Emily Dickinson Poems
1
Awake ye muses nine, sing me a strain divine,
Unwind the solemn twine, and tie my Valentine!
Oh the Earth was made for lovers, for damsel, and hopeless swain,
For sighing, and gentle whispering, and unity made of twain.
All things do go a courting, in earth, or sea, or air,
God hath made nothing single but thee in His world so fair!
The bride, and then the bridegroom, the two, and then the one,
Adam, and Eve, his consort, the moon, and then the sun;
The life doth prove the precept, who obey shall happy be,
Who will not serve the sovereign, be hanged on fatal tree.
The high do seek the lowly, the great do seek the small,
None cannot find who seeketh, on this terrestrial ball;
The bee doth court the flower, the flower his suit receives,
And they make merry wedding, whose guests are hundred leaves;
The wind doth woo the branches, the branches they are won,
And the father fond demandeth the maiden for his son.
The storm doth walk the seashore humming a mournful tune,
The wave with eye so pensive, looketh to see the moon,
Their spirits meet together, they make their solemn vows,
No more he singeth mournful, her sadness she doth lose.
The worm doth woo the mortal, death claims a living bride,
Night unto day is married, morn unto eventide;
Earth is a merry damsel, and heaven a knight so true,
And Earth is quite coquettish, and beseemeth in vain to sue.
Now to the application, to the reading of the roll,
To bringing thee to justice, and marshalling thy soul:
Thou art a human solo, a being cold, and lone,
Wilt have no kind companion, thou reap’st what thou hast sown.
Hast never silent hours, and minutes all too long,
And a deal of sad reflection, and wailing instead of song?
There’s Sarah, and Eliza, and Emeline so fair,
And Harriet, and Susan, and she with curling hair!
Thine eyes are sadly blinded, but yet thou mayest see
Six true, and comely maidens sitting upon the tree;
Approach that tree with caution, then up it boldly climb,
And seize the one thou lovest, nor care for space, or time!
Then bear her to the greenwood, and build for her a bower,
And give her what she asketh, jewel, or bird, or flower –
And bring the fife, and trumpet, and beat upon the drum –
And bid the world Goodmorrow, and go to glory home!
2
There is another sky,
Ever serene and fair,
And there is another sunshine,
Though it be darkness there;
Never mind faded forests, Austin,
Never mind silent fields –
Here is a little forest,
Whose leaf is ever green;
Here is a brighter garden,
Where not a frost has been;
In its unfading flowers
I hear the bright bee hum:
Prithee, my brother,
Into my garden come!
3
“Sic transit gloria mundi,”
“How doth the busy bee,”
“Dum vivimus vivamus,”
I stay mine enemy!
Oh “veni, vidi, vici!”
Oh caput cap-a-pie!
And oh “memento mori”
When I am far from thee!
Hurrah for Peter Parley!
Hurrah for Daniel Boone!
Three cheers, sir, for the gentleman
Who first observed the moon!
Peter, put up the sunshine;
Patti, arrange the stars;
Tell Luna, tea is waiting,
And call your brother Mars!
Put down the apple, Adam,
And come away with me,
So shalt thou have a pippin
From off my father’s tree!
I climb the “Hill of Science,”
I “view the landscape o’er;”
Such transcendental prospect,
I ne’er beheld before!
Unto the Legislature
My country bids me go;
I’ll take my india rubbers,
In case the wind should blow!
During my education,
It was announced to me
That gravitation, stumbling,
Fell from an apple tree!
The earth upon an axis
Was once supposed to turn,
By way of a gymnastic
In honor of the sun!
It was the brave Columbus,
A sailing o’er the tide,
Who notified the nations
Of where I would reside!
Mortality is fatal –
Gentility is fine,
Rascality, heroic,
Insolvency, sublime!
Our Fathers being weary,
Laid down on Bunker Hill;
And tho’ full many a morning,
Yet they are sleeping still, –
The trumpet, sir, shall wake them,
In dreams I see them rise,
Each with a solemn musket
A marching to the skies!
A coward will remain, Sir,
Until the fight is done;
But an immortal hero
Will take his hat, and run!
Good bye, Sir, I am going;
My country calleth me;
Allow me, Sir, at parting,
To wipe my weeping e’e.
In token of our friendship
Accept this “Bonnie Doon,”
And when the hand that plucked it
Hath passed beyond the moon,
The memory of my ashes
Will consolation be;
Then, farewell, Tuscarora,
And farewell, Sir, to thee!
4
On this wondrous sea
Sailing silently,
Ho! Pilot, ho!
Knowest thou the shore
Where no breakers roar –
Where the storm is o’er?
In the peaceful west
Many the sails at rest –
The anchors fast –
Thither I pilot thee –
Land Ho! Eternity!
Ashore at last!
5
I have a Bird in spring
Which for myself doth sing –
The spring decoys.
And as the summer nears –
And as the Rose appears,
Robin is gone.
Yet do I not repine
Knowing that Bird of mine
Though flown –
Learneth beyond the sea
Melody new for me
And will return.
Fast is a safer hand
Held in a truer Land
Are mine –
And though they now depart,
Tell I my doubting heart
They’re thine.
In a serener Bright,
In a more golden light
I see
Each little doubt and fear,
Each little discord here
Removed.
Then will I not repine,
Knowing that Bird of mine
Though flown
Shall in a distant tree
Bright melody for me
Return.
6
Frequently the wood are pink –
Frequently are brown.
Frequently the hills undress
Behind my native town.
Oft a head is crested
I was wont to see –
And as oft a cranny
Where it used to be –
And the Earth – they tell me –
On its Axis turned!
Wonderful Rotation!
By but twelve performed!
7
The feet of people walking home
With gayer sandals go –
The Crocus – til she rises
The Vassal of the snow –
The lips at Hallelujah
Long years of practise bore
Til bye and bye these Bargemen
Walked singing on the shore.
Pearls are the Diver’s farthings
Extorted from the Sea –
Pinions – the Seraph’s wagon
Pedestrian once – as we –
Night is the morning’s Canvas
Larceny – legacy –
Death, but our rapt attention
To Immortality.
My figures fail to tell me
How far the Village lies –
Whose peasants are the Angels –
Whose Cantons dot the skies –
My Classics veil their faces –
My faith that Dark adores –
Which from its solemn abbeys
Such ressurection pours.
8
There is a word
Which bears a sword
Can pierce an armed man –
It hurls its barbed syllables
And is mute again –
But where it fell
The saved will tell
On patriotic day,
Some epauletted Brother
Gave his breath away.
Wherever runs the breathless sun –
Wherever roams the day –
There is its noiseless onset –
There is its victory!
Behold the keenest marksman!
The most accomplished shot!
Time’s sublimest target
Is a soul “forgot!”
9
Through lane it lay – through bramble –
Through clearing and through wood –
Banditti often passed us
Upon the lonely road.
The wolf came peering curious –
The owl looked puzzled down –
The serpent’s satin figure
Glid stealthily along –
The tempests touched our garments –
The lightning’s poinards gleamed –
Fierce from the Crag above us
The hungry Vulture screamed –
The satyr’s fingers beckoned –
The valley murmured “Come” –
These were the mates –
This was the road
Those children fluttered home.
10
My wheel is in the dark!
I cannot see a spoke
Yet know its dripping feet
Go round and round.
My foot is on the Tide!
An unfrequented road –
Yet have all roads
A clearing at the end –
Some have resigned the Loom –
Some in the busy tomb
Find quaint employ –
Some with new – stately feet –
Pass royal through the gate –
Flinging the problem back
At you and I!
11
I never told the buried gold
Upon the hill – that lies –
I saw the sun – his plunder done
Crouch low to guard his prize.
He stood as near
As stood you here –
A pace had been between –
Did but a snake bisect the brake
My life had forfeit been.
That was a wondrous booty –
I hope ’twas honest gained.
Those were the fairest ingots
That ever kissed the spade!
Whether to keep the secret –
Whether to reveal –
Whether as I ponder
Kidd will sudden sail –
Could a shrewd advise me
We might e’en divide –
Should a shrewd betray me –
Atropos decide!
12
The morns are meeker than they were –
The nuts are getting brown –
The berry’s cheek is plumper –
The Rose is out of town.
The Maple wears a gayer scarf –
The field a scarlet gown –
Lest I should be old fashioned
I’ll put a trinket on.
13
Sleep is supposed to be
By souls of sanity
The shutting of the eye.
Sleep is the station grand
Down which, on either hand
The hosts of witness stand!
Morn is supposed to be
By people of degree
The breaking of the Day.
Morning has not occurred!
That shall Aurora be –
East of Eternity –
One with the banner gay –
One in the red array –
That is the break of Day!
14
One Sister have I in our house,
And one, a hedge away.
There’s only one recorded,
But both belong to me.
One came the road that I came –
And wore my last year’s gown –
The other, as a bird her nest,
Builded our hearts among.
She did not sing as we did –
It was a different tune –
Herself to her a music
As Bumble bee of June.
Today is far from Childhood –
But up and down the hills
I held her hand the tighter –
Which shortened all the miles –
And still her hum
The years among,
Deceives the Butterfly;
Still in her Eye
The Violets lie
Mouldered this many May.
I spilt the dew –
But took the morn –
I chose this single star
From out the wide night’s numbers –
Sue – forevermore!
15
The Guest is gold and crimson –
An Opal guest and gray –
Of Ermine is his doublet –
His Capuchin gay –
He reaches town at nightfall –
He stops at every door –
Who looks for him at morning
I pray him too – explore
The Lark’s pure territory –
Or the Lapwing’s shore!
16
I would distil a cup,
And bear to all my friends,
Drinking to her no more astir,
By beck, or burn, or moor!
17
Baffled for just a day or two –
Embarrassed – not afraid –
Encounter in my garden
An unexpected Maid.
She beckons, and the woods start –
She nods, and all begin –
Surely, such a country
I was never in!
18
The Gentian weaves her fringes –
The Maple’s loom is red –
My departing blossoms
Obviate parade.
A brief, but patient illness –
An hour to prepare,
And one below this morning
Is where the angels are –
It was a short procession,
The Bobolink was there –
An aged Bee addressed us –
And then we knelt in prayer –
We trust that she was willing –
We ask that we may be.
Summer – Sister – Seraph!
Let us go with thee!
In the name of the Bee –
And of the Butterfly –
And of the Breeze – Amen!
19
A sepal, petal, and a thorn
Upon a common summer’s morn –
A flask of Dew – A Bee or two –
A Breeze – a caper in the trees –
And I’m a Rose!
20
Distrustful of the Gentian –
And just to turn away,
The fluttering of her fringes
Child my perfidy –
Weary for my –
I will singing go –
I shall not feel the sleet – then –
I shall not fear the snow.
Flees so the phantom meadow
Before the breathless Bee –
So bubble brooks in deserts
On Ears that dying lie –
Burn so the Evening Spires
To Eyes that Closing go –
Hangs so distant Heaven –
To a hand below.
21
We lose – because we win –
Gamblers – recollecting which
Toss their dice again!
22
All these my banners be.
I sow my pageantry
In May –
It rises train by train –
Then sleeps in state again –
My chancel – all the plain
Today.
To lose – if one can find again –
To miss – if one shall meet –
The Burglar cannot rob – then –
The Broker cannot cheat.
So build the hillocks gaily
Thou little spade of mine
Leaving nooks for Daisy
And for Columbine –
You and I the secret
Of the Crocus know –
Let us chant it softly –
“There is no more snow!”
To him who keeps an Orchis’ heart –
The swamps are pink with June.
23
I had a guinea golden –
I lost it in the sand –
And tho’ the sum was simple
And pounds were in the land –
Still, had it such a value
Unto my frugal eye –
That when I could not find it –
I sat me down to sigh.
I had a crimson Robin –
Who sang full many a day
But when the woods were painted,
He, too, did fly away –
Time brought me other Robins –
Their ballads were the same –
Still, for my missing Troubador
I kept the “house at hame.”
I had a star in heaven –
One “Pleiad” was its name –
And when I was not heeding,
It wandered from the same.
And tho’ the skies are crowded –
And all the night ashine –
I do not care about it –
Since none of them are mine.
My story has a moral –
I have a missing friend –
“Pleiad” its name, and Robin,
And guinea in the sand.
And when this mournful ditty
Accompanied with tear –
Shall meet the eye of traitor
In country far from here –
Grant that repentance solemn
May seize upon his mind –
And he no consolation
Beneath the sun may find.
24
There is a morn by men unseen –
Whose maids upon remoter green
Keep their Seraphic May –
And all day long, with dance and game,
And gambol I may never name –
Employ their holiday.
Here to light measure, move the feet
Which walk no more the village street –
Nor by the wood are found –
Here are the birds that sought the sun
When last year’s distaff idle hung
And summer’s brows were bound.
Ne’er saw I such a wondrous scene –
Ne’er such a ring on such a green –
Nor so serene array –
As if the stars some summer night
Should swing their cups of Chrysolite –
And revel till the day –
Like thee to dance – like thee to sing –
People upon the mystic green –
I ask, each new May Morn.
I wait thy far, fantastic bells –
Unto the different dawn!
25
She slept beneath a tree –
Remembered but by me.
I touched her Cradle mute –
She recognized the foot –
Put on her suit
And see!
26
It’s all I have to bring today –
This, and my heart beside –
This, and my heart, and all the fields –
And all the meadows wide –
Be sure you count – should I forget
Some one the sum could tell –
This, and my heart, and all the Bees
Which in the Clover dwell.
27
Morns like these – we parted –
Noons like these – she rose –
Fluttering first – then firmer
To her fair repose.
Never did she lisp it –
It was not for me –
She – was mute from transport –
I – from agony –
Till – the evening nearing
One the curtains drew –
Quick! A Sharper rustling!
And this linnet flew!
28
So has a Daisy vanished
From the fields today –
So tiptoed many a slipper
To Paradise away –
Oozed so in crimson bubbles
Day’s departing tide –
Blooming – tripping – flowing
Are ye then with God?
29
If those I loved were lost
The Crier’s voice would tell me –
If those I loved were found
The bells of Ghent would ring –
Did those I loved repose
The Daisy would impel me.
Philip – when bewildered
Bore his riddle in!
30
Adrift! A little boat adrift!
And night is coming down!
Will no one guide a little boat
Unto the nearest town?
So Sailors say – on yesterday –
Just as the dusk was brown
One little boat gave up its strife
And gurgled down and down.
So angels say – on yesterday –
Just as the dawn was red
One little boat – o’erspent with gales –
Retrimmed its masts – redecked its sails –
And shot – exultant on!
31
Summer for thee, grant I may be
When Summer days are flown!
Thy music still, when Whipporwill
And Oriole – are done!
For thee to bloom, I’ll skip the tomb
And row my blossoms o’er!
Pray gather me –
Anemone –
Thy flower – forevermore!
32
When Roses cease to bloom, Sir,
And Violets are done –
When Bumblebees in solemn flight
Have passed beyond the Sun –
The hand that paused to gather
Upon this Summer’s day
Will idle lie – in Auburn –
Then take my flowers – pray!
33
If recollecting were forgetting,
Then I remember not.
And if forgetting, recollecting,
How near I had forgot.
And if to miss, were merry,
And to mourn, were gay,
How very blithe the fingers
That gathered this, Today!
34
Garland for Queens, may be –
Laurels – for rare degree
Of soul or sword.
Ah – but remembering me –
Ah – but remembering thee –
Nature in chivalry –
Nature in charity –
Nature in equity –
This Rose ordained!
35
Nobody knows this little Rose –
It might a pilgrim be
Did I not take it from the ways
And lift it up to thee.
Only a Bee will miss it –
Only a Butterfly,
Hastening from far journey –
On its breast to lie –
Only a Bird will wonder –
Only a Breeze will sigh –
Ah Little Rose – how easy
For such as thee to die!
36
Snow flakes.
I counted till they danced so
Their slippers leaped the town,
And then I took a pencil
To note the rebels down.
And then they grew so jolly
I did resign the prig,
And ten of my once stately toes
Are marshalled for a jig!
37
Before the ice is in the pools –
Before the skaters go,
Or any check at nightfall
Is tarnished by the snow –
Before the fields have finished,
Before the Christmas tree,
Wonder upon wonder
Will arrive to me!
What we touch the hems of
On a summer’s day –
What is only walking
Just a bridge away –
That which sings so – speaks so –
When there’s no one here –
Will the frock I wept in
Answer me to wear?
