The last Night that She lived It was a Common Night Except the Dying -- this to Us Made Nature different
We noticed smallest things -- Things overlooked before
By this great light upon our Minds Italicized -- as 'twere.
As We went out and in
Between Her final Room
And Rooms where Those to be alive Tomorrow were, a Blame
That Others could exist While She must finish quite A Jealousy for Her arose So nearly infinite --
We waited while She passed -- It was a narrow time --
Too jostled were Our Souls to speak At length the notice came.
She mentioned, and forgot --
Then lightly as a Reed
Bent to the Water, struggled scarce -- Consented, and was dead --
And We -- We placed the Hair -- And drew the Head erect -- And then an awful leisure was Belief to regulate --
1101 Between the form of Life and Life The difference is as big
As Liquor at the Lip between And Liquor in the Jug
The latter -- excellent to keep -- But for ecstatic need
The corkless is superior --
I know for I have tried
His Bill is clasped -- his Eye forsook -- His Feathers wilted low --
The Claws that clung, like lifeless Gloves Indifferent hanging now --
The Joy that in his happy Throat
Was waiting to be poured
Gored through and through with Death, to be Assassin of a Bird
Resembles to my outraged mind
The firing in Heaven,
On Angels -- squandering for you
Their Miracles of Tune -
The spry Arms of the Wind If I could crawl between I have an errand imminent To an adjoining Zone -
I should not care to stop
My Process is not long
The Wind could wait without the Gate Or stroll the Town among.
To ascertain the House
And is the soul at Home
And hold the Wick of mine to it To light, and then return -- 1104
The Crickets sang
And set the Sun
And Workmen finished one by one Their Seam the Day upon.
The low Grass loaded with the Dew The Twilight stood, as Strangers do With Hat in Hand, polite and new To stay as if, or go.
A Vastness, as a Neighbor, came, A Wisdom, without Face, or Name, A Peace, as Hemispheres at Home And so the Night became.
1105Like Men and Women Shadows walk Upon the Hills Today --
With here and there a mighty Bow Or trailing Courtesy
To Neighbors doubtless of their own Not quickened to perceive
Minuter landscape as Ourselves And Boroughs where we live --
We do not know the time we lose -- The awful moment is
And takes its fundamental place Among the certainties --
A firm appearance still inflates The card -- the chance -- the friend -The spectre of solidities
Whose substances are sand --
The Bird did prance -- the Bee did play -- The Sun ran miles away
So blind with joy he could not choose Between his Holiday
The morn was up -- the meadows out The Fences all but ran,
Republic of Delight, I thought
Where each is Citizen -
From Heavy laden Lands to thee Were seas to cross to come A Caspian were crowded -- Too near thou art for Fame --
1108A Diamond on the Hand
To Custom Common grown Subsides from its significance The Gem were best unknown -- Within a Seller's Shrine
How many sight and sigh
And cannot, but are mad for fear That any other buy.
I fit for them --
I seek the Dark
Till I am thorough fit. The labor is a sober one With this sufficient sweet That abstinence of mine produce A purer food for them, if I succeed, If not I had
The transport of the Aim --
None who saw it ever told it 'Tis as hid as Death
Had for that specific treasure A departing breath --
Surfaces may be invested Did the Diamond grow
General as the Dandelion Would you serve it so?
Some Wretched creature, savior take Who would exult to die
And leave for thy sweet mercy's sake Another Hour to me
That this should feel the need of Death The same as those that lived
Is such a Feat of Irony
As never was -- achieved --
Not satisfied to ape the Great In his simplicity
The small must die, as well as He -Oh the Audacity --
There is strength in proving that it can be borne Although it tear --
What are the sinews of such cordage for Except to bear
The ship might be of satin had it not to fight -- To walk on seas requires cedar Feet
The largest Fire ever known Occurs each Afternoon --
Discovered is without surprise Proceeds without concern -- Consumes and no report to men An Occidental Town,
Rebuilt another morning
To be burned down again.
The murmuring of Bees, has ceased But murmuring of some
Posterior, prophetic,
Has simultaneous come.
