Two -- were immortal twice -- The privilege of few --
Eternity -- obtained -- in Time -- Reversed Divinity --
That our ignoble Eyes The quality conceive
Of Paradise superlative -- Through their Comparative.
I play at Riches -- to appease The Clamoring for Gold -- It kept me from a Thief, I think, For often, overbold
With Want, and Opportunity -- I could have done a Sin
And been Myself that easy Thing An independent Man --
But often as my lot displays Too hungry to be borne
I deem Myself what I would be -- And novel Comforting
My Poverty and I derive --
We question if the Man --
Who own -- Esteem the Opulence -- As We -- Who never Can --
Should ever these exploring Hands Chance Sovereign on a Mine -- Or in the long -- uneven term To win, become their turn --
How fitter they will be -- for Want -- Enlightening so well --
I know not which, Desire, or Grant -- Be wholly beautiful --
Time feels so vast that were it not For an Eternity --
I fear me this Circumference Engross my Finity --
To His exclusion, who prepare By Processes of Size
For the Stupendous Vision Of his diameters --
Who Court obtain within Himself Sees every Man a King --
And Poverty of Monarchy
Is an interior thing --
No Man depose
Whom Fate Ordain --
And Who can add a Crown To Him who doth continual Conspire against His Own
No Notice gave She, but a Change -- No Message, but a Sigh --
For Whom, the Time did not suffice That She should specify.
She was not warm, though Summer shone Nor scrupulous of cold
Though Rime by Rime, the steady Frost Upon Her Bosom piled --
Of shrinking ways -- she did not fright Though all the Village looked -- But held Her gravity aloft --
And met the gaze -- direct --
And when adjusted like a Seed In careful fitted Ground
Unto the Everlasting Spring And hindered but a Mound
Her Warm return, if so she chose -And We -- imploring drew -- Removed our invitation by
As Some She never knew --
This Bauble was preferred of Bees -- By Butterflies admired
At Heavenly -- Hopeless Distances -Was justified of Bird --
Did Noon -- enamel -- in Herself Was Summer to a Score
Who only knew of Universe -- It had created Her.
A Planted Life -- diversified With Gold and Silver Pain
To prove the presence of the Ore In Particles -- 'tis when
A Value struggle -- it exist -- A Power -- will proclaim Although Annihilation pile Whole Chaoses on Him --
807Expectation -- is Contentment -- Gain -- Satiety --
But Satiety -- Conviction
Of Necessity
Of an Austere trait in Pleasure -- Good, without alarm
Is a too established Fortune -- Danger -- deepens Sum --
So set its Sun in Thee
What Day be dark to me -- What Distance -- far --
So I the Ships may see That touch -- how seldomly -- Thy Shore?
Unable are the Loved to die For Love is Immortality, Nay, it is Deity --
Unable they that love -- to die For Love reforms Vitality Into Divinity.
Her Grace is all she has -- And that, so least displays -- One Art to recognize, must be, Another Art, to praise.
The Veins of other Flowers The Scarlet Flowers are
Till Nature leisure has for Terms As "Branch," and "Jugular."
We pass, and she abides.
We conjugate Her Skill
While She creates and federates Without a syllable.
A Light exists in Spring
Not present on the Year At any other period --
When March is scarcely here
A Color stands abroad
On Solitary Fields
That Science cannot overtake But Human Nature feels.
It waits upon the Lawn,
It shows the furthest Tree
Upon the furthest Slope you know It almost speaks to you.
Then as Horizons step
Or Noons report away
Without the Formula of sound It passes and we stay --
A quality of loss Affecting our Content
As Trade had suddenly encroached Upon a Sacrament.
This quiet Dust was Gentleman and Ladies And Lads and Girls --
Was laughter and ability and Sighing And Frocks and Curls.
This Passive Place a Summer's nimble mansion Where Bloom and Bees
Exists an Oriental Circuit
Then cease, like these -
One Day is there of the Series Termed Thanksgiving Day. Celebrated part at Table Part in Memory.
Neither Patriarch nor Pussy I dissect the Play
Seems it to my Hooded thinking Reflex Holiday.
Had there been no sharp Subtraction From the early Sum --
Not an Acre or a Caption
Where was once a Room --
Not a Mention, whose small Pebble Wrinkled any Sea,
Unto Such, were such Assembly 'Twere Thanksgiving Day.