38
By such and such an offering
To Mr. So and So,
The web of live woven –
So martyrs albums show!
39
It did not surprise me –
So I said – or thought –
She will stir her pinions
And the nest forgot,
Traverse broader forests –
Build in gayer boughs,
Breathe in Ear more modern
God’s old fashioned vows –
This was but a Birdling –
What and if it be
One within my bosom
Had departed me?
This was but a story –
What and if indeed
There were just such coffin
In the heart instead?
40
When I count the seeds
That are sown beneath,
To bloom so, bye and bye –
When I con the people
Lain so low,
To be received as high –
When I believe the garden
Mortal shall not see –
Pick by faith its blossom
And avoid its Bee,
I can spare this summer, unreluctantly.
41
I robbed the Woods –
The trusting Woods.
The unsuspecting Trees
Brought out their Burs and mosses
My fantasy to please.
I scanned their trinkets curious – I grasped – I bore away –
What will the solemn Hemlock –
What will the Oak tree say?
42
A Day! Help! Help! Another Day!
Your prayers, oh Passer by!
From such a common ball as this
Might date a Victory!
From marshallings as simple
The flags of nations swang.
Steady – my soul: What issues
Upon thine arrow hang!
43
Could live – did live –
Could die – did die –
Could smile upon the whole
Through faith in one he met not,
To introduce his soul.
Could go from scene familiar
To an untraversed spot –
Could contemplate the journey
With unpuzzled heart –
Such trust had one among us,
Among us not today –
We who saw the launching
Never sailed the Bay!
44
If she had been the Mistletoe
And I had been the Rose –
How gay upon your table
My velvet life to close –
Since I am of the Druid,
And she is of the dew –
I’ll deck Tradition’s buttonhole –
And send the Rose to you.
45
There’s something quieter than sleep
Within this inner room!
It wears a sprig upon its breast –
And will not tell its name.
Some touch it, and some kiss it –
Some chafe its idle hand –
It has a simple gravity
I do not understand!
I would not weep if I were they –
How rude in one to sob!
Might scare the quiet fairy
Back to her native wood!
While simple-hearted neighbors
Chat of the “Early dead” –
We – prone to periphrasis
Remark that Birds have fled!
46
I keep my pledge.
I was not called –
Death did not notice me.
I bring my Rose.
I plight again,
By every sainted Bee –
By Daisy called from hillside –
by Bobolink from lane.
Blossom and I –
Her oath, and mine –
Will surely come again.
47
Heart! We will forget him!
You and I – tonight!
You may forget the warmth he gave –
I will forget the light!
When you have done, pray tell me
That I may straight begin!
Haste! lest while you’re lagging
I remember him!
48
Once more, my now bewildered Dove
Bestirs her puzzled wings
Once more her mistress, on the deep
Her troubled question flings –
Thrice to the floating casement
The Patriarch’s bird returned,
Courage! My brave Columbia!
There may yet be land
49
I never lost as much but twice,
And that was in the sod.
Twice have I stood a beggar
Before the door of God!
Angels – twice descending
Reimbursed my store –
Burglar! Banker – Father!
I am poor once more!
50
I haven’t told my garden yet –
Lest that should conquer me.
I haven’t quite the strength now
To break it to the Bee –
I will not name it in the street
For shops would stare at me –
That one so shy – so ignorant
Should have the face to die.
The hillsides must not know it –
Where I have rambled so –
Nor tell the loving forests
The day that I shall go –
Nor lisp it at the table –
Nor heedless by the way
Hint that within the Riddle
One will walk today –
51
I often passed the village
When going home from school –
And wondered what they did there –
And why it was so still –
I did not know the year then –
In which my call would come –
Earlier, by the Dial,
Than the rest have gone.
It’s stiller than the sundown.
It’s cooler than the dawn –
The Daisies dare to come here –
And birds can flutter down –
So when you are tired –
Or perplexed – or cold –
Trust the loving promise
Underneath the mould,
Cry “it’s I,” “take Dollie,”
And I will enfold!
52
Whether my bark went down at sea –
Whether she met with gales –
Whether to isles enchanted
She bent her docile sails –
By what mystic mooring
She is held today –
This is the errand of the eye
Out upon the Bay.
53
Taken from men – this morning –
Carried by men today –
Met by the Gods with banners –
Who marshalled her away –
One little maid – from playmates –
One little mind from school –
There must be guests in Eden –
All the rooms are full –
Far – as the East from Even –
Dim – as the border star –
Courtiers quaint, in Kingdoms
Our departed are.
54
If I should die,
And you should live –
And time should gurgle on –
And morn should beam –
And noon should burn –
As it has usual done –
If Birds should build as early
And Bees as bustling go –
One might depart at option
From enterprise below!
‘Tis sweet to know that stocks will stand
When we with Daisies lie –
That Commerce will continue –
And Trades as briskly fly –
It makes the parting tranquil
And keeps the soul serene –
That gentlemen so sprightly
Conduct the pleasing scene!
55
By Chivalries as tiny,
A Blossom, or a Book,
The seeds of smiles are planted –
Which blossom in the dark.
56
If I should cease to bring a Rose
Upon a festal day,
‘Twill be because beyond the Rose
I have been called away –
If I should cease to take the names
My buds commemorate –
‘Twill be because Death’s finger
Claps my murmuring lip!
57
To venerate the simple days
Which lead the seasons by,
Needs but to remember
That from you or I,
They may take the trifle
Termed mortality!
58
Delayed till she had ceased to know –
Delayed till in its vest of snow
Her loving bosom lay –
An hour behind the fleeting breath –
Later by just an hour than Death –
Oh lagging Yesterday!
Could she have guessed that it would be –
Could but a crier of the joy
Have climbed the distant hill –
Had not the bliss so slow a pace
Who knows but this surrendered face
Were undefeated still?
Oh if there may departing be
Any forgot by Victory
In her imperial round –
Show them this meek appareled thing
That could not stop to be a king –
Doubtful if it be crowned!
59
A little East of Jordan,
Evangelists record,
A Gymnast and an Angel
Did wrestle long and hard –
Till morning touching mountain –
And Jacob, waxing strong,
The Angel begged permission
To Breakfast – to return –
Not so, said cunning Jacob!
“I will not let thee go
Except thou bless me” – Stranger!
The which acceded to –
Light swung the silver fleeces
“Peniel” Hills beyond,
And the bewildered Gymnast
Found he had worsted God!
60
Like her the Saints retire,
In their Chapeaux of fire,
Martial as she!
Like her the Evenings steal
Purple and Cochineal
After the Day!
“Departed” – both – they say!
i.e. gathered away,
Not found,
Argues the Aster still –
Reasons the Daffodil
Profound!
61
Papa above!
Regard a Mouse
O’erpowered by the Cat!
Reserve within thy kingdom
A “Mansion” for the Rat!
Snug in seraphic Cupboards
To nibble all the day
While unsuspecting Cycles
Wheel solemnly away!
62
“Sown in dishonor”!
Ah! Indeed!
May this “dishonor” be?
If I were half so fine myself
I’d notice nobody!
“Sown in corruption”!
Not so fast!
Apostle is askew!
Corinthians 1. 15. narrates
A Circumstance or two!
63
If pain for peace prepares
Lo, what “Augustan” years
Our feet await!
If springs from winter rise,
Can the Anemones
Be reckoned up?
If night stands fast – then noon
To gird us for the sun,
What gaze!
When from a thousand skies
On our developed eyes
Noons blaze!
64
Some Rainbow – coming from the Fair!
Some Vision of the World Cashmere –
I confidently see!
Or else a Peacock’s purple Train
Feather by feather – on the plain
Fritters itself away!
The dreamy Butterflies bestir!
Lethargic pools resume the whir
Of last year’s sundered tune!
From some old Fortress on the sun
Baronial Bees – march – one by one –
In murmuring platoon!
The Robins stand as thick today
As flakes of snow stood yesterday –
On fence – and Roof – and Twig!
The Orchis binds her feather on
For her old lover – Don the Sun!
Revisiting the Bog!
Without Commander! Countless! Still!
The Regiments of Wood and Hill
In bright detachment stand!
Behold! Whose Multitudes are these?
The children of whose turbaned seas –
Or what Circassian Land?
65
I can’t tell you – but you feel it –
Nor can you tell me –
Saints, with ravished slate and pencil
Solve our April Day!
Sweeter than a vanished frolic
From a vanished green!
Swifter than the hoofs of Horsemen
Round a Ledge of dream!
Modest, let us walk among it
With our faces veiled –
As they say polite Archangels
Do in meeting God!
Not for me – to prate about it!
Not for you – to say
To some fashionable Lady
“Charming April Day”!
Rather – Heaven’s “Peter Parley”!
By which Children slow
To sublimer Recitation
Are prepared to go!
66
So from the mould
Scarlet and Gold
Many a Bulb will rise –
Hidden away, cunningly, From sagacious eyes.
So from Cocoon
Many a Worm
Leap so Highland gay,
Peasants like me,
Peasants like Thee
Gaze perplexedly!
67
Success is counted sweetest
By those who ne’er succeed.
To comprehend a nectar
Requires sorest need.
Not one of all the purple Host
Who took the Flag today
Can tell the definition
So clear of Victory
As he defeated – dying –
On whose forbidden ear
The distant strains of triumph
Burst agonized and clear!
68
Ambition cannot find him.
Affection doesn’t know
How many leagues of nowhere
Lie between them now.
Yesterday, undistinguished!
Eminent Today
For our mutual hone, Immortality!
69
Low at my problem bending,
Another problem comes –
Larger than mine – Serener –
Involving statelier sums.
I check my busy pencil,
My figures file away.
Wherefore, my baffled fingers
They perplexity?
70
“Arcturus” is his other name –
I’d rather call him “Star.”
It’s very mean of Science
To go and interfere!
I slew a worm the other day –
A “Savant” passing by
Murmured “Resurgam” – “Centipede”!
“Oh Lord – how frail are we”!
I pull a flower from the woods –
A monster with a glass
Computes the stamens in a breath –
And has her in a “class”!
Whereas I took the Butterfly
Aforetime in my hat –
He sits erect in “Cabinets” –
The Clover bells forgot.
What once was “Heaven”
Is “Zenith” now –
Where I proposed to go
When Time’s brief masquerade was done
Is mapped and charted too.
What if the poles should frisk about
And stand upon their heads!
I hope I’m ready for “the worst” –
Whatever prank betides!
Perhaps the “Kingdom of Heaven’s” changed –
I hope the “Children” there Won’t be “new fashioned” when I come –
And laugh at me – and stare –
I hope the Father in the skies
Will lift his little girl –
Old fashioned – naught – everything –
Over the stile of “Pearl.”
71
A throe upon the features –
A hurry in the breath –
An ecstasy of parting
Denominated “Death” –
An anguish at the mention
Which when to patience grown,
I’ve known permission given
To rejoin its own.
72
Glowing is her Bonnet,
Glowing is her Cheek,
Glowing is her Kirtle,
Yet she cannot speak.
Better as the Daisy
From the Summer hill
Vanish unrecorded
Save by tearful rill –
Save by loving sunrise
Looking for her face.
Save by feet unnumbered
Pausing at the place.
73
Who never lost, are unprepared
A Coronet to find!
Who never thirsted
Flagons, and Cooling Tamarind!
Who never climbed the weary league –
Can such a foot explore
The purple territories
On Pizarro’s shore?
How many Legions overcome –
The Emperor will say?
How many Colors taken
On Revolution Day?
How many Bullets bearest?
Hast Thou the Royal scar?
Angels! Write “Promoted”
On this Soldier’s brow!
74
A Lady red – amid the Hill
Her annual secret keeps!
A Lady white, within the Field
In placid Lily sleeps!
The tidy Breezes, with their Brooms –
Sweep vale – and hill – and tree!
Prithee, My pretty Housewives!
Who may expected be?
The Neighbors do not yet suspect!
The Woods exchange a smile!
Orchard, and Buttercup, and Bird –
In such a little while!
And yet, how still the Landscape stands!
How nonchalant the Hedge!
As if the “Resurrection”
Were nothing very strange!
75
She died at play,
Gambolled away
Her lease of spotted hours,
Then sank as gaily as a Turn
Upon a Couch of flowers.
Her ghost strolled softly o’er the hill
Yesterday, and Today,
Her vestments as the silver fleece –
Her countenance as spray.
76
Exultation is the going
Of an inland soul to sea,
Past the houses – past the headlands –
Into deep Eternity –
Bred as we, among the mountains,
Can the sailor understand
The divine intoxication
Of the first league out from land?
77
I never hear the word “escape”
Without a quicker blood,
A sudden expectation
A flying attitude!
I never hear of prisons broad
By soldiers battered down,
But I tug childish at my bars
Only to fail again!
78
A poor – torn heart – a tattered heart –
That sat it down to rest –
Nor noticed that the Ebbing Day
Flowed silver to the West –
Nor noticed Night did soft descend –
Nor Constellation burn –
Intent upon the vision
Of latitudes unknown.
The angels – happening that way
This dusty heart espied –
Tenderly took it up from toil
And carried it to God –
There – sandals for the Barefoot –
There – gathered from the gales –
Do the blue havens by the hand
Lead the wandering Sails.
79
Going to Heaven!
I don’t know when –
Pray do not ask me how!
Indeed I’m too astonished
To think of answering you!
Going to Heaven!
How dim it sounds!
And yet it will be done
As sure as flocks go home at night
Unto the Shepherd’s arm!
Perhaps you’re going too!
Who knows?
If you should get there first
Save just a little space for me
Close to the two I lost –
The smallest “Robe” will fit me
And just a bit of “Crown” –
For you know we do not mind our dress
When we are going home –
I’m glad I don’t believe it
For it would stop my breath –
And I’d like to look a little more
At such a curious Earth!
I’m glad they did believe it
Whom I have never found
Since the might Autumn afternoon
I left them in the ground.
80
Our lives are Swiss –
So still – so Cool –
Till some odd afternoon
The Alps neglect their Curtains
And we look farther on!
Italy stands the other side!
While like a guard between –
The solemn Alps –
The siren Alps
Forever intervene!
81
We should not mind so small a flower –
Except it quiet bring
Our little garden that we lost
Back to the Lawn again.
So spicy her Carnations nod –
So drunken, reel her Bees –
So silver steal a hundred flutes
From out a hundred trees –
That whoso sees this little flower
By faith may clear behold
The Bobolinks around the throne
And Dandelions gold.
82
Whose cheek is this?
What rosy face
Has lost a blush today?
I found her – “pleiad” – in the woods
And bore her safe away.
Robins, in the tradition
Did cover such with leaves,
But which the cheek –
And which the pall
My scrutiny deceives.
83
Heart, not so heavy as mine
Wending late home –
As it passed my window
Whistled itself a tune –
A careless snatch – a ballad – A ditty of the street –
Yet to my irritated Ear
An Anodyne so sweet –
It was as if a Bobolink
Sauntering this way
Carolled, and paused, and carolled –
Then bubbled slow away!
It was as if a chirping brook
Upon a dusty way –
Set bleeding feet to minuets
Without the knowing why!
Tomorrow, night will come again –
Perhaps, weary and sore –
Ah Bugle! By my window
I pray you pass once more.
84
Her breast is fit for pearls,
But I was not a “Diver” –
Her brow is fit for thrones
But I have not a crest.
Her heart is fit for home –
I – a Sparrow – build there
Sweet of twigs and twine
My perennial nest.
85
“They have not chosen me,” he said,
“But I have chosen them!”
Brave – Broken hearted statement –
Uttered in Bethlehem!
I could not have told it,
But since Jesus dared –
Sovereign! Know a Daisy
They dishonor shared!
86
South Winds jostle them –
Bumblebees come –
Hover – hesitate –
Drink, and are gone –
Butterflies pause
On their passage Cashmere –
I – softly plucking,
Present them here!
87
A darting fear – a pomp – a tear –
A waking on a morn
To find that what one waked for,
Inhales the different dawn.
88
As by the dead we love to sit,
Become so wondrous dear –
As for the lost we grapple
Tho’ all the rest are here –
In broken mathematics
We estimate our prize
Vast – in its fading ration
To our penurious eyes!
89
Some things that fly there be –
Birds – Hours – the Bumblebee –
Of these no Elegy.
Some things that stay there be –
Grief – Hills – Eternity –
Nor this behooveth me.