The lower metres of the Year When Nature's laugh is done The Revelations of the Book
Whose Genesis was June.
Appropriate Creatures to her change The Typic Mother sends
As Accent fades to interval
With separating Friends
Till what we speculate, has been And thoughts we will not show More intimate with us become Than Persons, that we know.
1116 There is another Loneliness That many die without -- Not want of friend occasions it Or circumstances of Lot
But nature, sometimes, sometimes thought And whoso it befall
Is richer than could be revealed
By mortal numeral --
A Mine there is no Man would own But must it be conferred,
Demeaning by exclusive wealth A Universe beside --
Potosi never to be spent
But hoarded in the mind
What Misers wring their hands tonight For Indies in the Ground!
Exhilaration is the Breeze That lifts us from the Ground And leaves us in another place Whose statement is not found --
Returns us not, but after time We soberly descend
A little newer for the term Upon Enchanted Ground --
Paradise is that old mansion Many owned before --
Occupied by each an instant
Then reversed the Door --
Bliss is frugal of her Leases
Adam taught her Thrift
Bankrupt once through his excesses --
This slow Day moved along -- I heard its axles go
As if they could not hoist themselves They hated motion so --
I told my soul to come --
It was no use to wait --
We went and played and came again And it was out of sight -
Time does go on --
I tell it gay to those who suffer now -- They shall survive --
There is a sun --
They don't believe it now --
'Tis my first night beneath the Sun If I should spend it here --
Above him is too low a height For his Barometer
Who Airs of expectation breathes And takes the Wind at prime -- But Distance his Delights confides To those who visit him --
1123
A great Hope fell
You heard no noise
The Ruin was within
Oh cunning wreck that told no tale And let no Witness in
The mind was built for mighty Freight For dread occasion planned
How often foundering at Sea
Ostensibly, on Land
A not admitting of the wound Until it grew so wide
That all my Life had entered it And there were troughs beside
A closing of the simple lid That opened to the sun Until the tender Carpenter Perpetual nail it down -
1124Had we known the Ton she bore We had helped the terror
But she straighter walked for Freight So be hers the error --
Oh Sumptuous moment
Slower go
That I may gloat on thee --
'Twill never be the same to starve Now I abundance see -
Which was to famish, then or now -- The difference of Day
Ask him unto the Gallows led -- With morning in the sky --
Shall I take thee, the Poet said To the propounded word?
Be stationed with the Candidates Till I have finer tried --
The Poet searched Philology And when about to ring
For the suspended Candidate There came unsummoned in --
That portion of the Vision The Word applied to fill Not unto nomination The Cherubim reveal --
1127Soft as the massacre of Suns By Evening's Sabres slain
1128
These are the Nights that Beetles love -- From Eminence remote
Drives ponderous perpendicular
His figure intimate
The terror of the Children
The merriment of men
Depositing his Thunder
He hoists abroad again -
A Bomb upon the Ceiling
Is an improving thing --
It keeps the nerves progressive
Conjecture flourishing -
Too dear the Summer evening
Without discreet alarm -- Supplied by Entomology With its remaining charm --
Tell all the Truth but tell it slant -- Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight The Truth's superb surprise
As Lightning to the Children eased With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually Or every man be blind -
That odd old man is dead a year -- We miss his stated Hat.
'Twas such an evening bright and stiff His faded lamp went out.
Who miss his antiquated Wick -- Are any hoar for him?
Waits any indurated mate His wrinkled coming Home?
Oh Life, begun in fluent Blood And consummated dull!
Achievement contemplating thee -- Feels transitive and cool.