The Luxury to apprehend The Luxury 'twould be
To look at Thee a single time An Epicure of Me
In whatsoever Presence makes Till for a further Food
I scarcely recollect to starve So first am I supplied -
The Luxury to meditate
The Luxury it was
To banguet on thy Countenance A Sumptuousness bestows
On plainer Days, whose Table far As Certainty can see
Is laden with a single Crumb The Consciousness of Thee.
A Death blow is a Life blow to Some Who till they died, did not alive become -- Who had they lived, had died but when They died, Vitality begun.
817Given in Marriage unto Thee Oh thou Celestial Host -
Bride of the Father and the Son Bride of the Holy Ghost.
Other Betrothal shall dissolve -- Wedlock of Will, decay -
Only the Keeper of this Ring Conquer Mortality --
818
I could not drink it, Sweet,
Till You had tasted first,
Though cooler than the Water was The Thoughtfullness of Thirst.
All I may, if small,
Do it not display
Larger for the Totalness -- 'Tis Economy
To bestow a World
And withhold a Star -- Utmost, is Munificence -- Less, tho' larger, poor.
All Circumstances are the Frame In which His Face is set --
All Latitudes exist for His
Sufficient Continent --
The Light His Action, and the Dark The Leisure of His Will -
In Him Existence serve or set A Force illegible.
Away from Home are some and I -- An Emigrant to be
In a Metropolis of Homes
Is easy, possibly --
The Habit of a Foreign Sky We -- difficult -- acquire
As Children, who remain in Face The more their Feet retire.
This Consciousness that is aware Of Neighbors and the Sun
Will be the one aware of Death And that itself alone
Is traversing the interval
Experience between
And most profound experiment Appointed unto Men --
How adequate unto itself Its properties shall be Itself unto itself and none Shall make discovery.
Adventure most unto itself The Soul condemned to be -- Attended by a single Hound Its own identity.
823Not that We did, shall be the test When Act and Will are done
But what Our Lord infers We would Had We diviner been --
[first version]
The Wind begun to knead the Grass -- As Women do a Dough --
He flung a Hand full at the Plain --
A Hand full at the Sky --
The Leaves unhooked themselves from Trees -- And started all abroad -
The Dust did scoop itself like Hands --
And throw away the Road --
The Wagons -- quickened on the Street -- The Thunders gossiped low --
The Lightning showed a Yellow Head -- And then a livid Toe --
The Birds put up the Bars to Nests -
The Cattle flung to Barns --
Then came one drop of Giant Rain --
And then, as if the Hands
That held the Dams -- had parted hold -- The Waters Wrecked the Sky --
But overlooked my Father's House --
Just Quartering a Tree -
The Wind begun to rock the Grass With threatening Tunes and low -- He threw a Menace at the Earth -- A Menace at the Sky.
The Leaves unhooked themselves from Trees -- And started all abroad
The Dust did scoop itself like Hands
And threw away the Road.
The Wagons quickened on the Streets The Thunder hurried slow --
The Lightning showed a Yellow Beak And then a livid Claw.
The Birds put up the Bars to Nests -The Cattle fled to Barns --
There came one drop of Giant Rain And then as if the Hands
That held the Dams had parted hold The Waters Wrecked the Sky, But overlooked my Father's House -- Just quartering a Tree --
825An Hour is a Sea
Between a few, and me -- With them would Harbor be --
Love reckons by itself -- alone -- "As large as I" -- relate the Sun To One who never felt it blaze -- Itself is all the like it has --
827The Only News I know Is Bulletins all Day From Immortality.
The Only Shows I see -Tomorrow and Today -- Perchance Eternity --
The Only One I meet
Is God -- The Only Street -- Existence -- This traversed
If Other News there be -- Or Admirable Show -- I'll tell it You --
The Robin is the One
That interrupt the Morn
With hurried -- few -- express Reports When March is scarcely on --
The Robin is the One
That overflow the Noon With her cherubic quantity -- An April but begun --
The Robin is the One
That speechless from her Nest Submit that Home -- and Certainty And Sanctity, are best
Ample make this Bed -Make this Bed with Awe -- In it wait till Judgment break Excellent and Fair.
Be its Mattress straight -- Be its Pillow round --
Let no Sunrise' yellow noise Interrupt this Ground --
To this World she returned. But with a tinge of that -A Compound manner,
As a Sod
Espoused a Violet,
That chiefer to the Skies Than to himself, allied,
Dwelt hesitating, half of Dust, And half of Day, the Bride. 831
Dying! To be afraid of thee One must to thine Artillery
Have left exposed a Friend -- Than thine old Arrow is a Shot Delivered straighter to the Heart The leaving Love behind.