There are that resting, rise.
Can I expound the skies?
How still the Riddle lies!
90
Within my reach!
I could have touched!
I might have chanced that way!
Soft sauntered thro’ the village –
Sauntered as soft away!
So unsuspected Violets
Within the meadows go –
Too late for striving fingers
That passed, an hour ago!
91
So bashful when I spied her!
So pretty – so ashamed!
So hidden in her leaflets
Lest anybody find –
So breathless till I passed here –
So helpless when I turned
And bore her struggling, blushing,
Her simple haunts beyond!
For whom I robbed the Dingle –
For whom I betrayed the Dell –
Many, will doubtless ask me,
But I shall never tell!
92
My friend must be a Bird –
Because it flies!
Mortal, my friend must be,
Because it dies!
Barbs has it, like a Bee!
Ah, curious friend!
Thou puzzlest me!
93
Went up a year this evening!
I recollect it well!
Amid no bells nor bravoes
The bystanders will tell!
Cheerful – as to the village –
Tranquil – as to repose –
Chastened – as to the Chapel
This humble Tourist rose!
Did not talk of returning!
Alluded to no time
When, were the gales propitious –
We might look for him!
Was grateful for the Roses
In life’s diverse bouquet –
Talked softly of new species
To pick another day;
Beguiling thus the wonder
The wondrous nearer drew –
Hands bustled at the moorings –
The crown respectful grew –
Ascended from our vision
To Countenances new!
A Difference – A Daisy –
Is all the rest I knew!
94
Angels, in the early morning
May be seen the Dews among,
Stooping – plucking – smiling – flying –
Do the Buds to them belong?
Angels, when the sun is hottest
May be seen the sands among,
Stooping – plucking – sighing – flying –
Parched the flowers they bear along.
95
My nosegays are for Captives –
Dim – expectant eyes,
Fingers denied the plucking,
Patient till Paradise.
To such, if they should whisper
Of morning and the moor,
They bear no other errand,
And I, no other prayer.
96
Sexton! My Master’s sleeping here.
Pray lead me to his bed!
I came to build the Bird’s nest,
And sow the Early seed –
That when the snow creeps slowly
From off his chamber door –
Daisies point the way there –
And the Troubadour.
97
The rainbow never tells me
That gust and storm are by,
Yet is she more convincing
Than Philosophy.
My flowers turn from Forums –
Yet eloquent declare
What Cato couldn’t prove me
Except the birds were here!
98
One dignity delays for all –
One mitred Afternoon –
None can avoid this purple –
None evade this Crown!
Coach, it insures, and footmen –
Chamber, and state, and throng –
Bells, also, in the village
As we ride grand along!
What dignified Attendants!
What service when we pause!
How loyally at parting
Their hundred hats they raise!
Her pomp surpassing ermine
When simple You, and I,
Present our meek escutheon
And claim the rank to die!
99
New feet within my garden go –
New fingers stir the sod –
A Troubadour upon the Elm
Betrays the solitude.
New children play upon the green –
New Weary sleep below –
And still the pensive Spring returns –
And still the punctual snow!
100
A science – so the Savants say,
“Comparative Anatomy” –
By which a single bone –
Is made a secret to unfold
Of some rare tenant of the mold,
Else perished in the stone –
So to the eye prospective led,
This meekest flower of the mead
Upon a winter’s day,
Stands representative in gold
Of Rose and Lily, manifold,
And countless Butterfly!
101
Will there really be a “Morning”?
Is there such a thing as “Day”?
Could I see it from the mountains
If I were as tall as they?
Has it feet like Water lilies?
Has it feathers like a Bird?
Is it brought from famous countries
Of which I have never heard?
Oh some Scholar! Oh some Sailor!
Oh some Wise Men from the skies!
Please to tell a little Pilgrim
Where the place called “Morning” lies!
102
Great Caesar! Condescend
The Daisy, to receive,
Gathered by Cato’s Daughter,
With your majestic leave!
103
I have a King, who does not speak –
So – wondering – thro’ the hours meek
I trudge the day away –
Half glad when it is night, and sleep,
If, haply, thro’ a dream, to peep
In parlors, shut by day.
And if I do – when morning comes –
It is as if a hundred drums
Did round my pillow roll,
And shouts fill all my Childish sky,
And Bells keep saying “Victory”
From steeples in my soul!
And if I don’t – the little Bird
Within the Orchard, is not heard,
And I omit to pray
“Father, thy will be done” today
For my will goes the other way,
And it were perjury!
104
Where I have lost, I softer tread –
I sow sweet flower from garden bed –
I pause above that vanished head
And mourn.
Whom I have lost, I pious guard
From accent harsh, or ruthless word –
Feeling as if their pillow heard,
Though stone!
When I have lost, you’ll know by this –
A Bonnet black – A dusk surplice –
A little tremor in my voice Like this!
Why, I have lost, the people know
Who dressed in flocks of purest snow
Went home a century ago
Next Bliss!
105
To hang our head – ostensibly –
And subsequent, to find
That such was not the posture
Of our immortal mind –
Affords the sly presumption
That in so dense a fuzz –
You – too – take Cobweb attitudes
Upon a plane of Gauze!
106
The Daisy follows soft the Sun –
And when his golden walk is done –
Sits shyly at his feet –
He – waking – finds the flower there –
Wherefore – Marauder – art thou here?
Because, Sir, love is sweet!
We are the Flower – Thou the Sun!
Forgive us, if as days decline –
We nearer steal to Thee!
Enamored of the parting West –
The peace – the flight – the Amethyst –
Night’s possibility!
107
‘Twas such a little – little boat That toddled down the bay!
‘Twas such a gallant – gallant sea
That beckoned it away!
‘Twas such a greedy, greedy wave
That licked it from the Coast –
Nor ever guessed the stately sails
My little craft was lost!
108
Surgeons must be very careful
When they take the knife!
Underneath their fine incisions
Stirs the Culprit – Life!
109
By a flower – By a letter –
By a nimble love –
If I weld the Rivet faster –
Final fast – above –
Never mind my breathless Anvil!
Never mind Repose!
Never mind the sooty faces
Tugging at the Forge!
110
Artists wrestled here!
Lo, a tint Cashmere!
Lo, a Rose!
Student of the Year!
For the easel here
Say Repose!
111
The Bee is not afraid of me.
I know the Butterfly.
The pretty people in the Woods
Receive me cordially –
The Brooks laugh louder when I come –
The Breezes madder play;
Wherefore mine eye thy silver mists,
Wherefore, Oh Summer’s Day?
112
Where bells no more affright the morn –
Where scrabble never comes –
Where very nimble Gentlemen
Are forced to keep their rooms –
Where tired Children placid sleep
Thro’ Centuries of noon
This place is Bliss – this town is Heaven –
Please, Pater, pretty soon!
“Oh could we climb where Moses stood,
And view the Landscape o’er”
Not Father’s bells – nor Factories,
Could scare us any more!
113
Our share of night to bear –
Our share of morning –
Our blank in bliss to fill
Our blank in scorning –
Here a star, and there a star,
Some lose their way!
Here a mist, and there a mist,
Afterwards – Day!
114
Good night, because we must,
How intricate the dust!
I would go, to know!
Oh incognito!
Saucy, Saucy Seraph
To elude me so!
Father! they won’t tell me,
Won’t you tell them to?
115
What Inn is this
Where for the night
Peculiar Traveller comes?
Who is the Landlord?
Where the maids?
Behold, what curious rooms!
No ruddy fires on the hearth –
No brimming Tankards flow –
Necromancer! Landlord!
Who are these below?
116
I had some things that I called mine –
And God, that he called his,
Till, recently a rival Claim
Disturbed these amities.
The property, my garden,
Which having sown with care,
He claims the pretty acre,
And sends a Bailiff there.
The station of the parties
Forbids publicity,
But Justice is sublimer
Than arms, or pedigree.
I’ll institute an “Action” –
I’ll vindicate the law –
Jove! Choose your counsel –
I retain “Shaw”!
117
In rags mysterious as these
The shining Courtiers go –
Veiling the purple, and the plumes –
Veiling the ermine so.
Smiling, as they request an alms –
At some imposing door!
Smiling when we walk barefoot
Upon their golden floor!
118
My friend attacks my friend!
Oh Battle picturesque!
Then I turn Soldier too,
And he turns Satirist!
How martial is this place!
Had I a mighty gun
I think I’d shoot the human race
And then to glory run!
119
Talk with prudence to a Beggar
Of “Potose,” and the mines!
Reverently, to the Hungry
Of your viands, and your wines!
Cautious, hint to any Captive
You have passed enfranchised feet!
Anecdotes of air in Dungeons
Have sometimes proved deadly sweet!
120
If this is “fading”
Oh let me immediately “fade”!
If this is “dying”
Bury me, in such a shroud of red!
If this is “sleep,”
On such a night
How proud to shut the eye!
Good Evening, gentle Fellow men!
Peacock presumes to die!
121
As Watchers hang upon the East,
As Beggars revel at a feast
By savory Fancy spread –
As brooks in deserts babble sweet
On ear too far for the delight,
Heaven beguiles the tired.
As that same watcher, when the East
Opens the lid of Amethyst
And lets the morning go –
That Beggar, when an honored Guest,
Those thirsty lips to flagons pressed,
Heaven to us, if true.
122
A something in a summer’s Day
As slow her flambeaux burn away
Which solemnizes me.
A something in a summer’s noon –
A depth – an Azure – a perfume –
Transcending ecstasy.
And still within a summer’s night
A something so transporting bright
I clap my hands to see –
Then veil my too inspecting face
Lets such a subtle – shimmering grace
Flutter too far for me –
The wizard fingers never rest –
The purple brook within the breast
Still chafes it narrow bed –
Still rears the East her amber Flag –
Guides still the sun along the Crag
His Caravan of Red –
So looking on – the night – the morn
Conclude the wonder gay –
And I meet, coming thro’ the dews
Another summer’s Day!
123
Many cross the Rhine
In this cup of mine.
Sip old Frankfort air
From my brown Cigar.
124
In lands I never saw – they say
Immortal Alps look down –
Whose Bonnets touch the firmament –
Whose Sandals touch the town –
Meek at whose everlasting feet
A Myriad Daisy play –
Which, Sir, are you and which am I
Upon an August day?
125
For each ecstatic instant
We must an anguish pay
In keen and quivering ration
To the ecstasy.
For each beloved hour
Sharp pittances of years –
Bitter contested farthings –
And Coffers heaped with Tears!
126
To fight aloud, is very brave –
But gallanter, I know
Who charge within the bosom
The Cavalry of Woe –
Who win, and nations do not see –
Who fall – and none observe –
Whose dying eyes, no Country
Regards with patriot love –
We trust, in plumed procession
For such, the Angels go –
Rank after Rank, with even feet –
And Uniforms of Snow.
127
“Houses” – so the Wise Men tell me –
“Mansions”! Mansions must be warm!
Mansions cannot let the tears in,
Mansions must exclude the storm!
“Many Mansions,” by “his Father,”
I don’t know him; snugly built!
Could the Children find the way there –
Some, would even trudge tonight!
128
Bring me the sunset in a cup,
Reckon the morning’s flagons up
And say how many Dew,
Tell me how far the morning leaps –
Tell me what time the weaver sleeps
Who spun the breadth of blue!
Write me how many notes there be
In the new Robin’s ecstasy
Among astonished boughs –
How many trips the Tortoise makes –
How many cups the Bee partakes,
The Debauchee of Dews!
Also, who laid the Rainbow’s piers,
Also, who leads the docile spheres
By withes of supple blue?
Whose fingers string the stalactite –
Who counts the wampum of the night
To see that none is due?
Who built this little Alban House
And shut the windows down so close
My spirit cannot see?
Who’ll let me out some gala day
With implements to fly away,
Passing Pomposity?
129
Cocoon above! Cocoon below!
Stealthy Cocoon, why hide you so
What all the world suspect?
An hour, and gay on every tree
Your secret, perched in ecstasy
Defies imprisonment!
An hour in Chrysalis to pass,
Then gay above receding grass
A Butterfly to go!
A moment to interrogate,
Then wiser than a “Surrogate,”
The Universe to know!
130
These are the days when Birds come back –
A very few – a Bird or two –
To take a backward look.
These are the days when skies resume
The old – old sophistries of June –
A blue and gold mistake.
Oh fraud that cannot cheat the Bee –
Almost thy plausibility
Induces my belief.
Till ranks of seeds their witness bear –
And softly thro’ the altered air
Hurries a timid leaf.
Oh Sacrament of summer days,
Oh Last Communion in the Haze –
Permit a child to join.
Thy sacred emblems to partake –
They consecrated bread to take
And thine immortal wine!
131
Besides the Autumn poets sing
A few prosaic days
A little this side of the snow
And that side of the Haze –
A few incisive Mornings –
A few Ascetic Eves –
Gone – Mr. Bryant’s “Golden Rod” –
And Mr. Thomson’s “sheaves.”
Still, is the bustle in the Brook –
Sealed are the spicy valves –
Mesmeric fingers softly touch
The Eyes of many Elves –
Perhaps a squirrel may remain –
My sentiments to share –
Grant me, Oh Lord, a sunny mind –
Thy windy will to bear!
132
I bring an unaccustomed wine
To lips long parching
Next to mine,
And summon them to drink;
Crackling with fever, they Essay,
I turn my brimming eyes away,
And come next hour to look.
The hands still hug the tardy glass –
The lips I would have cooled, alas –
Are so superfluous Cold –
I would as soon attempt to warm
The bosoms where the frost has lain
Ages beneath the mould –
Some other thirsty there may be
To whom this would have pointed me
Had it remained to speak –
And so I always bear the cup
If, haply, mine may be the drop
Some pilgrim thirst to slake –
If, haply, any say to me
“Unto the little, unto me,”
When I at last awake.
133
As Children bid the Guest “Good Night”
And then reluctant turn –
My flowers raise their pretty lips –
Then put their nightgowns on.
As children caper when they wake
Merry that it is Morn –
My flowers from a hundred cribs
Will peep, and prance again.
134
Perhaps you’d like to buy a flower,
But I could never sell –
If you would like to borrow,
Until the Daffodil
Unties her yellow Bonnet
Beneath the village door,
Until the Bees, from Clover rows
Their Hock, and Sherry, draw,
Why, I will lend until just then,
But not an hour more!
135
Water, is taught by thirst.
Land – by the Oceans passed.
Transport – by throe –
Peace – by its battles told –
Love, by Memorial Mold –
Birds, by the Snow.
136
Have you got a Brook in your little heart,
Where bashful flowers blow,
And blushing birds go down to drink,
And shadows tremble so –
And nobody knows, so still it flows,
That any brook is there,
And yet your little draught of life
Is daily drunken there –
Why, look out for the little brook in March,
When the rivers overflow,
And the snows come hurrying from the fills,
And the bridges often go –
And later, in August it may be –
When the meadows parching lie,
Beware, lest this little brook of life,
Some burning noon go dry!
137
Flowers – Well – if anybody
Can the ecstasy define –
Half a transport – half a trouble –
With which flowers humble men:
Anybody find the fountain
From which floods so contra flow –
I will give him all the Daisies
Which upon the hillside blow.
Too much pathos in their faces
For a simple breast like mine –
Butterflies from St. Domingo
Cruising round the purple line –
Have a system of aesthetics –
Far superior to mine.
138
Pigmy seraphs – gone astray –
Velvet people from Vevay –
Balles from some lost summer day –
Bees exclusive Coterie –
Paris could not lay the fold
Belted down with Emerald –
Venice could not show a check
Of a tint so lustrous meek –
Never such an Ambuscade
As of briar and leaf displayed
For my little damask maid –
I had rather wear her grace
Than an Earl’s distinguished face –
I had rather dwell like her
Than be “Duke of Exeter” –
Royalty enough for me
To subdue the Bumblebee.
139
Soul, Wilt thou toss again?
By just such a hazard
Hundreds have lost indeed –
But tens have won an all –
Angel’s breathless ballot
Lingers to record thee –
Imps in eager Caucus
Raffle for my Soul!
140
An altered look about the hills –
A Tyrian light the village fills –
A wider sunrise in the morn –
A deeper twilight on the lawn –
A print of a vermillion foot –
A purple finger on the slope –
A flippant fly upon the pane –
A spider at his trade again –
An added strut in Chanticleer –
A flower expected everywhere –
An axe shrill singing in the woods –
Fern odors on untravelled roads –
All this and more I cannot tell –
A furtive look you know as well –
And Nicodemus’ Mystery
Receives its annual reply!
