


1590


Not at Home to Callers
Says the Naked Tree -
Bonnet due in April -
Wishing you Good Day -

C. 1883 1924


1591


The Bobolink is gone -
The Rowdy of the Meadow -
And no one swaggers now but me -
The Presbyterian Birds
Can now resume the Meeting
He boldly interrupted that overflowing Day
When supplicating mercy
In a portentous way
He swung upon the Decalogue
And shouted let us pray -

C. 1883 1945


1592


The Lassitudes of Contemplation
Beget a force
They are the spirit's still vacation
That him refresh -
The Dreams consolidate in action -
What mettle fair

C. 1883 1945


1593


There came a Wind like a Bugle -
It quivered through the Grass
And a Green Chill upon the Heat
So ominous did pass
We barred the Windows and the Doors
As from an Emerald Ghost -
The Doom's electric Moccasin
That very instant passed -
On a strange Mob of panting Trees
And Fences fled away
And Rivers where the Houses ran
Those looked that lived - that Day -
The Bell within the steeple wild
The flying tidings told -
How much can come
And much can go,
And yet abide the World!

C. 1883 1891


1594


Immured in Heaven!
What a Cell!
Let every Bondage be,
Thou sweetest of the Universe,
like that which ravished thee!

C. 1883 1914


1595


Declaiming Waters none may dread -
But Waters that are still
Are so for that most fatal cause
In Nature - they are full -

C. 1884 1932


1596


Few, yet enough,
Enough is One -
To that ethereal throng
Have not each one of us the right
To stealth11y belong?

C. 1884 1896


1597


'Tis not the swaying frame we miss,
It is the steadfast Heart,
That had it beat a thousand years,
with Love alone had bent,
Its fervor the electric Oar,
That bore it through the Tomb,
Ourselves, denied the priv11ege,
Consolelessly presume-

C. 1884 1932



1598


Who is it seeks my Pillow Nightswith
plain inspecting face-
"Did you" or "Did you not," to ask -
'Tis "Conscience" - Childhood's Nurse -

With Martial Hand she strokes the Hair
Upon my wincing Head -
"All" Rogues "shall have their part in" what -
The Phosphorus of God -

C. 1884 1914


1599


Though the great Waters sleep,
That they are sTill the Deep,
We cannot doubt-
No vacillating God
Ignited this Abode
To put it out -

C. 1884 1894


1600


Upon his Saddle sprung a Bird
And crossed a thousand Trees
Before a Fence without a Fare
His Fantasy dId please
And then he lifted up his Throat
And squandered such a Note
A Universe that overheard
is stricken by it yetc.

C. 1884 1947