Not for itself, the Dust is shy, But, enemy, Beloved be
Thy Batteries divorce.
Fight sternly in a Dying eye Two Armies, Love and Certainty And Love and the Reverse.
Soto! Explore thyself!
Therein thyself shalt find
The "Undiscovered Continent" -- No Settler had the Mind.
Perhaps you think me stooping
I'm not ashamed of that
Christ -- stooped until He touched the Grave -- Do those at Sacrament
Commemorative Dishonor Or love annealed of love Until it bend as low as Death Redignified, above?
Before He comes we weigh the Time! 'Tis Heavy and 'tis Light.
When He depart, an Emptiness Is the prevailing Freight.
Nature and God -- I neither knew Yet Both so well knew me
They startled, like Executors Of My identity.
Yet Neither told -- that I could learn -My Secret as secure
As Herschel's private interest Or Mercury's affair --
Truth -- is as old as God -- His Twin identity
And will endure as long as He A Co-Eternity --
And perish on the Day
Himself is borne away
From Mansion of the Universe A lifeless Deity.
How well I knew Her not Whom not to know has been A Bounty in prospective, now Next Door to mine the Pain. Impossibility, like Wine Exhilarates the Man Who tastes it; Possibility Is flavorless -- Combine
A Chance's faintest Tincture And in the former Dram
Enchantment makes ingredient As certainly as Doom --
Always Mine!
No more Vacation!
Term of Light this Day begun! Failless as the fair rotation Of the Seasons and the Sun.
Old the Grace, but new the Subjects -- Old, indeed, the East,
Yet upon His Purple Programme Every Dawn, is first.
I cannot buy it -- 'tis not sold -- There is no other in the World -- Mine was the only one
I was so happy I forgot
To shut the Door And it went out And I am all alone --
If I could find it Anywhere
I would not mind the journey there Though it took all my store
But just to look it in the Eye --
"Did'st thou?" "Thou did'st not mean," to say, Then, turn my Face away.
841
A Moth the hue of this
Haunts Candles in Brazil.
Nature's Experience would make Our Reddest Second pale.
842
Good to hide, and hear 'em hunt! Better, to be found,
If one care to, that is,
The Fox fits the Hound --
Good to know, and not tell, Best, to know and tell, Can one find the rare Ear Not too dull --
843I made slow Riches but my Gain Was steady as the Sun
And every Night, it numbered more Than the preceding One
All Days, I did not earn the same But my perceiveless Gain
Inferred the less by Growing than The Sum that it had grown. Spring is the Period
Express from God.
Among the other seasons Himself abide,
But during March and April None stir abroad
Without a cordial interview With God.
Be Mine the Doom -- Sufficient Fame --
To perish in Her Hand!
Twice had Summer her fair Verdure Proffered to the Plain -
Twice a Winter's silver Fracture On the Rivers been --
Two full Autumns for the Squirrel Bounteous prepared --
Nature, Had'st thou not a Berry For thy wandering Bird?
Finite -- to fail, but infinite to Venture -- For the one ship that struts the shore Many's the gallant -- overwhelmed Creature Nodding in Navies nevermore --
Just as He spoke it from his Hands This Edifice remain --
A Turret more, a Turret less
Dishonor his Design --
According as his skill prefer It perish, or endure --
Content, soe'er, it ornament His absent character.
The good Will of a Flower The Man who would possess Must first present
Certificate
Of minted Holiness.
I sing to use the Waiting
My Bonnet but to tie
And shut the Door unto my House No more to do have I
Till His best step approaching We journey to the Day
And tell each other how We sung To Keep the Dark away.
When the Astronomer stops seeking For his Pleiad's Face --
When the lone British Lady
Forsakes the Arctic Race
When to his Covenant Needle The Sailor doubting turns -- It will be amply early
To ask what treason means.
Apology for Her
Be rendered by the Bee -- Herself, without a Parliament Apology for Me.
When One has given up One's life The parting with the rest
Feels easy, as when Day lets go Entirely the West
The Peaks, that lingered last Remain in Her regret
As scarcely as the Iodine Upon the Cataract.