141
Some, too fragile for winter winds
The thoughtful grave encloses –
Tenderly tucking them in from frost
Before their feet are cold.
Never the treasures in her nest
The cautious grave exposes,
Building where schoolboy dare not look,
And sportsman is not bold.
This covert have all the children
Early aged, and often cold,
Sparrow, unnoticed by the Father –
Lambs for whom time had not a fold.
142
Whose are the little beds, I asked
Which in the valleys lie?
Some shook their heads, and others smiled –
And no one made reply.
Perhaps they did not hear, I said,
I will inquire again –
Whose are the beds – the tiny beds
So thick upon the plain?
‘Tis Daisy, in the shortest –
A little further on –
Nearest the door – to wake the Ist –
Little Leontoden.
‘Tis Iris, Sir, and Aster –
Anemone, and Bell –
Bartsia, in the blanket red –
And chubby Daffodil.
Meanwhile, at many cradles
Her busy foot she plied –
Humming the quaintest lullaby
That ever rocked a child.
Hush! Epigea wakens!
The Crocus stirs her lids –
Rhodora’s cheek is crimson,
She’s dreaming of the woods!
Then turning from them reverent –
Their bedtime ’tis, she said –
The Bumble bees will wake them
When April woods are red.
143
For every Bird a Nest –
Wherefore in timid quest
Some little Wren goes seeking round –
Wherefore when boughs are free –
Households in every tree –
Pilgrim be found?
Perhaps a home too high –
Ah Aristocracy!
The little Wren desires –
Perhaps of twig so fine –
Of twine e’en superfine,
Her pride aspires –
The Lark is not ashamed
To build upon the ground
Her modest house –
Yet who of all the throng
Dancing around the sun
Does so rejoice?
144
She bore it till the simple veins
Traced azure on her hand –
Til pleading, round her quiet eyes
The purple Crayons stand.
Till Daffodils had come and gone
I cannot tell the sum,
And then she ceased to bear it –
And with the Saints sat down.
No more her patient figure
At twilight soft to meet –
No more her timid bonnet
Upon the village street –
But Crowns instead, and Courtiers –
And in the midst so fair,
Whose but her shy – immortal face
Of whom we’re whispering here?
145
This heart that broke so long –
These feet that never flagged –
This faith that watched for star in vain,
Give gently to the dead –
Hound cannot overtake the Hare
That fluttered panting, here –
Nor any schoolboy rob the nest
Tenderness builded there.
146
On such a night, or such a night,
Would anybody care
If such a little figure
Slipped quiet from its chair –
So quiet – Oh how quiet,
That nobody might know
But that the little figure
Rocked softer – to and fro –
On such a dawn, or such a dawn –
Would anybody sigh
That such a little figure
Too sound asleep did lie
For Chanticleer to wake it –
Or stirring house below –
Or giddy bird in orchard –
Or early task to do?
There was a little figure plump
For every little knoll –
Busy needles, and spools of thread –
And trudging feet from school –
Playmates, and holidays, and nuts –
And visions vast and small –
Strange that the feet so precious charged
Should reach so small a goal!
147
Bless God, he went as soldiers,
His musket on his breast –
Grant God, he charge the bravest
Of all the martial blest!
Please God, might I behold him
In epauletted white –
I should not fear the foe then –
I should not fear the fight!
148
All overgrown by cunning moss,
All interspersed with weed,
The little cage of “Currer Bell”
In quiet “Haworth” laid.
Gathered from many wanderings –
Gethsemane can tell
Thro’ what transporting anguish
She reached the Asphodel!
Soft falls the sounds of Eden
Upon her puzzled ear –
Oh what an afternoon for Heaven,
When “Bronte” entered there!
149
She went as quiet as the Dew
From an Accustomed flower.
Not like the Dew, did she return
At the Accustomed hour!
She dropt as softly as a star
From out my summer’s Eve –
Less skillful than Le Verriere
It’s sorer to believe!
150
She died – this was the way she died.
And when her breath was done
Took up her simple wardrobe
And started for the sun.
Her little figure at the gate
The Angels must have spied,
Since I could never find her
Upon the mortal side.
151
Mute thy Coronation –
Meek my Vive le roi,
Fold a tiny courtier
In thine Ermine, Sir,
There to rest revering
Till the pageant by,
I can murmur broken,
Master, It was I –
152
The Sun kept stooping – stooping – low!
The Hills to meet him rose!
On his side, what Transaction!
On their side, what Repose!
Deeper and deeper grew the stain
Upon the window pane –
Thicker and thicker stood the feet
Until the Tyrian
Was crowded dense with Armies –
So gay, so Brigadier –
That I felt martial stirrings
Who once the Cockade wore –
Charged from my chimney corner –
But Nobody was there!
153
Dust is the only Secret –
Death, the only One
You cannot find out all about
In his “native town.”
Nobody know “his Father” –
Never was a Boy –
Hadn’t any playmates,
Or “Early history” –
Industrious! Laconic!
Punctual! Sedate!
Bold as a Brigand!
Stiller than a Fleet!
Builds, like a Bird, too!
Christ robs the Nest –
Robin after Robin
Smuggled to Rest!
154
Except to Heaven, she is nought.
Except for Angels – lone.
Except to some wide-wandering Bee
A flower superfluous blown.
Except for winds – provincial.
Except by Butterflies
Unnoticed as a single dew
That on the Acre lies.
The smallest Housewife in the grass,
Yet take her from the Lawn
And somebody has lost the face
That made Existence – Home!
155
The Murmur of a Bee
A Witchcraft – yieldeth me –
If any ask me why –
‘Twere easier to die –
Than tell –
The Red upon the Hill
Taketh away my will –
If anybody sneer –
Take care – for God is here –
That’s all.
The Breaking of the Day
Addeth to my Degree –
If any ask me how –
Artist – who drew me so –
Must tell!
156
You love me – you are sure –
I shall not fear mistake –
I shall not cheated wake –
Some grinning morn –
To find the Sunrise left –
And Orchards – unbereft –
And Dollie – gone!
I need not start – you’re sure –
That night will never be –
When frightened – home to Thee I run –
To find the windows dark –
And no more Dollie – mark –
Quite none?
Be sure you’re sure – you know –
I’ll bear it better now –
If you’ll just tell me so –
Than when – a little dull Balm grown –
Over this pain of mine –
You sting – again!
157
Musicians wrestle everywhere –
All day – among the crowded air
I hear the silver strife –
And – walking – long before the morn –
Such transport breaks upon the town
I think it that “New Life”!
If is not Bird – it has no nest –
Nor “Band” – in brass and scarlet – drest –
Nor Tamborin – nor Man –
It is not Hymn from pulpit read –
The “Morning Stars” the Treble led
On Time’s first Afternoon!
Some – say – it is “the Spheres” – at play!
Some say that bright Majority
Of vanished Dames – and Men!
Some – think it service in the place
Where we – with late – celestial face –
Please God – shall Ascertain!
158
Dying! Dying in the night!
Won’t somebody bring the light
So I can see which way to go
Into the everlasting snow?
And “Jesus”! Where is Jesus gone?
They said that Jesus – always came –
Perhaps he doesn’t know the House –
This way, Jesus, Let him pass!
Somebody run to the great gate
And see if Dollie’s coming! Wait!
I hear her feet upon the stair!
Death won’t hurt – now Dollie’s here!
159
A little bread – a crust – a crumb –
A little trust – a demijohn –
Can keep the soul alive –
Not portly, mind! but breathing – warm –
Conscious – as old Napoleon,
The night before the Crown!
A modest lot – A fame petite –
A brief Campaign of sting and sweet
Is plenty! Is enough!
A Sailor’s business is the shore!
A Soldier’s – balls! Who asketh more,
Must seek the neighboring life!
160
Just lost, when I was saved!
Just felt the world go by!
Just girt me for the onset with Eternity,
When breath blew back,
And on the other side
I heard recede the disappointed tide!
Therefore, as One returned, I feel
Odd secrets of the line to tell!
Some Sailor, skirting foreign shores –
Some pale Reporter, from the awful doors
Before the Seal!
Next time, to stay!
Next time, the things to see
By Ear unheard,
Unscrutinized by Eye –
Next time, to tarry,
While the Ages steal –
Slow tramp the Centuries,
And the Cycles wheel!
161
A feather from the Whippoorwill
That everlasting – sings!
Whose galleries – are Sunrise –
Whose Opera – the Springs –
Whose Emerald Nest the Ages spin
Of mellow – murmuring thread –
Whose Beryl Egg, what Schoolboys hunt
In “Recess” – Overhead!
162
My River runs to thee –
Blue Sea! Wilt welcome me?
My River wait reply –
Oh Sea – look graciously –
I’ll fetch thee Brooks
From spotted nooks –
Say – Sea – Take Me!
163
Tho’ my destiny be Fustian –
Hers be damask fine –
Tho’ she wear a silver apron –
I, a less divine –
Still, my little Gypsy being
I would far prefer,
Still, my little sunburnt bosom
To her Rosier,
For, when Frosts, their punctual fingers
On her forehead lay,
You and I, and Dr. Holland,
Bloom Eternally!
Roses of a steadfast summer
In a steadfast land,
Where no Autumn lifts her pencil –
And no Reapers stand!
164
Mama never forgets her birds,
Though in another tree –
She looks down just as often
And just as tenderly
As when her little mortal nest
With cunning care she wove –
If either of her “sparrows fall,”
She “notices,” above.
165
A Wounded Deer – leaps highest –
I’ve heard the Hunter tell –
‘Tis but the Ecstasy of death –
And then the Brake is still!
The Smitten Rock that gushes!
The trampled Steel that springs!
A Cheek is always redder
Just where the Hectic stings!
Mirth is the Mail of Anguish
In which it Cautious Arm,
Lest anybody spy the blood
And “you’re hurt” exclaim!
166
I met a King this afternoon!
He had not on a Crown indeed,
A little Palmleaf Hat was all,
And he was barefoot, I’m afraid!
But sure I am he Ermine wore
Beneath his faded Jacket’s blue –
And sure I am, the crest he bore
Within that Jacket’s pocket too!
For ’twas too stately for an Earl –
A Marquis would not go so grand!
‘Twas possibly a Czar petite –
A Pope, or something of that kind!
If I must tell you, of a Horse
My freckled Monarch held the rein –
Doubtless an estimable Beast,
But not at all disposed to run!
And such a wagon! While I live
Dare I presume to see
Another such a vehicle
As then transported me!
Two other ragged Princes
His royal state partook!
Doubtless the first excursion
These sovereigns ever took!
I question if the Royal Coach
Round which the Footmen wait
Has the significance, on high,
Of this Barefoot Estate!
167
To learn the Transport by the Pain
As Blind Men learn the sun!
To die of thirst – suspecting
That Brooks in Meadows run!
To stay the homesick – homesick feet
Upon a foreign shore –
Haunted by native lands, the while –
And blue – beloved air!
This is the Sovereign Anguish!
This – the signal woe!
These are the patient “Laureates”
Whose voices – trained – below –
Ascend in ceaseless Carol –
Inaudible, indeed,
To us – the duller scholars
Of the Mysterious Bard!
168
If the foolish, call them “flowers” –
Need the wiser, tell?
If the Savants “Classify” them
It is just as well!
Those who read the “Revelations”
Must not criticize
Those who read the same Edition –
With beclouded Eyes!
Could we stand with that Old “Moses” –
“Canaan” denied –
Scan like him, the stately landscape
On the other side –
Doubtless, we should deem superfluous
Many Sciences,
Not pursued by learned Angels
In scholastic skies!
Low amid that glad Belles lettres
Grant that we may stand,
Stars, amid profound Galaxies –
At that grand “Right hand”!
169
In Ebon Box, when years have flown
To reverently peer,
Wiping away the velvet dust
Summers have sprinkled there!
To hold a letter to the light –
Grown Tawny now, with time –
To con the faded syllables
That quickened us like Wine!
Perhaps a Flower’s shrivelled check
Among its stores to find –
Plucked far away, some morning –
By gallant – mouldering hand!
A curl, perhaps, from foreheads
Our Constancy forgot –
Perhaps, an Antique trinket –
In vanished fashions set!
And then to lay them quiet back –
And go about its care –
As if the little Ebon Box
Were none of our affair!
170
Portraits are to daily faces
As an Evening West,
To a fine, pedantic sunshine –
In a satin Vest!
171
Wait till the Majesty of Death
Invests so mean a brow!
Almost a powdered Footman
Might dare to touch it now!
Wait till in Everlasting Robes
That Democrat is dressed,
Then prate about “Preferment” –
And “Station,” and the rest!
Around this quiet Courtier
Obsequious Angels wait!
Full royal is his Retinue!
Full purple is his state!
A Lord, might dare to lift the Hat
To such a Modest Clay
Since that My Lord, “the Lord of Lords”
Receives unblushingly!
172
‘Tis so much joy! ‘Tis so much joy!
If I should fail, what poverty!
And yet, as poor as I,
Have ventured all upon a throw!
Have gained! Yes! Hesitated so –
This side the Victory!
Life is but Life! And Death, but Death!
Bliss is, but Bliss, and Breath but Breath!
And if indeed I fail,
At least, to know the worst, is sweet!
Defeat means nothing but Defeat,
No drearier, can befall!
And if I gain! Oh Gun at Sea!
Oh Bells, that in the Steeples be!
At first, repeat it slow!
For Heaven is a different thing,
Conjectured, and waked sudden in –
And might extinguish me!
173
A fuzzy fellow, without feet,
Yet doth exceeding run!
Of velvet, is his Countenance,
And his Complexion, dun!
Sometime, he dwelleth in the grass!
Sometime, upon a bough,
From which he doth descend in plush
Upon the Passer-by!
All this in summer.
But when winds alarm the Forest Folk,
He taketh Damask Residence –
And struts in sewing silk!
Then, finer than a Lady,
Emerges in the spring!
A Feather on each shoulder!
You’d scarce recognize him!
By Men, yclept Caterpillar!
By me! But who am I,
To tell the pretty secret
Of the Butterfly!
174
At last, to be identified!
At last, the lamps upon thy side
The rest of Life to see!
Past Midnight! Past the Morning Star!
Past Sunrise!
Ah, What leagues there were
Between our feet, and Day!
175
I have never seen “Volcanoes” –
But, when Travellers tell
How those old – phlegmatic mountains
Usually so still –
Bear within – appalling Ordnance,
Fire, and smoke, and gun,
Taking Villages for breakfast,
And appalling Men –
If the stillness is Volcanic
In the human face
When upon a pain Titanic
Features keep their place –
If at length the smouldering anguish
Will not overcome –
And the palpitating Vineyard
In the dust, be thrown?
If some loving Antiquary,
On Resumption Morn,
Will not cry with joy “Pompeii”!
To the Hills return!
176
I’m the little “Heart’s Ease”!
I don’t care for pouting skies!
If the Butterfly delay
Can I, therefore, stay away?
If the Coward Bumble Bee
In his chimney corner stay,
I, must resoluter be!
Who’ll apologize for me?
Dear, Old fashioned, little flower!
Eden is old fashioned, too!
Birds are antiquated fellows!
Heaven does not change her blue.
Nor will I, the little Heart’s Ease –
Ever be induced to do!
177
Ah, Necromancy Sweet!
Ah, Wizard erudite!
Teach me the skill,
That I instil the pain
Surgeons assuage in vain,
Nor Herb of all the plain
Can Heal!
178
I cautious, scanned my little life –
I winnowed what would fade
From what would last till Heads like mine
Should be a-dreaming laid.
I put the latter in a Barn –
The former, blew away.
I went one winter morning
And lo – my priceless Hay
Was not upon the “Scaffold” –
Was not upon the “Beam” –
And from a thriving Farmer –
A Cynic, I became.
Whether a Thief did it –
Whether it was the wind –
Whether Deity’s guiltless –
My business is, to find!
So I begin to ransack!
How is it Hearts, with Thee?
Art thou within the little Barn
Love provided Thee?
179
If I could bribe them by a Rose
I’d bring them every flower that grows
From Amherst to Cashmere!
I would not stop for night, or storm –
Or frost, or death, or anyone –
My business were so dear!
If they would linger for a Bird
My Tambourin were soonest heard
Among the April Woods!