The Merchant of the Picturesque A Counter has and sales
But is within or negative
Precisely as the calls -
To Children he is small in price And large in courtesy --
It suits him better than a check Their artless currency --
Of Counterfeits he is so shy Do one advance so near
As to behold his ample flight --
The smouldering embers blush -- Oh Hearts within the Coal
Hast thou survived so many years? The smouldering embers smile -- Soft stirs the news of Light
The stolid seconds glow
One requisite has Fire that lasts Prometheus never knew --
The Snow that never drifts -- The transient, fragrant snow That comes a single time a Year Is softly driving now --
So thorough in the Tree At night beneath the star That it was February's Foot Experience would swear --
Like Winter as a Face
We stern and former knew Repaired of all but Loneliness By Nature's Alibit --
Were every storm so spice The Value could not be -We buy with contrast -- Pang is good As near as memory --
1134The Wind took up the Northern Things And piled them in the south --
Then gave the East unto the West And opening his mouth
The four Divisions of the Earth Did make as to devour
While everything to corners slunk Behind the awful power --
The Wind -- unto his Chambers went And nature ventured out --
Her subjects scattered into place Her systems ranged about
Again the smoke from Dwellings rose The Day abroad was heard --
How intimate, a Tempest past The Transport of the Bird --
Too cold is this
To warm with Sun --
Too stiff to bended be,
To joint this Agate were a work -- Outstaring Masonry --
How went the Agile Kernel out Contusion of the Husk
Nor Rip, nor wrinkle indicate But just an Asterisk.
The Frost of Death was on the Pane -- "Secure your Flower" said he.
Like Sailors fighting with a Leak We fought Mortality.
Our passive Flower we held to Sea -- To Mountain -- To the Sun --
Yet even on his Scarlet shelf
To crawl the Frost begun --
We pried him back
Ourselves we wedged
Himself and her between, Yet easy as the narrow Snake He forked his way along
Till all her helpless beauty bent And then our wrath begun -- We hunted him to his Ravine We chased him to his Den --
We hated Death and hated Life And nowhere was to go -- Than Sea and continent there is A larger -- it is Woe --
1137The duties of the Wind are few, To cast the ships, at Sea,
Establish March, the Floods escort, And usher Liberty.
The pleasures of the Wind are broad, To dwell Extent among,
Remain, or wander,
Speculate, or Forests entertain.
The kinsmen of the Wind are Peaks Azof -- the Equinox,
Also with Bird and Asteroid A bowing intercourse.
The limitations of the Wind
Do he exist, or die,
Too wise he seems for Wakelessness, However, know not i.
A Spider sewed at Night Without a Light
Upon an Arc of White.
If Ruff it was of Dame Or Shroud of Gnome Himself himself inform.
Of Immortality
His Strategy
Was Physiognomy.
Her sovereign People Nature knows as well And is as fond of signifying As if fallible --
1140The Day grew small, surrounded tight By early, stooping Night --
The Afternoon in Evening deep Its Yellow shortness dropt --
The Winds went out their martial ways The Leaves obtained excuse -- November hung his Granite Hat Upon a nail of Plush --
The Face we choose to miss -- Be it but for a Day
As absent as a Hundred Years, When it has rode away.
The Props assist the House
Until the House is built
And then the Props withdraw
And adequate, erect,
The House support itself
And cease to recollect
The Auger and the Carpenter --
Just such a retrospect
Hath the perfected Life -
A past of Plank and Nail
And slowness -- then the Scaffolds drop Affirming it a Soul.
The Work of Her that went,
The Toil of Fellows done --
In Ovens green our Mother bakes, By Fires of the Sun.