Banish Air from Air -- Divide Light if you dare -- They'll meet
While Cubes in a Drop Or Pellets of Shape
Fit
Films cannot annul
Odors return whole
Force Flame
And with a Blonde push Over your impotence Flits Steam.
855
To own the Art within the Soul The Soul to entertain
With Silence as a Company And Festival maintain
Is an unfurnished Circumstance Possession is to One
As an Estate perpetual
Or a reduceless Mine.
There is a finished feeling Experienced at Graves -- A leisure of the Future -- A Wilderness of Size.
By Death's bold Exhibition Preciser what we are And the Eternal function Enabled to infer.
857Uncertain lease -- develops lustre On Time
Uncertain Grasp, appreciation Of Sum --
The shorter Fate -- is oftener the chiefest Because
Inheritors upon a tenure
Prize --
This Chasm, Sweet, upon my life I mention it to you,
When Sunrise through a fissure drop The Day must follow too.
If we demur, its gaping sides Disclose as 'twere a Tomb
Ourself am lying straight wherein The Favorite of Doom.
When it has just contained a Life Then, Darling, it will close
And yet so bolder every Day So turbulent it grows
I'm tempted half to stitch it up With a remaining Breath
I should not miss in yielding, though To Him, it would be Death --
And so I bear it big about My Burial -- before
A Life quite ready to depart Can harass me no more --
A doubt if it be Us
Assists the staggering Mind In an extremer Anguish Until it footing find.
An Unreality is lent,
A merciful Mirage
That makes the living possible While it suspends the lives. Absence disembodies -- so does Death Hiding individuals from the Earth Superposition helps, as well as love -- Tenderness decreases as we prove --
Split the Lark -- and you'll find the Music -- Bulb after Bulb, in Silver rolled --
Scantilly dealt to the Summer Morning Saved for your Ear when Lutes be old.
Loose the Flood -- you shall find it patent -- Gush after Gush, reserved for you -- Scarlet Experiment! Sceptic Thomas! Now, do you doubt that your Bird was true?
862Light is sufficient to itself -- If Others want to see
It can be had on Window Panes Some Hours in the Day.
But not for Compensation -- It holds as large a Glow To Squirrel in the Himmaleh Precisely, as to you.
863That Distance was between Us That is not of Mile or Main -- The Will it is that situates -- Equator -- never can --
The Robin for the Crumb
Returns no syllable
But long records the Lady's name In Silver Chronicle.
He outstripped Time with but a Bout, He outstripped Stars and Sun And then, unjaded, challenged God In presence of the Throne.
And He and He in mighty List Unto this present, run,
The larger Glory for the less A just sufficient Ring.
Fame is the tine that Scholars leave Upon their Setting Names --
The Iris not of Occident
That disappears as comes --
Escaping backward to perceive The Sea upon our place -- Escaping forward, to confront His glittering Embrace --
Retreating up, a Billow's height Retreating blinded down
Our undermining feet to meet Instructs to the Divine.
They ask but our Delight --
The Darlings of the Soil
And grant us all their Countenance For a penurious smile.
Because the Bee may blameless hum For Thee a Bee do I become
List even unto Me.
Because the Flowers unafraid May lift a look on thine, a Maid Alway a Flower would be.
Nor Robins, Robins need not hide When Thou upon their Crypts intrude So Wings bestow on Me
Or Petals, or a Dower of Buzz That Bee to ride, or Flower of Furze I that way worship Thee.
Finding is the first Act The second, loss, Third, Expedition for The "Golden Fleece"
Fourth, no Discovery -- Fifth, no Crew --
Finally, no Golden Fleece -- Jason -- sham -- too.
The Sun and Moon must make their haste -- The Stars express around
For in the Zones of Paradise
The Lord alone is burned --
His Eye, it is the East and West -- The North and South when He Do concentrate His Countenance Like Glow Worms, flee away --
Oh Poor and Far --
Oh Hindred Eye
That hunted for the Day -- The Lord a Candle entertains Entirely for Thee --
As the Starved Maelstrom laps the Navies As the Vulture teased
Forces the Broods in lonely Valleys As the Tiger eased
By but a Crumb of Blood, fasts Scarlet Till he meet a Man
Dainty adorned with Veins and Tissues And partakes -- his Tongue
Cooled by the Morsel for a moment Grows a fiercer thing
Till he esteem his Dates and Cocoa A Nutrition mean
I, of a finer Famine
Deem my Supper dry
For but a Berry of Domingo And a Torrid Eye.