Unwearied, all the summer long,
Only to break in wilder song
When Winter shook the boughs!
What if they hear me!
Who shall say
That such an importunity
May not at last avail?
That, weary of this Beggar’s face –
They may not finally say, Yes –
To drive her from the Hall?
180
As if some little Arctic flower
Upon the polar hem –
Went wandering down the Latitudes
Until it puzzled came
To continents of summer –
To firmaments of sun –
To strange, bright crowds of flowers –
And birds, of foreign tongue!
I say, As if this little flower
To Eden, wandered in –
What then? Why nothing,
Only, your inference therefrom!
181
I lost a World – the other day!
Has Anybody found?
You’ll know it by the Row of Stars
Around its forehead bound.
A Rich man – might not notice it –
Yet – to my frugal Eye,
Of more Esteem than Ducats –
Oh find it – Sir – for me!
182
If I shouldn’t be alive
When the Robins come,
Give the one in Red Cravat,
A Memorial crumb.
If I couldn’t thank you,
Being fast asleep,
You will know I’m trying
Why my Granite lip!
183
I’ve heard an Organ talk, sometimes
In a Cathedral Aisle,
And understood no word it said –
Yet held my breath, the while –
And risen up – and gone away,
A more Berdardine Girl –
Yet – know not what was done to me
In that old Chapel Aisle.
184
A transport one cannot contain
May yet a transport be –
Though God forbid it lift the lid –
Unto its Ecstasy!
A Diagram – of Rapture!
A sixpence at a Show –
With Holy Ghosts in Cages!
The Universe would go!
185
“Faith” is a fine invention
When Gentlemen can see –
But Microscopes are prudent
In an Emergency.
186
What shall I do – it whimpers so –
This little Hound within the Heart
All day and night with bark and start –
And yet, it will not go –
Would you untie it, were you me –
Would it stop whining – if to Thee –
I sent it – even now?
It should not tease you –
By your chair – or, on the mat –
Or if it dare – to climb your dizzy knee –
Or – sometimes at your side to run –
When you were willing –
Shall it come?
Tell Carlo –
He’ll tell me!
187
How many times these low feet staggered –
Only the soldered mouth can tell –
Try – can you stir the awful rivet –
Try – can you lift the hasps of steel!
Stroke the cool forehead – hot so often –
Lift – if you care – the listless hair –
Handle the adamantine fingers
Never a thimble – more – shall wear –
Buzz the dull flies – on the chamber window –
Brave – shines the sun through the freckled pane –
Fearless – the cobweb swings from the ceiling –
Indolent Housewife – in Daisies – lain!
188
Make me a picture of the sun –
So I can hang it in my room –
And make believe I’m getting warm
When others call it “Day”!
Draw me a Robin – on a stem –
So I am hearing him, I’ll dream,
And when the Orchards stop their tune –
Put my pretense – away –
Say if it’s really – warm at noon –
Whether it’s Buttercups – that “skim” –
Or Butterflies – that “bloom”?
Then – skip – the frost – upon the lea –
And skip the Russet – on the tree –
Let’s play those – never come!
189
It’s such a little thing to weep –
So short a thing to sigh –
And yet – by Trades – the size of these
We men and women die!
190
He was weak, and I was strong – then –
So He let me lead him in –
I was weak, and He was strong then –
So I let him lead me – Home.
‘Twasn’t far – the door was near –
‘Twasn’t dark – for He went – too –
‘Twasn’t loud, for He said nought –
That was all I cared to know.
Day knocked – and we must part –
Neither – was strongest – now –
He strove – and I strove – too –
We didn’t do it – tho’!
191
The Skies can’t keep their secret!
They tell it to the Hills –
The Hills just tell the Orchards –
And they – the Daffodils!
A Bird – by chance – that goes that way –
Soft overhears the whole –
If I should bribe the little Bird –
Who knows but she would tell?
I think I won’t – however –
It’s finer – not to know –
If Summer were an Axiom –
What sorcery had Snow?
So keep your secret – Father!
I would not – if I could,
Know what the Sapphire Fellows, do,
In your new-fashioned world!
192
Poor little Heart!
Did they forget thee?
Then dinna care! Then dinna care!
Proud little Heart!
Did they forsake thee?
Be debonnaire! Be debonnaire!
Frail little Heart!
I would not break thee –
Could’st credit me? Could’st credit me?
Gay little Heart –
Like Morning Glory!
Wind and Sun – wilt thee array!
193
I shall know why – when Time is over –
And I have ceased to wonder why –
Christ will explain each separate anguish
In the fair schoolroom of the sky –
He will tell me what “Peter” promised –
And I – for wonder at his woe –
I shall forget the drop of Anguish
That scalds me now – that scalds me now!
194
On this long storm the Rainbow rose –
On this late Morn – the Sun –
The clouds – like listless Elephants –
Horizons – straggled down –
The Birds rose smiling, in their nests –
The gales – indeed – were done –
Alas, how heedless were the eyes –
On whom the summer shone!
The quiet nonchalance of death –
No Daybreak – can bestir –
The slow – Archangel’s syllables
Must awaken her!
195
For this – accepted Breath –
Through it – compete with Death –
The fellow cannot touch this Crown –
By it – my title take –
Ah, what a royal sake
To my necessity – stooped down!
No Wilderness – can be
Where this attendeth me –
No Desert Noon –
No fear of frost to come
Haunt the perennial bloom –
But Certain June!
Get Gabriel – to tell – the royal syllable –
Get Saints – with new – unsteady tongue –
To say what trance below
Most like their glory show –
Fittest the Crown!
196
We don’t cry – Tim and I,
We are far too grand –
But we bolt the door tight
To prevent a friend –
Then we hide our brave face
Deep in our hand –
Not to cry – Tim and I –
We are far too grand –
Nor to dream – he and me –
Do we condescend –
We just shut our brown eye
To see to the end –
Tim – see Cottages –
But, Oh, so high!
Then – we shake – Tim and I –
And lest I – cry –
Tim – reads a little Hymn –
And we both pray –
Please, Sir, I and Tim –
Always lost the way!
We must die – by and by –
Clergymen say –
Tim – shall – if I – do –
I – too – if he –
How shall we arrange it –
Tim – was – so – shy?
Take us simultaneous – Lord –
I – “Tim” – and Me!
197
Morning – is the place for Dew –
Corn – is made at Noon –
After dinner light – for flowers –
Dukes – for Setting Sun!
198
An awful Tempest mashed the air –
The clouds were gaunt, and few –
A Black – as of a Spectre’s Cloak
Hid Heaven and Earth from view.
The creatures chuckled on the Roofs –
And whistled in the air –
And shook their fists –
And gnashed their teeth –
And swung their frenzied hair.
The morning lit – the Birds arose –
The Monster’s faded eyes
Turned slowly to his native coast –
And peace – was Paradise!
199
I’m “wife” – I’ve finished that –
That other state –
I’m Czar – I’m “Woman” now –
It’s safer so –
How odd the Girl’s life looks
Behind this soft Eclipse –
I think that Earth feels so
To folks in Heaven – now –
This being comfort – then
That other kind – was pain –
But why compare?
I’m “Wife”! Stop there!
200
I stole them from a Bee –
Because – Thee –
Sweet plea –
He pardoned me!
201
Two swimmers wrestled on the spar –
Until the morning sun –
When One – turned smiling to the land –
Oh God! the Other One!
The stray ships – passing –
Spied a face –
Upon the waters borne –
With eyes in death – still begging raised –
And hands – beseeching – thrown!
202
My Eye is fuller than my vase –
Her Cargo – is of Dew –
And still – my Heart – my Eye outweighs –
East India – for you!
203
He forgot – and I – remembered –
‘Twas an everyday affair –
Long ago as Christ and Peter –
“Warmed them” at the “Temple fire.”
“Thou wert with him” – quoth “the Damsel”?
“No” – said Peter, ’twasn’t me –
Jesus merely “looked” at Peter –
Could I do aught else – to Thee?
204
A slash of Blue –
A sweep of Gray –
Some scarlet patches on the way,
Compose an Evening Sky –
A little purple – slipped between –
Some Ruby Trousers hurried on –
A Wave of Gold –
A Bank of Day –
This just makes out the Morning Sky.
205
I should not dare to leave my friend,
Because – because if he should die
While I was gone – and I – too late –
Should reach the Heart that wanted me –
If I should disappoint the eyes
That hunted – hunted so – to see –
And could not bear to shut until
They “noticed” me – they noticed me –
If I should stab the patient faith
So sure I’d come – so sure I’d come –
It listening – listening – went to sleep –
Telling my tardy name –
My Heart would wish it broke before –
Since breaking then – since breaking then –
Were useless as next morning’s sun –
Where midnight frosts – had lain!
206
The Flower must not blame the Bee –
That seeketh his felicity
Too often at her door –
But teach the Footman from Vevay –
Mistress is “not at home” – to say –
To people – any more!
207
Tho’ I get home how late – how late –
So I get home – ’twill compensate –
Better will be the Ecstasy
That they have done expecting me –
When Night – descending – dumb – and dark –
They hear my unexpected knock –
Transporting must the moment be –
Brewed from decades of Agony!
To think just how the fire will burn –
Just how long-cheated eyes will turn –
To wonder what myself will say,
And what itself, will say to me –
Beguiles the Centuries of way!
208
The Rose did caper on her cheek –
Her Bodice rose and fell –
Her pretty speech – like drunken men –
Did stagger pitiful –
Her fingers fumbled at her work –
Her needle would not go –
What ailed so smart a little Maid –
It puzzled me to know –
Till opposite – I spied a cheek
That bore another Rose –
Just opposite – Another speech
That like the Drunkard goes –
A Vest that like her Bodice, danced –
To the immortal tune –
Till those two troubled – little Clocks
Ticked softly into one.
209
With thee, in the Desert –
With thee in the thirst –
With thee in the Tamarind wood –
Leopard breathes – at last!
210
The thought beneath so slight a film –
Is more distinctly seen –
As laces just reveal the surge –
Or mists – the Apennine
211
Come slowly – Eden!
Lips unused to Thee –
Bashful – sip thy Jessamines –
As the fainting Bee –
Reaching late his flower,
Round her chamber hums –
Counts his nectars –
Enters – and is lost in Balms.
212
Least Rivers – docile to some sea.
My Caspian – thee.
213
Did the Harebell loose her girdle
To the lover Bee
Would the Bee the Harebell hallow
Much as formerly?
Did the “Paradise” – persuaded –
Yield her moat of pearl –
Would the Eden be an Eden,
Or the Earl – an Earl?
214
I taste a liquor never brewed –
From Tankards scooped in Pearl –
Not all the Vats upon the Rhine
Yield such an Alcohol!
Inebriate of Air – am I –
And Debauchee of Dew –
Reeling – thro endless summer days –
From inns of Molten Blue –
When “Landlords” turn the drunken Bee
Out of the Foxglove’s door –
When Butterflies – renounce their “drams” –
I shall but drink the more!
Till Seraphs swing their snowy Hats –
And Saints – to windows run –
To see the little Tippler
Leaning against the – Sun –
215
What is – “Paradise” –
Who live there –
Are they “Farmers” –
Do they “hoe” –
Do they know that this is “Amherst” –
And that I – am coming – too –
Do they wear “new shoes” – in “Eden” –
Is it always pleasant – there –
Won’t they scold us – when we’re homesick –
Or tell God – how cross we are –
You are sure there’s such a person
As “a Father” – in the sky –
So if I get lost – there – ever –
Or do what the Nurse calls “die” –
I shan’t walk the “Jasper” – barefoot –
Ransomed folks – won’t laugh at me –
Maybe – “Eden” a’n’t so lonesome
As New England used to be!
216
Safe in their Alabaster Chambers –
Untouched my Morning
And untouched by Noon –
Sleep the meek members of the Resurrection –
Rafter of satin,
And Roof of stone.
Light laughs the breeze
In her Castle above them –
Babbles the Bee in a stolid Ear,
Pipe the Sweet Birds in ignorant cadence –
Ah, what sagacity perished here!
217
Savior! I’ve no one else to tell –
And so I trouble thee.
I am the one forgot thee so –
Dost thou remember me?
Nor, for myself, I came so far –
That were the little load –
I brought thee the imperial Heart
I had not strength to hold –
The Heart I carried in my own –
Till mine too heavy grew –
Yet – strangest – heavier since it went –
Is it too large for you?
218
Is it true, dear Sue?
Are there two?
I shouldn’t like to come
For fear of joggling Him!
If I could shut him up
In a Coffee Cup,
Or tie him to a pin
Till I got in –
Or make him fast
To “Toby’s” fist –
Hist! Whist! I’d come!
219
She sweeps with many-colored Brooms –
And leaves the Shreds behind –
Oh Housewife in the Evening West –
Come back, and dust the Pond!
You dropped a Purple Ravelling in –
You dropped an Amber thread –
And how you’ve littered all the East
With duds of Emerald!
And still, she plies her spotted Brooms,
And still the Aprons fly,
Till Brooms fade softly into stars –
And then I come away –
220
Could I – then – shut the door –
Lest my beseeching face – at last –
Rejected – be – of Her?
221
It can’t be “Summer”!
That – got through!
It’s early – yet – for “Spring”!
There’s that long town of White – to cross –
Before the Blackbirds sing!
It can’t be “Dying”!
It’s too Rouge –
The Dead shall go in White –
So Sunset shuts my question down
With Cuffs of Chrysolite!
222
When Katie walks, this simple pair accompany her side,
When Katie runs unwearied they follow on the road,
When Katie kneels, their loving hands still clasp her pious knee –
Ah! Katie! Smile at Fortune, with two so knit to thee!
223
I Came to buy a smile – today –
But just a single smile –
The smallest one upon your face
Will suit me just as well –
The one that no one else would miss
It shone so very small –
I’m pleading at the “counter” – sir –
Could you afford to sell –
I’ve Diamonds – on my fingers –
You know what Diamonds are?
I’ve Rubies – live the Evening Blood –
And Topaz – like the star!
‘Twould be “a Bargain” for a Jew!
Say – may I have it – Sir?
224
I’ve nothing else – to bring, You know –
So I keep bringing These –
Just as the Night keeps fetching Stars
To our familiar eyes –
Maybe, we shouldn’t mind them –
Unless they didn’t come –
Then – maybe, it would puzzle us
To find our way Home –
225
Jesus! thy Crucifix
Enable thee to guess
The smaller size!
Jesus! thy second face
Mind thee in Paradise
Of ours!
226
Should you but fail at – Sea –
In sight of me –
Or doomed lie –
Next Sun – to die –
Or rap – at Paradise – unheard
I’d harass God
Until he let you in!
227
Teach Him – When He makes the names –
Such an one – to say –
On his babbling – Berry – lips –
As should sound – to me –
Were my Ear – as near his nest –
As my thought – today –
As should sound –
“Forbid us not” –
Some like “Emily.”
228
Blazing in Gold and quenching in Purple
Leaping like Leopards to the Sky
Then at the feet of the old Horizon
Laying her spotted Face to die
Stooping as low as the Otter’s Window
Touching the Roof and tinting the Barn
Kissing her Bonnet to the Meadow
And the Juggler of Day is gone
229
A Burdock – clawed my Gown –
Not Burdock’s – blame –
But mine –
Who went too near
The Burdock’s Den –
A Bog – affronts my shoe –
What else have Bogs – to do –
The only Trade they know –
The splashing Men!
Ah, pity – then!
‘Tis Minnows can despise!
The Elephant’s – calm eyes
Look further on!
230
We – Bee and I – live by the quaffing –
‘Tisn’t all Hock – with us –
Life has its Ale –
But it’s many a lay of the Dim Burgundy –
We chant – for cheer – when the Wines – fail –
Do we “get drunk”?
Ask the jolly Clovers!
Do we “beat” our “Wife”?
I – never wed –
Bee – pledges his – in minute flagons –
Dainty – as the trees – on our deft Head –
While runs the Rhine –
He and I – revel –
First – at the vat – and latest at the Vine –
Noon – our last Cup –
“Found dead” – “of Nectar” –
By a humming Coroner –
In a By-Thyme!
231
God permits industrious Angels –
Afternoons – to play –
I met one – forgot my Schoolmates –
All – for Him – straightway –
God calls home – the Angels – promptly –
At the Setting Sun –
I missed mine – how dreary – Marbles –
After playing Crown!