Ourselves we do inter with sweet derision. The channel of the dust who once achieves Invalidates the balm of that religion
That doubts as fervently as it believes. In thy long Paradise of Light No moment will there be
When I shall long for Earthly Play And mortal Company --
When Etna basks and purrs
Naples is more afraid
Than when she show her Garnet Tooth -- Security is loud --
After a hundred years Nobody knows the Place Agony that enacted there Motionless as Peace
Weeds triumphant ranged Strangers strolled and spelled At the lone Orthography Of the Elder Dead
Winds of Summer Fields Recollect the way --
Instinct picking up the Key Dropped by memory --
After the Sun comes out
How it alters the World -
Waggons like messengers hurry about Yesterday is old --
All men meet as if
Each foreclosed a news -- Fresh as a Cargo from Batize Nature's qualities --
I noticed People disappeared When but a little child -
Supposed they visited remote Or settled Regions wild -But did because they died A Fact withheld the little child --
How many schemes may die In one short Afternoon
Entirely unknown
To those they most concern -- The man that was not lost
Because by accident
He varied by a Ribbon's width From his accustomed route -- The Love that would not try
Because beside the Door
It must be competitions
Some unsuspecting Horse was tied Surveying his Despair
Soul, take thy risk. With Death to be
Were better than be not With thee
Tell as a Marksman -- were forgotten Tell -- this Day endures
Ruddy as that coeval Apple
The Tradition bears --
Fresh as Mankind that humble story Though a statelier Tale
Grown in the Repetition hoary Scarcely would prevail --
Tell had a son -- The ones that knew it Need not linger here --
Those who did not to Human Nature Will subscribe a Tear --
Tell would not bare his Head
In Presence
Of the Ducal Hat --
Threatened for that with Death -- by Gessler -- Tyranny bethought
Make of his only Boy a Target That surpasses Death -
Stolid to Love's supreme entreaty Not forsook of Faith --
Mercy of the Almighty begging -- Tell his Arrow sent --
God it is said replies in Person When the cry is meant --
Through what transports of Patience I reached the stolid Bliss
To breathe my Blank without thee Attest me this and this -
By that bleak exultation
I won as near as this Thy privilege of dying Abbreviate me this --
A full fed Rose on meals of Tint A Dinner for a Bee
In process of the Noon became - Each bright Mortality
The Forfeit is of Creature fair Itself, adored before
Submitting for our unknown sake To be esteemed no more --
Distance -- is not the Realm of Fox Nor by Relay of Bird
Abated -- Distance is
Until thyself, Beloved.
Lest any doubt that we are glad that they were born Today Whose having lived is held by us in noble Holiday Without the date, like Consciousness or Immortality --
1157Some Days retired from the rest In soft distinction lie
The Day that a Companion came Or was obliged to die
Best Witchcraft is Geometry To the magician's mind -His ordinary acts are feats To thinking of mankind.
Great Streets of silence led away To Neighborhoods of Pause -- Here was no Notice -- no Dissent No Universe -- no laws --
By Clocks, 'twas Morning, and for Night The Bells at Distance called --
But Epoch had no basis here
For Period exhaled.
He is alive, this morning -- He is alive -- and awake -- Birds are resuming for Him -- Blossoms -- dress for His Sake. Bees -- to their Loaves of Honey Add an Amber Crumb
Him -- to regale -- Me -- Only -- Motion, and am dumb.
Trust adjust her "Peradventure" -- Phantoms entered "and not you." The Life we have is very great. The Life that we shall see
Surpasses it, we know, because It is Infinity.
But when all Space has been beheld And all Dominion shown
The smallest Human Heart's extent Reduces it to none.
God made no act without a cause, Nor heart without an aim,
Our inference is premature, Our premises to blame.
Were it to be the last
How infinite would be
What we did not suspect was marked -- Our final interview.
Contained in this short Life Are magical extents
The soul returning soft at night To steal securer thence
As Children strictest kept
Turn soonest to the sea
Whose nameless Fathoms slink away Beside infinity
Of Paul and Silas it is said
There were in Prison laid
But when they went to take them out They were not there instead.
Security the same insures To our assaulted Minds -- The staple must be optional That an Immortal binds.
1167Alone and in a Circumstance Reluctant to be told
A spider on my reticence Assiduously crawled
And so much more at Home than I Immediately grew
I felt myself a visitor
And hurriedly withdrew
Revisiting my late abode With articles of claim
I found it quietly assumed As a Gymnasium
Where Tax asleep and Title off The inmates of the Air
Perpetual presumption took As each were special Heir -- If any strike me on the street I can return the Blow --
If any take my property
According to the Law
The Statute is my Learned friend But what redress can be
For an offense nor here nor there So not in Equity --
That Larceny of time and mind The marrow of the Day
By spider, or forbid it Lord That I should specify.
As old as Woe --
How old is that?