Ribbons of the Year --
Multitude Brocade --
Worn to Nature's Party once
Then, as flung aside
As a faded Bead
Or a Wrinkled Pearl
Who shall charge the Vanity Of the Maker's Girl?
They won't frown always -- some sweet Day When I forget to tease -
They'll recollect how cold I looked
And how I just said "Please."
Then They will hasten to the Door To call the little Girl
Who cannot thank Them for the Ice That filled the lisping full.
I stepped from Plank to Plank A slow and cautious way The Stars about my Head I felt About my Feet the Sea.
I knew not but the next
Would be my final inch -
This gave me that precarious Gait Some call Experience.
It was a Grave, yet bore no Stone Enclosed 'twas not of Rail
A Consciousness its Acre, and It held a Human Soul.
Entombed by whom, for what offence If Home or Foreign born --
Had I the curiosity
'Twere not appeased of men
Till Resurrection, I must guess Denied the small desire
A Rose upon its Ridge to sow Or take away a Briar.
Each Scar I'll keep for Him Instead I'll say of Gem In His long Absence worn A Costlier one
But every Tear I bore
Were He to count them o'er His own would fall so more I'll mis sum them.
The Sun is gay or stark According to our Deed. If Merry, He is merrier -- If eager for the Dead
Or an expended Day
He helped to make too bright His mighty pleasure suits Us not It magnifies our Freight
Each Second is the last
Perhaps, recalls the Man
Just measuring unconsciousness The Sea and Spar between.
To fail within a Chance --
How terribler a thing
Than perish from the Chance's list Before the Perishing!
The Bird must sing to earn the Crumb What merit have the Tune
No Breakfast if it guaranty
The Rose content may bloom To gain renown of Lady's Drawer But if the Lady come
But once a Century, the Rose Superfluous become --
I've none to tell me to but Thee
So when Thou failest, nobody.
It was a little tie --
It just held Two, nor those it held
Since Somewhere thy sweet Face has spilled Beyond my Boundary --
If things were opposite -- and Me And Me it were -- that ebbed from Thee On some unanswering Shore -- Would'st Thou seek so -- just say That I the Answer may pursue
Unto the lips it eddied through -- So -- overtaking Thee -
A Shade upon the mind there passes As when on Noon
A Cloud the mighty Sun encloses Remembering
That some there be too numb to notice Oh God
Why give if Thou must take away The Loved?
The Poets light but Lamps -- Themselves -- go out -- The Wicks they stimulate -- If vital Light
Inhere as do the Suns -- Each Age a Lens
Disseminating their Circumference --
As Everywhere of Silver With Ropes of Sand To keep it from effacing The Track called Land.
885Our little Kinsmen -- after Rain In plenty may be seen,
A Pink and Pulpy multitude The tepid Ground upon.
A needless life, it seemed to me Until a little Bird
As to a Hospitality
Advanced and breakfasted.
As I of He, so God of Me I pondered, may have judged, And left the little Angle Worm With Modesties enlarged.
886These tested Our Horizon -- Then disappeared
As Birds before achieving A Latitude.
Our Retrospection of Them A fixed Delight,
But our Anticipation
A Dice -- a Doubt --
We outgrow love, like other things And put it in the Drawer --
Till it an Antique fashion shows -- Like Costumes Grandsires wore.
When I have seen the Sun emerge From His amazing House -- And leave a Day at every Door A Deed, in every place --
Without the incident of Fame
Or accident of Noise --
The Earth has seemed to me a Drum, Pursued of little Boys
Crisis is a Hair
Toward which the forces creep Past which forces retrograde If it come in sleep
To suspend the Breath Is the most we can
Ignorant is it Life or Death Nicely balancing.
Let an instant push Or an Atom press Or a Circle hesitate In Circumference
It -- may jolt the Hand That adjusts the Hair That secures Eternity From presenting -- Here --
890From Us She wandered now a Year, Her tarrying, unknown,
If Wilderness prevent her feet Or that Ethereal Zone
No eye hath seen and lived We ignorant must be --
We only know what time of Year We took the Mystery.
To my quick ear the Leaves -- conferred -- The Bushes -- they were Bells --
I could not find a Privacy From Nature's sentinels --
In Cave if I presumed to hide The Walls -- begun to tell --
Creation seemed a mighty Crack -- To make me vis