232
The Sun – just touched the Morning –
The Morning – Happy thing –
Supposed that He had come to dwell –
And Life would all be Spring!
She felt herself supremer –
A Raised – Ethereal Thing!
Henceforth – for Her – What Holiday!
Meanwhile – Her wheeling King –
Trailed – slow – along the Orchards –
His haughty – spangled Hems –
Leaving a new necessity!
The want of Diadems!
The Morning – fluttered – staggered –
Felt feebly – for Her Crown –
Her unanointed forehead –
Henceforth – Her only One!
233
The Lamp burns sure – within –
Tho’ Serfs – supply the Oil –
It matters not the busy Wick –
At her phosphoric toil!
The Slave – forgets – to fill –
The Lamp – burns golden – on –
Unconscious that the oil is out –
As that the Slave – is gone.
234
You’re right – “the way is narrow” –
And “difficult the Gate” –
And “few there be” – Correct again –
That “enter in – thereat” –
‘Tis Costly – So are purples!
‘Tis just the price of Breath –
With but the “Discount” of the Grave –
Termed by the Brokers – “Death”!
And after that – there’s Heaven –
The Good Man’s – “Dividend” –
And Bad Men – “go to Jail” –
I guess –
235
The Court is far away –
No Umpire – have I –
My Sovereign is offended –
To gain his grace – I’d die!
I’ll seek his royal feet –
I’ll say – Remember – King –
Thou shalt – thyself – one day – a Child –
Implore a larger – thing –
That Empire – is of Czars –
As small – they say – as I –
Grant me – that day – the royalty –
To intercede – for Thee –
236
If He dissolve – then – there is nothing – more –
Eclipse – at Midnight –
It was dark – before –
Sunset – at Easter –
Blindness – on the Dawn –
Faint Star of Bethlehem –
Gone down!
Would but some God – inform Him –
Or it be too late!
Say – that the pulse just lisps –
The Chariots wait –
Say – that a little life – for His –
Is leaking – red –
His little Spaniel – tell Him!
Will He heed?
237
I think just how my shape will rise –
When I shall be “forgiven” –
Till Hair – and Eyes – and timid Head –
Are out of sight – in Heaven –
I think just how my lips will weigh –
With shapeless – quivering – prayer –
That you – so late – “Consider” me –
The “Sparrow” of your Care –
I mind me that of Anguish – sent –
Some drifts were moved away –
Before my simple bosom – broke –
And why not this – if they?
And so I con that thing – “forgiven” –
Until – delirious – borne –
By my long bright – and longer – trust –
I drop my Heart – unshriven!
238
Kill your Balm – and its Odors bless you –
Bare your Jessamine – to the storm –
And she will fling her maddest perfume –
Haply – your Summer night to Charm –
Stab the Bird – that built in your bosom –
Oh, could you catch her last Refrain –
Bubble! “forgive” – “Some better” – Bubble!
“Carol for Him – when I am gone”!
239
“Heaven” – is what I cannot reach!
The Apple on the Tree –
Provided it do hopeless – hang –
That – “Heaven” is – to Me!
The Color, on the Cruising Cloud –
The interdicted Land –
Behind the Hill – the House behind –
There – Paradise – is found!
Her teasing Purples – Afternoons –
The credulous – decoy –
Enamored – of the Conjuror –
That spurned us – Yesterday!
240
Ah, Moon – and Star!
You are very far –
But were no one
Farther than you –
Do you think I’d stop
For a Firmament –
Or a Cubit – or so?
I could borrow a Bonnet
Of the Lark –
And a Chamois’ Silver Boot –
And a stirrup of an Antelope –
And be with you – Tonight!
But, Moon, and Star,
Though you’re very far –
There is one – farther than you –
He – is more than a firmament – from Me –
So I can never go!
241
I like a look of Agony,
Because I know it’s true –
Men do not sham Convulsion,
Nor simulate, a Throe –
The Eyes glaze once – and that is Death –
Impossible to feign
The Beads upon the Forehead
By homely Anguish strung.
242
When we stand on the tops of Things –
And like the Trees, look down –
The smoke all cleared away from it –
And Mirrors on the scene –
Just laying light – no soul will wink
Except it have the flaw –
The Sound ones, like the Hills – shall stand –
No Lighting, scares away –
The Perfect, nowhere be afraid –
They bear their dauntless Heads,
Where others, dare not go at Noon,
Protected by their deeds –
The Stars dare shine occasionally
Upon a spotted World –
And Suns, go surer, for their Proof,
As if an Axle, held –
243
I’ve known a Heaven, like a Tent –
To wrap its shining Yards –
Pluck up its stakes, and disappear –
Without the sound of Boards
Or Rip of Nail – Or Carpenter –
But just the miles of Stare –
That signalize a Show’s Retreat –
In North America –
No Trace – no Figment of the Thing
That dazzled, Yesterday,
No Ring – no Marvel –
Men, and Feats –
Dissolved as utterly –
As Bird’s far Navigation
Discloses just a Hue –
A plash of Oars, a Gaiety –
Then swallowed up, of View.
244
It is easy to work when the soul is at play –
But when the soul is in pain –
The hearing him put his playthings up
Makes work difficult – then –
It is simple, to ache in the Bone, or the Rind –
But Gimlets – among the nerve –
Mangle daintier – terribler –
Like a Panter in the Glove –
245
I held a Jewel in my fingers –
And went to sleep –
The day was warm, and winds were prosy –
I said “‘Twill keep” –
I woke – and chid my honest fingers,
The Gem was gone –
And now, an Amethyst remembrance
Is all I own –
246
Forever at His side to walk –
The smaller of the two!
Brain of His Brain –
Blood of His Blood –
Two lives – One Being – now –
Forever of His fate to taste –
If grief – the largest part –
If joy – to put my piece away
For that beloved Heart –
All life – to know each other –
Whom we can never learn –
And bye and bye – a Change –
Called Heaven –
Rapt Neighborhoods of Men –
Just finding out – what puzzled us –
Without the lexicon!
247
What would I give to see his face?
I’d give – I’d give my life – of course –
But that is not enough!
Stop just a minute – let me think!
I’d give my biggest Bobolink!
That makes two – Him – and Life!
You know who “June” is –
I’d give her –
Roses a day from Zanzibar –
And Lily tubes – like Wells –
Bees – by the furlong –
Straits of Blue
Navies of Butterflies – sailed thro’ –
And dappled Cowslip Dells –
Then I have “shares” in Primrose “Banks” –
Daffodil Dowries – spicy “Stocks” –
Dominions – broad as Dew –
Bags of Doublons – adventurous Bees
Brought me – from firmamental seas –
And Purple – from Peru –
Now – have I bought it –
“Shylock”? Say!
Sign me the Bond!
“I vow to pay
To Her – who pledges this –
One hour – of her Sovereign’s face”!
Ecstatic Contract!
Niggard Grace!
My Kingdom’s worth of Bliss!
248
Why – do they shut Me out of Heaven?
Did I sing – too loud?
But – I can say a little “Minor”
Timid as a Bird!
Wouldn’t the Angels try me –
Just – once – more –
Just – see – if I troubled them –
But don’t – shut the door!
Oh, if I – were the Gentleman
In the “White Robe” –
And they – were the little Hand – that knocked –
Could – I – forbid?
249
Wild Nights – Wild Nights!
Were I with thee
Wild Nights should be
Our luxury!
Futile – the Winds –
To a Heart in port –
Done with the Compass –
Done with the Chart!
Rowing in Eden –
Ah, the Sea!
Might I but moor – Tonight –
In Thee!
250
I shall keep singing!
Birds will pass me
On their way to Yellower Climes –
Each – with a Robin’s expectation –
I – with my Redbreast –
And my Rhymes –
Late – when I take my place in summer –
But – I shall bring a fuller tune –
Vespers – are sweeter than Matins – Signor –
Morning – only the seed of Noon –
251
Over the fence –
Strawberries – grow –
Over the fence –
I could climb – if I tried, I know –
Berries are nice!
But – if I stained my Apron –
God would certainly scold!
Oh, dear, – I guess if He were a Boy –
He’d – climb – if He could!
252
I can wade Grief –
Whole Pools of it –
I’m used to that –
But the least push of Joy
Breaks up my feet –
And I tip – drunken –
Let no Pebble – smile –
‘Twas the New Liquor –
That was all!
Power is only Pain –
Stranded, thro’ Discipline,
Till Weights – will hang –
Give Balm – to Giants –
And they’ll wilt, like Men –
Give Himmaleh –
They’ll Carry – Him!
253
You see I cannot see – your lifetime –
I must guess –
How many times it ache for me – today – Confess –
How many times for my far sake
The brave eyes film –
But I guess guessing hurts –
Mine – got so dim!
Too vague – the face –
My own – so patient – covers –
Too far – the strength –
My timidness enfolds –
Haunting the Heart –
Like her translated faces –
Teasing the want –
It – only – can suffice!
254
“Hope” is the thing with feathers –
That perches in the soul –
And sings the tune without the words –
And never stops – at all –
And sweetest – in the Gale – is heard –
And sore must be the storm –
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm –
I’ve heard it in the chillest land –
And on the strangest Sea –
Yet, never, in Extremity,
It asked a crumb – of Me.
255
To die – takes just a little while –
They say it doesn’t hurt –
It’s only fainter – by degrees –
And then – it’s out of sight –
A darker Ribbon – for a Day –
A Crape upon the Hat –
And then the pretty sunshine comes –
And helps us to forget –
The absent – mystic – creature –
That but for love of us –
Had gone to sleep – that soundest time –
Without the weariness –
256
If I’m lost – now
That I was found –
Shall still my transport be –
That once – on me – those Jasper Gates
Blazed open – suddenly –
That in my awkward – gazing – face –
The Angels – softly peered –
And touched me with their fleeces,
Almost as if they cared –
I’m banished – now – you know it –
How foreign that can be –
You’ll know – Sir – when the Savior’s face
Turns so – away from you –
257
Delight is as the flight –
Or in the Ratio of it,
As the Schools would say –
The Rainbow’s way –
A Skein
Flung colored, after Rain,
Would suit as bright,
Except that flight
Were Aliment –
“If it would last”
I asked the East,
When that Bent Stripe
Struck up my childish
Firmament –
And I, for glee,
Took Rainbows, as the common way,
And empty Skies
The Eccentricity –
And so with Lives –
And so with Butterflies –
Seen magic – through the fright
That they will cheat the sight –
And Dower latitudes far on –
Some sudden morn –
Our portion – in the fashion –
Done –
258
There’s a certain Slant of light,
Winter Afternoons –
That oppresses, like the Heft
Of Cathedral Tunes –
Heavenly Hurt, it gives us –
We can find no scar,
But internal difference,
Where the Meanings, are –
None may teach it – Any –
‘Tis the Seal Despair –
An imperial affliction
Sent us of the Air –
When it comes, the Landscape listens –
Shadows – hold their breath –
When it goes, ’tis like the Distance
On the look of Death –
259
Good Night! Which put the Candle out?
A jealous Zephyr – not a doubt –
Ah, friend, you little knew
How long at that celestial wick
The Angels – labored diligent –
Extinguished – now – for you!
It might – have been the Light House spark –
Some Sailor – rowing in the Dark –
Had importuned to see!
It might – have been the waning lamp
That lit the Drummer from the Camp
To purer Reveille!
260
Read – Sweet – how others – strove –
Till we – are stouter –
What they – renounced –
Till we – are less afraid –
How many times they – bore the faithful witness –
Till we – are helped –
As if a Kingdom – cared!
Read then – of faith –
That shone above the fagot –
Clear strains of Hymn
The River could not drown –
Brave names of Men –
And Celestial Women –
Passed out – of Record
Into – Renown!
261
Put up my lute!
What of – my Music!
Since the sole ear I cared to charm –
Passive – as Granite – laps My Music –
Sobbing – will suit – as well as psalm!
Would but the “Memnon” of the Desert –
Teach me the strain
That vanquished Him –
When He – surrendered to the Sunrise –
Maybe – that – would awaken – them!
262
The lonesome for they know not What –
The Eastern Exiles – be –
Who strayed beyond the Amber line
Some madder Holiday –
And ever since – the purple Moat
They strive to climb – in vain –
As Birds – that tumble from the clouds
Do fumble at the strain –
The Blessed Ether – taught them –
Some Transatlantic Morn –
When Heaven – was too common – to miss –
Too sure – to dote upon!
263
A single Screw of Flesh
Is all that pins the Soul
That stands for Deity, to Mine,
Upon my side the Veil –
Once witnessed of the Gauze –
Its name is put away
As far from mine, as if no plight
Had printed yesterday,
In tender – solemn Alphabet,
My eyes just turned to see,
When it was smuggled by my sight
Into Eternity –
More Hands – to hold – These are but Two –
One more new-mailed Nerve
Just granted, for the Peril’s sake –
Some striding – Giant – Love –
So greater than the Gods can show,
They slink before the Clay,
That not for all their Heaven can boast
Will let its Keepsake – go
264
A Weight with Needles on the pounds –
To push, and pierce, besides –
That if the Flesh resist the Heft –
The puncture – coolly tries –
That not a pore be overlooked
Of all this Compound Frame –
As manifold for Anguish –
As Species – be – for name –
265
Where Ships of Purple – gently toss –
On Seas of Daffodil –
Fantastic Sailors – mingle –
And then – the Wharf is still!
266
This – is the land – the Sunset washes –
These – are the Banks of the Yellow Sea –
Where it rose – or whither it rushes –
These – are the Western Mystery!
Night after Night
Her purple traffic
Strews the landing with Opal Bales –
Merchantmen – poise upon Horizons –
Dip – and vanish like Orioles!
267
Did we disobey Him?
Just one time!
Charged us to forget Him –
But we couldn’t learn!
Were Himself – such a Dunce –
What would we – do?
Love the dull lad – best –
Oh, wouldn’t you?
268
Me, change! Me, alter!
Then I will, when on the Everlasting Hill
A Smaller Purple grows –
At sunset, or a lesser glow
Flickers upon Cordillera –
At Day’s superior close!
269
Bound – a trouble –
And lives can bear it!
Limit – how deep a bleeding go!
So – many – drops – of vital scarlet –
Deal with the soul
As with Algebra!
Tell it the Ages – to a cypher –
And it will ache – contented – on –
Sing – at its pain – as any Workman –
Notching the fall of the Even Sun!
270
One Life of so much Consequence!
Yet I – for it – would pay –
My Soul’s entire income –
In ceaseless – salary –
One Pearl – to me – so signal –
That I would instant dive –
Although – I knew – to take it –
Would cost me – just a life!
The Sea is full – I know it!
That – does not blur my Gem!
It burns – distinct from all the row –
Intact – in Diadem!
The life is thick – I know it!
Yet – not so dense a crowd –
But Monarchs – are perceptible –
Far down the dustiest Road!
271
A solemn thing – it was – I said –
A woman – white – to be –
And wear – if God should count me fit –
Her blameless mystery –
A hallowed thing – to drop a life
Into the purple well –
Too plummetless – that it return –
Eternity – until –
I pondered how the bliss would look –
And would it feel as big –
When I could take it in my hand –
As hovering – seen – through fog –
And then – the size of this “small” life –
The Sages – call it small –
Swelled – like Horizons – in my vest –
And I sneered – softly – “small”!
272
I breathed enough to take the Trick –
And now, removed from Air –
I simulate the Breath, so well –
That One, to be quite sure –
The Lungs are stirless – must descend
Among the Cunning Cells –
And touch the Pantomine – Himself,
How numb, the Bellows feels!
273
He put the Belt around my life
I heard the Buckle snap –
And turned away, imperial,
My Lifetime folding up –
Deliberate, as a Duke would do
A Kingdom’s Title Deed –
Henceforth, a Dedicated sort –
A Member of the Cloud.
Yet not too far to come at call –
And do the little Toils
That make the Circuit of the Rest –
And deal occasional smiles
To lives that stoop to notice mine –
And kindly ask it in –
Whose invitation, know you not
For Whom I must decline?
274
The only Ghost I ever saw
Was dressed in Mechlin – so –
He wore no sandal on his foot –
And stepped like flakes of snow –
His Gait – was soundless, like the Bird –
But rapid – like the Roe –
His fashions, quaint, Mosaic –
Or haply, Mistletoe –
His conversation – seldom –
His laughter, like the Breeze –
That dies away in Dimples
Among the pensive Trees –
Our interview – was transient –
Of me, himself was shy –
And God forbid I look behind –
Since that appalling Day!