Some eighteen thousand years -- As old as Bliss
How old is that
They are of equal years
Together chiefest they ard found But seldom side by side
From neither of them tho' he try Can Human nature hide
Lest they should come -- is all my fear When sweet incarcerated here
1170
Nature affects to be sedate Upon occasion, grand But let our observation shut Her practices extend
To Necromancy and the Trades Remote to understand
Behold our spacious Citizen Unto a Juggler turned --
On the World you colored Morning painted rose -Idle his Vermillion
Aimlessly crept the Glows Over Realms of Orchards I the Day before
Conquered with the Robin -- Misery, how fair
Till your wrinkled Finger Shored the sun away
Midnight's awful Pattern In the Goods of Day --
The Clouds their Backs together laid The North begun to push
The Forests galloped till they fell The Lightning played like mice
The Thunder crumbled like a stuff How good to be in Tombs
Where Nature's Temper cannot reach Nor missile ever comes
The Lightning is a yellow Fork From Tables in the sky
By inadvertent fingers dropt The awful Cutlery
Of mansions never quite disclosed And never quite concealed
The Apparatus of the Dark
To ignorance revealed.
There's the Battle of Burgoyne -- Over, every Day,
By the Time that Man and Beast Put their work away
"Sunset" sounds majestic -- But that solemn War
Could you comprehend it
You would chastened stare --
We like a Hairbreadth 'scape It tingles in the Mind
Far after Act or Accident Like paragraphs of Wind
If we had ventured less
The Breeze were not so fine That reaches to our utmost Hair Its Tentacles divine.
We never know how high we are Till we are asked to rise
And then if we are true to plan Our statures touch the skies --
The Heroism we recite
Would be a normal thing
Did not ourselves the Cubits warp For fear to be a King --
A prompt -- executive Bird is the Jay -- Bold as a Bailiff's Hymn --
Brittle and Brief in quality --
Warrant in every line --
Sitting a Bough like a Brigadier Confident and straight -
Much is the mien of him in March As a Magistrate --
My God -- He sees thee --
Shine thy best --
Fling up thy Balls of Gold
Till every Cubit play with thee And every Crescent hold --
Elate the Acre at his feet --
Upon his Atom swim --
Oh Sun -- but just a Second's right In thy long Race with him!
Of so divine a Loss
We enter but the Gain, Indemnity for Loneliness That such a Bliss has been.
"Remember me" implored the Thief! Oh Hospitality!
My Guest "Today in Paradise" I give thee guaranty.
That Courtesy will fair remain
When the Delight is Dust
With which we cite this mightiest case Of compensated Trust.
Of all we are allowed to hope But Affidavit stands
That this was due where most we fear Be unexpected Friends.
When I hoped I feared -- Since I hoped I dared Everywhere alone
As a Church remain -- Spectre cannot harm -- Serpent cannot charm -- He deposes Doom
Who hath suffered him --
Remembrance has a Rear and Front -- 'Tis something like a House --
It has a Garret also
For Refuse and the Mouse.
Besides the deepest Cellar That ever Mason laid -Look to it by its Fathoms Ourselves be not pursued --
1183Step lightly on this narrow spot -- The broadest Land that grows Is not so ample as the Breast These Emerald Seams enclose.
Step lofty, for this name be told As far as Cannon dwell
Or Flag subsist or Fame export Her deathless Syllable.
The Days that we can spare
Are those a Function die
Or Friend or Nature -- stranded then In our Economy
Our Estimates a Scheme -- Our Ultimates a Sham -- We let go all of Time without Arithmetic of him --
1185A little Dog that wags his tail And knows no other joy Of such a little Dog am I Reminded by a Boy
Who gambols all the living Day Without an earthly cause Because he is a little Boy I honestly suppose --
The Cat that in the Corner dwells Her martial Day forgot
The Mouse but a Tradition now Of her desireless Lot
Another class remind me
Who neither please nor play But not to make a "bit of noise" Beseech each little Boy --
Too few the mornings be, Too scant the nights. No lodging can be had
For the delights
That come to earth to stay,
But no apartment find
And ride away.
Oh Shadow on the Grass,
Art thou a Step or not?
Go make thee fair my Candidate My nominated Heart --
Oh Shadow on the Grass
While I delay to guess
Some other thou wilt consecrate -- Oh Unelected Face --
'Twas fighting for his Life he was -- That sort accomplish well --