275
Doubt Me! My Dim Companion!
Why, God, would be content
With but a fraction of the Life –
Poured thee, without a stint –
The whole of me – forever –
What more the Woman can,
Say quick, that I may dower thee
With last Delight I own!
It cannot be my Spirit –
For that was thine, before –
I ceded all of Dust I knew –
What Opulence the more
Had I – a freckled Maiden,
Whose farthest of Degree,
Was – that she might –
Some distant Heaven,
Dwell timidly, with thee!
Sift her, from Brow to Barefoot!
Strain till your last Surmise –
Drop, like a Tapestry, away,
Before the Fire’s Eyes –
Winnow her finest fondness –
But hallow just the snow
Intact, in Everlasting flake –
Oh, Caviler, for you!
276
Many a phrase has the English language –
I have heard but one –
Low as the laughter of the Cricket,
Loud, as the Thunder’s Tongue –
Murmuring, like old Caspian Choirs,
When the Tide’s a’ lull –
Saying itself in new infection –
Like a Whippoorwill –
Breaking in bright Orthography
On my simple sleep –
Thundering its Prospective –
Till I stir, and weep –
Not for the Sorrow, done me –
But the push of Joy –
Say it again, Saxton!
Hush – Only to me!
277
What if I say I shall not wait!
What if I burst the fleshly Gate –
And pass escaped – to thee!
What if I file this Mortal – off –
See where it hurt me – That’s enough –
And wade in Liberty!
They cannot take me – any more!
Dungeons can call – and Guns implore
Unmeaning – now – to me –
As laughter – was – an hour ago –
Or Laces – or a Travelling Show –
Or who died – yesterday!
278
A shady friend – for Torrid days –
Is easier to find –
Than one of higher temperature
For Frigid – hour of Mind –
The Vane a little to the East –
Scares Muslin souls – away –
If Broadcloth Hearts are firmer –
Than those of Organdy –
Who is to blame? The Weaver?
Ah, the bewildering thread!
The Tapestries of Paradise
So notelessly – are made!
279
Tie the Strings to my Life, My Lord,
Then, I am ready to go!
Just a look at the Horses –
Rapid! That will do!
Put me in on the firmest side –
So I shall never fall –
For we must ride to the Judgment –
And it’s partly, down Hill –
But never I mind the steeper –
And never I mind the Sea –
Held fast in Everlasting Race –
By my own Choice, and Thee –
Goodbye to the Life I used to live –
And the World I used to know –
And kiss the Hills, for me, just once –
Then – I am ready to go!
280
I felt a Funeral, in my Brain,
And Mourners to and fro
Kept treading – treading – till it seemed
That Sense was breaking through –
And when they all were seated,
A Service, like a Drum –
Kept beating – beating – till I thought
My Mind was going numb –
And then I heard them lift a Box
And creak across my Soul
With those same Boots of Lead, again,
Then Space – began to toll,
As all the Heavens were a Bell,
And Being, but an Ear,
And I, and Silence, some strange Race
Wrecked, solitary, here –
And then a Plank in Reason, broke,
And I dropped down, and down –
And hit a World, at every plunge,
And Finished knowing – then –
281
‘Tis so appalling – it exhilarates –
So over Horror, it half Captivates –
The Soul stares after it, secure –
A Sepulchre, fears frost, no more –
To scan a Ghost, is faint –
But grappling, conquers it –
How easy, Torment, now –
Suspense kept sawing so –
The Truth, is Bald, and Cold –
But that will hold –
If any are not sure –
We show them – prayer –
But we, who know,
Stop hoping, now –
Looking at Death, is Dying –
Just let go the Breath –
And not the pillow at your Cheek
So Slumbereth –
Others, Can wrestle –
Yours, is done –
And so of Woe, bleak dreaded – come,
It sets the Fright at liberty –
And Terror’s free –
Gay, Ghastly, Holiday!
282
How noteless Men, and Pleiads, stand,
Until a sudden sky
Reveals the fact that One is rapt
Forever from the Eye –
Members of the Invisible,
Existing, while we stare,
In Leagueless Opportunity,
O’ertakenless, as the Air –
Why didn’t we detain Them?
The Heavens with a smile,
Sweep by our disappointed Heads
Without a syllable –
283
A Mien to move a Queen –
Half Child – Half Heroine –
An Orleans in the Eye
That puts its manner by
For humbler Company
When none are near
Even a Tear –
Its frequent Visitor –
A Bonnet like a Duke –
And yet a Wren’s Peruke
Were not so shy
Of Goer by –
And Hands – so slight –
They would elate a Sprite
With Merriment –
A Voice that Alters – Low
And on the Ear can go
Like Let of Snow –
Or shift supreme –
As tone of Realm
On Subjects Diadem –
Too small – to fear –
Too distant – to endear –
And so Men Compromise
And just – revere –
284
The Drop, that wrestles in the Sea –
Forgets her own locality –
As I – toward Thee –
She knows herself an incense small –
Yet small – she sighs – if All – is All –
How larger – be?
The Ocean – smiles – at her Conceit –
But she, forgetting Amphitrite –
Pleads – “Me”?
285
The Robin’s my Criterion for Tune –
Because I grow – where Robins do –
But, were I Cuckoo born –
I’d swear by him –
The ode familiar – rules the Noon –
The Buttercup’s, my Whim for Bloom –
Because, we’re Orchard sprung –
But, were I Britain born,
I’d Daisies spurn –
None but the Nut – October fit –
Because, through dropping it,
The Seasons flit – I’m taught –
Without the Snow’s Tableau
Winter, were lie – to me –
Because I see – New Englandly –
The Queen, discerns like me –
Provincially –
286
That after Horror – that ’twas us –
That passed the mouldering Pier –
Just as the Granite Crumb let go –
Our Savior, by a Hair –
A second more, had dropped too deep
For Fisherman to plumb –
The very profile of the Thought
Puts Recollection numb –
The possibility – to pass
Without a Moment’s Bell –
Into Conjecture’s presence –
Is like a Face of Steel –
That suddenly looks into ours
With a metallic grin –
The Cordiality of Death –
Who drills his Welcome in –
287
A Clock stopped –
Not the Mantel’s –
Geneva’s farthest skill
Can’t put the puppet bowing –
That just now dangled still –
An awe came on the Trinket!
The Figures hunched, with pain –
Then quivered out of Decimals –
Into Degreeless Noon –
It will not stir for Doctors –
This Pendulum of snow –
This Shopman importunes it –
While cool – concernless No –
Nods from the Gilded pointers –
Nods from the Seconds slim –
Decades of Arrogance between
The Dial life –
And Him –
288
I’m Nobody! Who are you?
Are you – Nobody – Too?
Then there’s a pair of us!
Don’t tell! they’d advertise – you know!
How dreary – to be – Somebody!
How public – like a Frog –
To tell one’s name – the livelong June –
To an admiring Bog!
289
I know some lonely Houses off the Road
A Robber’d like the look of –
Wooden barred,
And Windows hanging low,
Inviting to –
A Portico,
Where two could creep –
One – hand the Tools –
The other peep –
To make sure All’s Asleep –
Old fashioned eyes –
Not easy to surprise!
How orderly the Kitchen’d look, by night,
With just a Clock –
But they could gag the Tick –
And Mice won’t bark –
And so the Walls – don’t tell –
None – will –
A pair of Spectacles ajar just stir –
An Almanac’s aware –
Was it the Mat – winked,
Or a Nervous Star?
The Moon – slides down the stair,
To see who’s there!
There’s plunder – where –
Tankard, or Spoon –
Earring – or Stone –
A Watch – Some Ancient Brooch
To match the Grandmama –
Staid sleeping – there –
Day – rattles – too
Stealth’s – slow –
The Sun has got as far
As the third Sycamore –
Screams Chanticleer
“Who’s there”?
And Echoes – Trains away,
Sneer – “Where”!
While the old Couple, just astir,
Fancy the Sunrise – left the door ajar!
290
Of Bronze – and Blaze –
The North – Tonight –
So adequate – it forms –
So preconcerted with itself –
So distant – to alarms –
And Unconcern so sovereign
To Universe, or me –
Infects my simple spirit
With Taints of Majesty –
Till I take vaster attitudes –
And strut upon my stem –
Disdaining Men, and Oxygen,
For Arrogance of them –
My Splendors, are Menagerie –
But their Completeless Show
Will entertain the Centuries
When I, am long ago,
An Island in dishonored Grass –
Whom none but Beetles – know.
291
How the old Mountains drip with Sunset
How the Hemlocks burn –
How the Dun Brake is draped in Cinder
By the Wizard Sun –
How the old Steeples hand the Scarlet
Till the Ball is full –
Have I the lip of the Flamingo
That I dare to tell?
Then, how the Fire ebbs like Billows –
Touching all the Grass
With a departing – Sapphire – feature –
As a Duchess passed –
How a small Dusk crawls on the Village
Till the Houses blot
And the odd Flambeau, no men carry
Glimmer on the Street –
How it is Night – in Nest and Kennel –
And where was the Wood –
Just a Dome of Abyss is Bowing
Into Solitude –
These are the Visions flitted Guido –
Titian – never told –
Domenichino dropped his pencil –
Paralyzed, with Gold –
292
If your Nerve, deny you –
Go above your Nerve –
He can lean against the Grave,
If he fear to swerve –
That’s a steady posture –
Never any bend
Held of those Brass arms –
Best Giant made –
If your Soul seesaw –
Lift the Flesh door –
The Poltroon wants Oxygen –
Nothing more –
293
I got so I could take his name –
Without – Tremendous gain –
That Stop-sensation – on my Soul –
And Thunder – in the Room –
I got so I could walk across
That Angle in the floor,
Where he turned so, and I turned – how –
And all our Sinew tore –
I got so I could stir the Box –
In which his letters grew
Without that forcing, in my breath –
As Staples – driven through –
Could dimly recollect a Grace –
I think, they call it “God” –
Renowned to ease Extremity –
When Formula, had failed –
And shape my Hands –
Petition’s way,
Tho’ ignorant of a word
That Ordination – utters –
My Business, with the Cloud,
If any Power behind it, be,
Not subject to Despair –
It care, in some remoter way,
For so minute affair
As Misery –
Itself, too vast, for interrupting – more –
294
The Doomed – regard the Sunrise
With different Delight –
Because – when next it burns abroad
They doubt to witness it –
The Man – to die – tomorrow –
Harks for the Meadow Bird –
Because its Music stirs the Axe
That clamors for his head –
Joyful – to whom the Sunrise
Precedes Enamored – Day –
Joyful – for whom the Meadow Bird
Has ought but Elegy!
295
Unto like Story – Trouble has enticed me –
How Kinsmen fell –
Brothers and Sister – who preferred the Glory –
And their young will
Bent to the Scaffold, or in Dungeons – chanted –
Till God’s full time –
When they let go the ignominy – smiling –
And Shame went still –
Unto guessed Crests, my moaning fancy, leads me,
Worn fair
By Heads rejected – in the lower country –
Of honors there –
Such spirit makes her perpetual mention,
That I – grown bold –
Step martial – at my Crucifixion –
As Trumpets – rolled –
Feet, small as mine – have marched in Revolution
Firm to the Drum –
Hands – not so stout – hoisted them – in witness –
When Speech went numb –
Let me not shame their sublime deportments –
Drilled bright –
Beckoning – Etruscan invitation –
Toward Light –
296
One Year ago – jots what?
God – spell the word! I – can’t –
Was’t Grace? Not that –
Was’t Glory? That – will do –
Spell slower – Glory –
Such Anniversary shall be – Sometimes – not often – in Eternity – When farther Parted, than the Common Woe – Look – feed upon each other’s faces – so – In doubtful meal, if it be possible Their Banquet’s true – I tasted – careless – then – I did not know the Wine Came once a World – Did you? Oh, had you told me so – This Thirst would blister – easier – now – You said it hurt you – most – Mine – was an Acorn’s Breast – And could not know how fondness grew In Shaggier Vest – Perhaps – I couldn’t – But, had you looked in – A Giant – eye to eye with you, had been – No Acorn – then – So – Twelve months ago – We breathed – Then dropped the Air – Which bore it best? Was this – the patientest – Because it was a Child, you know – And could not value – Air? If to be “Elder” – mean most pain – I’m old enough, today, I’m certain – then – As old as thee – how soon? One – Birthday more – or Ten? Let me – choose! Ah, Sir, None!
297
It’s like the Light –
A fashionless Delight –
It’s like the Bee –
A dateless – Melody –
It’s like the Woods –
Private – Like the Breeze –
Phraseless – yet it stirs
The proudest Trees –
It’s like the Morning –
Best – when it’s done –
And the Everlasting Clocks –
Chime – Noon!
298
Alone, I cannot be –
For Hosts – do visit me –
Recordless Company –
Who baffle Key –
They have no Robes, nor Names –
No Almanacs – nor Climes –
But general Homes
Like Gnomes –
Their Coming, may be known
By Couriers within –
Their going – is not –
For they’ve never gone –
299
Your Riches – taught me – Poverty.
Myself – a Millionaire
In little Wealths, as Girls could boast
Till broad as Buenos Ayre –
You drifted your Dominions –
A Different Peru –
And I esteemed All Poverty
For Life’s Estate with you –
Of Mines, I little know – myself –
But just the names, of Gems –
The Colors of the Commonest –
And scarce of Diadems –
So much, that did I meet the Queen –
Her Glory I should know –
But this, must be a different Wealth –
To miss it – beggars so –
I’m sure ’tis India – all Day –
To those who look on You –
Without a stint – without a blame,
Might I – but be the Jew –
I’m sure it is Golconda –
Beyond my power to deem –
To have a smile for Mine – each Day,
How better, than a Gem!
At least, it solaces to know
That there exists – a Gold –
Altho’ I prove it, just in time
Its distance – to behold –
Its far – far Treasure to surmise –
And estimate the Pearl –
That slipped my simple fingers through –
While just a Girl at School.
300
“Morning” – means “Milking” – to the Farmer –
Dawn – to the Teneriffe –
Dice – to the Maid –
Morning means just Risk – to the Lover –
Just revelation – to the Beloved –
Epicures – date a Breakfast – by it –
Brides – an Apocalypse –
Worlds – a Flood –
Faint-going Lives – Their Lapse from Sighing –
Faith – The Experiment of Our Lord
301
I reason, Earth is short –
And Anguish – absolute –
And many hurt,
But, what of that?
I reason, we could die –
The best Vitality
Cannot excel Decay,
But, what of that?
I reason, that in Heaven –
Somehow, it will be even –
Some new Equation, given –
But, what of that?
302
Like Some Old fashioned Miracle
When Summertime is done –
Seems Summer’s Recollection
And the Affairs of June
As infinite Tradition
As Cinderella’s Bays –
Or Little John – of Lincoln Green –
Or Blue Beard’s Galleries –
Her Bees have a fictitious Hum –
Her Blossoms, like a Dream –
Elate us – till we almost weep –
So plausible – they seem –
Her Memories like Strains – Review –
When Orchestra is dumb –
The Violin in Baize replaced –
And Ear – and Heaven – numb –
303
The Soul selects her own Society –
Then – shuts the Door –
To her divine Majority –
Present no more –
Unmoved – she notes the Chariots – pausing –
At her low Gate –
Unmoved – an Emperor be kneeling
Upon her Mat –
I’ve known her – from an ample nation –
Choose One –
Then – close the Valves of her attention –
Like Stone –
304
The Day came slow – till Five o’clock –
Then sprang before the Hills
Like Hindered Rubies – or the Light
A Sudden Musket – spills –
The Purple could not keep the East –
The Sunrise shook abroad
Like Breadths of Topaz – packed a Night –
The Lady just unrolled –
The Happy Winds – their Timbrels took –
The Birds – in docile Rows
Arranged themselves around their Prince
The Wind – is Prince of Those –
The Orchard sparkled like a Jew –
How mighty ’twas – to be
A Guest in this stupendous place –
The Parlor – of the Day –
305
The difference between Despair
And Fear – is like the One
Between the instant of a Wreck
And when the Wreck has been –
The Mind is smooth – no Motion –
Contented as the Eye
Upon the Forehead of a Bust –
That knows – it cannot see –
306
The Soul’s Superior instants
Occur to Her – alone –
When friend – and Earth’s occasion
Have infinite withdrawn –
Or She – Herself – ascended
To too remote a Height
For lower Recognition
Than Her Omnipotent –
This Mortal Abolition
Is seldom – but as fair
As Apparition – subject
To Autocratic Air –
Eternity’s disclosure
To favorites – a few –
Of the Colossal substance
Of Immortality
307
The One who could repeat the Summer day –
Were greater than itself – though He
Minutest of Mankind should be –
And He – could reproduce the Sun –
At period of going down –
The Lingering – and the Stain – I mean –
When Orient have been outgrown
And Occident – become Unknown –
His Name – remain –
308
I send Two Sunsets –
Day and I – in competition ran –
I finished Two – and several Stars –
While He – was making One –
His own was ampler – but as I
Was saying to a friend –
Mine – is the more convenient
To Carry in the Hand –
309
For largest Woman’s Hearth I knew –
‘Tis little I can do –
And yet the largest Woman’s Heart
Could hold an Arrow – too –
And so, instructed by my own,
I tenderer, turn Me to.
310
Give little Anguish –
Lives will fret –
Give Avalanches –
And they’ll slant –
Straighten – look cautious for their Breath –
But make no syllable – like Death –
Who only shows the Marble Disc –
Sublimer sort – than Speech –
311
It sifts from Leaden Sieves –
It powders all the Wood.
It fills with Alabaster Wool
The Wrinkles of the Road –
It makes an Even Face
Of Mountain, and of Plain –
Unbroken Forehead from the East
Unto the East again –
It reaches to the Fence –
It wraps it Rail by Rail
Till it is lost in Fleeces –
It deals Celestial Vail
To Stump, and Stack – and Stem –
A Summer’s empty Room –
Acres of Joints, where Harvests were,
Recordless, but for them-
It Ruffles Wrists of Posts
As Ankles of a Queen –
Then stills its Artisans – like Ghosts –
Denying they have been –
312
Her – “last Poems” –
Poets – ended –
Silver – perished – with her Tongue –
Not on Record – bubbled other,
Flute – or Woman –
So divine –
Not unto its Summer – Morning
Robin – uttered Half the Tune –
Gushed too free for the Adoring –
From the Anglo-Florentine –
Late – the Praise –
‘Tis dull – conferring
On the Head too High to Crown –
Diadem – or Ducal Showing –
Be its Grave – sufficient sign –
Nought – that We – No Poet’s Kinsman –
Suffocate – with easy woe –
What, and if, Ourself a Bridegroom –
Put Her down – in Italy?
313
I should have been too glad, I see –
Too lifted – for the scant degree
Of Life’s penurious Round –
My little Circuit would have shamed
This new Circumference – have blamed –
The homelier time behind.
I should have been too saved – I see –
Too rescued – Fear too dim to me
That I could spell the Prayer
I knew so perfect – yesterday –
That Scalding One – Sabachthani –
Recited fluent – here –
Earth would have been too much – I see –
And Heaven – not enough for me –
I should have had the Joy
Without the Fear – to justify –
The Palm – without the Calvary –
So Savior – Crucify –
Defeat – whets Victory – they say –
The Reefs – in old Gethsemane –
Endear the Coast – beyond!
‘Tis Beggars – Banquets – can define –
‘Tis Parching – vitalizes Wine –
“Faith” bleats – to understand!
314
Nature – sometimes sears a Sapling –
Sometimes – scalps a Tree –
Her Green People recollect it
When they do not die –
Fainter Leaves – to Further Seasons –
Dumbly testify –
We – who have the Souls –
Die oftener – Not so vitally –
315
He fumbles at your Soul
As Players at the Keys
Before they drop full Music on –
He stuns you by degrees –
Prepares your brittle Nature
For the Ethereal Blow
By fainter Hammers – further heard –
Then nearer – Then so slow
Your Breath has time to straighten –
Your Brain – to bubble Cool –
Deals – One – imperial – Thunderbolt –
That scalps your naked Soul –
When Winds take Forests in the Paws –
The Universe – is still –
316
The Wind didn’t come from the Orchard – today –
Further than that –
Nor stop to play with the Hay –
Nor joggle a Hat –
He’s a transitive fellow – very –
Rely on that –
If He leave a Bur at the door
We know He has climbed a Fir –
But the Fir is Where – Declare –
Were you ever there?
If He brings Odors of Clovers –
And that is His business – not Ours –
Then He has been with the Mowers –
Whetting away the Hours
To sweet pauses of Hay –
His Way – of a June Day –
If He fling Sand, and Pebble –
Little Boys Hats – and Stubble –
With an occasional Steeple –
And a hoarse “Get out of the way, I say,”
Who’d be the fool to stay?
Would you – Say –
Would you be the fool to stay?
317
Just so – Jesus – raps –
He – doesn’t weary –
Last – at the Knocker –
And first – at the Bell.
Then – on divinest tiptoe – standing –
Might He but spy the lady’s soul –
When He – retires –
Chilled – or weary –
It will be ample time for – me –
Patient – upon the steps – until then –
Hears! I am knocking – low at thee.
318
I’ll tell you how the Sun rose –
A Ribbon at a time –
The Steeples swam in Amethyst –
The news, like Squirrels, ran –
The Hills untied their Bonnets –
The Bobolinks – begun –
Then I said softly to myself –
“That must have been the Sun”!
But how he set – I know not –
There seemed a purple stile
That little Yellow boys and girls
Were climbing all the while –
Till when they reached the other side,
A Dominie in Gray –
Put gently up the evening Bars –
And led the flock away –
319
The nearest Dream recedes – unrealized –
The Heaven we chase,
Like the June Bee – before the School Boy,
Invites the Race –
Stoops – to an easy Clover –
Dips – evades – teases – deploys –
Then – to the Royal Clouds
Lifts his light Pinnace –
Heedless of the Boy –
Staring – bewildered – at the mocking sky –
Homesick for steadfast Honey –
Ah, the Bee flies not
That brews that rare variety!
320
We play at Paste –
Till qualified, for Pearl –
Then, drop the Paste –
And deem ourself a fool –
The Shapes – though – were similar –
And our new Hands
Learned Gem-Tactics –
Practicing Sands –
321
Of all the Sounds despatched abroad,
There’s not a Charge to me
Like that old measure in the Boughs –
That phraseless Melody –
The Wind does – working like a Hand,
Whose fingers Comb the Sky –
Then quiver down – with tufts of Tune –
Permitted Gods, and me –
Inheritance, it is, to us –
Beyond the Art to Earn –
Beyond the trait to take away
By Robber, since the Gain
Is gotten not of fingers –
And inner than the Bone –
Hid golden, for the whole of Days,
And even in the Urn,
I cannot vouch the merry Dust
Do not arise and play
In some odd fashion of its own,
Some quainter Holiday,
When Winds go round and round in Bands –
And thrum upon the door,
And Birds take places, overhead,
To bear them Orchestra.
I crave Him grace of Summer Boughs,
If such an Outcast be –
Who never heard that fleshless Chant –
Rise – solemn – on the Tree,
As if some Caravan of Sound
Off Deserts, in the Sky,
Had parted Rank,
Then knit, and swept –
In Seamless Company –
322
There came a Day at Summer’s full,
Entirely for me –
I thought that such were for the Saints,
Where Resurrections – be –
The Sun, as common, went abroad,
The flowers, accustomed, blew,
As if no soul the solstice passed
That maketh all things new –
The time was scarce profaned, by speech –
The symbol of a word
Was needless, as at Sacrament,
The Wardrobe – of our Lord –
Each was to each The Sealed Church,
Permitted to commune this – time –
Lest we too awkward show
At Supper of the Lamb.
The Hours slid fast – as Hours will,
Clutched tight, by greedy hands –
So faces on two Decks, look back,
Bound to opposing lands –
And so when all the time had leaked,
Without external sound
Each bound the Other’s Crucifix –
We gave no other Bond –
Sufficient troth, that we shall rise –
Deposed – at length, the Grave –
To that new Marriage,
Justified – through Calvaries of Love –
323
As if I asked a common Alms,
And in my wondering hand
A Stranger pressed a Kingdom,
And I, bewildered, stand –
As if I asked the Orient
Had it for me a Morn –
And it should lift its purple Dikes,
And shatter me with Dawn!
324
Some keep the Sabbath going to Church –
I keep it, staying at Home –
With a Bobolink for a Chorister –
And an Orchard, for a Dome –
Some keep the Sabbath in Surplice –
I just wear my Wings –
And instead of tolling the Bell, for Church,
Our little Sexton – sings.
God preaches, a noted Clergyman –
And the sermon is never long,
So instead of getting to Heaven, at least –
I’m going, all along.
325
Of Tribulation, these are They,
Denoted by the White –
The Spangled Gowns, a lesser Rank
Of Victors – designate –
All these – did conquer –
But the ones who overcame most times –
Wear nothing commoner than Snow –
No Ornament, but Palms –
Surrender – is a sort unknown –
On this superior soil –
Defeat – an outgrown Anguish –
Remembered, as the Mile
Our panting Ankle barely passed –
When Night devoured the Road –
But we – stood whispering in the House –
And all we said – was “Saved”!
326
I cannot dance upon my Toes –
No Man instructed me –
But oftentimes, among my mind,
A Glee possesseth me,
That had I Ballet knowledge –
Would put itself abroad
In Pirouette to blanch a Troupe –
Or lay a Prima, mad,
And though I had no Gown of Gauze –
No Ringlet, to my Hair,
Nor hopped to Audiences – like Birds,
One Claw upon the Air,
Nor tossed my shape in Eider Balls,
Nor rolled on wheels of snow
Till I was out of sight, in sound,
The House encore me so –
Nor any know I know the Art
I mention – easy – Here –
Nor any Placard boast me –
It’s full as Opera –
327
Before I got my eye put out
I liked as well to see –
As other Creatures, that have Eyes
And know no other way –
But were it told to me – Today –
That I might have the sky
For mine – I tell you that my Heart
Would split, for size of me –
The Meadows – mine –
The Mountains – mine –
All Forests – Stintless Stars –
As much of Noon as I could take
Between my finite eyes –
The Motions of the Dipping Birds –
The Morning’s Amber Road –
For mine – to look at when I liked –
The News would strike me dead –
So safer – guess – with just my soul
Upon the Window pane –
Where other Creatures put their eyes –
Incautious – of the Sun –
328
A Bird came down the Walk –
He did not know I saw –
He bit an Angleworm in halves
And ate the fellow, raw,
And then he drank a Dew
From a convenient Grass –
And then hopped sidewise to the Wall
To let a Beetle pass –
He glanced with rapid eyes
That hurried all around –
They looked like frightened Beads, I thought –
He stirred his Velvet Head
Like one in danger, Cautious,
I offered him a Crumb
And he unrolled his feathers
And rowed him softer home –
Than Oars divide the Ocean,
Too silver for a seam –
Or Butterflies, off Banks of Noon
Leap, plashless as they swim.
329
So glad we are – a Stranger’d deem
‘Twas sorry, that we were –
For where the Holiday should be
There publishes a Tear –
Nor how Ourselves be justified –
Since Grief and Joy are done
So similar – An Optizan
Could not decide between –
330
The Juggler’s Hat her Country is –
The Mountain Gorse – the Bee’s!
331
While Asters –
On the Hill –
Their Everlasting fashions – set –
And Covenant Gentians – Frill!
332
There are two Ripenings – one – of sight –
Whose forces Spheric wind
Until the Velvet product
Drop spicy to the ground –
A homelier maturing –
A process in the Bur –
That teeth of Frosts alone disclose
In far October Air.
333
The Grass so little has to do –
A Sphere of simple Green –
With only Butterflies to brood
And Bees to entertain –
And stir all day to pretty Tunes
The Breezes fetch along –
And hold the Sunshine in its lap
And bow to everything –
And thread the Dews, all night, like Pearls –
And make itself so fine
A Duchess were too common
For such a noticing –
And even when it dies – to pass
In Odors so divine –
Like Lowly spices, lain to sleep –
Or Spikenards, perishing –
And then, in Sovereign Barns to dwell –
And dream the Days away,
The Grass so little has to do
I wish I were a Hay –
334
All the letters I can write
Are not fair as this –
Syllables of Velvet –
Sentences of Plush,
Depths of Ruby, undrained,
Hid, Lip, for Thee –
Play it were a Humming Bird –
And just sipped – me –
335
‘Tis not that Dying hurts us so –
‘Tis Living – hurts us more –
But Dying – is a different way –
A Kind behind the Door –
The Southern Custom – of the Bird –
That ere the Frosts are due –
Accepts a better Latitude –
We – are the Birds – that stay.
The Shrivers round Farmers’ doors –
For whose reluctant Crumb –
We stipulate – till pitying Snows
Persuade our Feathers Home.
336
The face I carry with me – last –
When I go out of Time –
To take my Rank – by – in the West –
That face – will just be thine –
I’ll hand it to the Angel –
That – Sir – was my Degree –
In Kingdoms – you have heard the Raised –
Refer to – possibly.
He’ll take it – scan it – step aside –
Return – with such a crown
As Gabriel – never capered at –
And beg me put it on –
And then – he’ll turn me round and round –
To an admiring sky –
As one that bore her Master’s name –
Sufficient Royalty!
337
I know a place where Summer strives
With such a practised Frost –
She – each year – leads her Daisies back –
Recording briefly – “Lost” –
But when the South Wind stirs the Pools
And struggles in the lanes –
Her Heart misgives Her, for Her Vow –
And she pours soft Refrains
Into the lap of Adamant –
And spices – and the Dew –
That stiffens quietly to Quartz –
Upon her Amber Shoe –
338
I know that He exists.
Somewhere – in Silence –
He has hid his rare life
From our gross eyes.
‘Tis an instant’s play.
‘Tis a fond Ambush –
Just to make Bliss
Earn her own surprise!
But – should the play
Prove piercing earnest –
Should the glee – glaze –
In Death’s – stiff – stare –
Would not the fun
Look too expensive!
Would not the jest –
Have crawled too far!
339
I tend my flowers for thee –
Bright Absentee!
My Fuchsia’s Coral Seams
Rip – while the Sower – dreams –
Geraniums – tint – and spot –
Low Daisies – dot –
My Cactus – splits her Beard
To show her throat –
Carnations – tip their spice –
And Bees – pick up –
A Hyacinth – I hid –
Puts out a Ruffled Head –
And odors fall
From flasks – so small –
You marvel how they held –
Globe Roses – break their satin glake –
Upon my Garden floor –
Yet – thou – not there –
I had as lief they bore
No Crimson – more –
Thy flower – be gay –
Her Lord – away!
It ill becometh me –
I’ll dwell in Calyx – Gray –
How modestly – alway –
Thy Daisy –
Draped for thee!
340
Is Bliss then, such Abyss,
I must not put my foot amiss
For fear I spoil my shoe?
I’d rather suit my foot
Than save my Boot –
For yet to buy another Pair
Is possible,
At any store –
But Bliss, is sold just once.
The Patent lost
None buy it any more –
Say, Foot, decide the point –
The Lady cross, or not?
Verdict for Boot!
341
After great pain, a formal feeling comes –
The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs –
The stiff Heart questions was it He, that bore,
And Yesterday, or Centuries before?
The Feet, mechanical, go round –
Of Ground, or Air, or Ought –
A Wooden way
Regardless grown,
A Quartz contentment, like a stone –
This is the Hour of Lead –
Remembered, if outlived,
As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow –
First – Chill – then Stupor – then the letting go –
342
It will be Summer – eventually.
Ladies – with parasols –
Sauntering Gentlemen – with Canes –
And little Girls – with Dolls –
Will tint the pallid landscape –
As ’twere a bright Bouquet –
Thro’ drifted deep, in Parian –
The Village lies – today –
The Lilacs – bending many a year –
Will sway with purple load –
The Bees – will not despise the tune –
Their Forefathers – have hummed –
The Wild Rose – redden in the Bog –
The Aster – on the Hill
Her everlasting fashion – set –
And Covenant Gentians – frill –
Till Summer folds her miracle –
As Women – do – their Gown –
Of Priests – adjust the Symbols –
When Sacrament – is done –
343
My Reward for Being, was This.
My premium – My Bliss –
An Admiralty, less –
A Sceptre – penniless –
And Realms – just Dross –
When Thrones accost my Hands –
With “Me, Miss, Me” –
I