Because my Brook is fluent I know 'tis dry --
Because my Brook is silent It is the Sea --
And startled at its rising
I try to flee
To where the Strong assure me Is "no more Sea" --
So I pull my Stockings off Wading in the Water
For the Disobedience' Sake Boy that lived for "or'ter"
Went to Heaven perhaps at Death And perhaps he didn't
Moses wasn't fairly used --
Ananias wasn't --
The Frost was never seen -- If met, too rapid passed,
Or in too unsubstantial Team -- The Flowers notice first
A Stranger hovering round A Symptom of alarm
In Villages remotely set But search effaces him
Till some retrieveless Night Our Vigilance at waste
The Garden gets the only shot That never could be traced.
Unproved is much we know -- Unknown the worst we fear -- Of Strangers is the Earth the Inn Of Secrets is the Air --
To analyze perhaps
A Philip would prefer
But Labor vaster than myself I find it to infer.
The Past is such a curious Creature To look her in the Face
A Transport may receipt us
Or a Disgrace --
Unarmed if any meet her I charge him fly
Her faded Ammunition Might yet reply.
Whatever it is -- she has tried it -- Awful Father of Love --
Is not Ours the chastising -- Do not chastise the Dove --
Not for Ourselves, petition -- Nothing is left to pray -- When a subject is finished -- Words are handed away --
Only lest she be lonely In thy beautiful House Give her for her Transgression License to think of us -
1205Immortal is an ample word When what we need is by But when it leaves us for a time 'Tis a necessity.
Of Heaven above the firmest proof We fundamental know
Except for its marauding Hand It had been Heaven below.
The Show is not the Show But they that go --
Menagerie to me
My Neighbor be --
Fair Play --
Both went to see --
He preached upon "Breadth" till it argued him narrow -- The Broad are too broad to define
And of "Truth" until it proclaimed him a Liar -- The Truth never flaunted a Sign --
Simplicity fled from his counterfeit presence As Gold the Pyrites would shun --
What confusion would cover the innocent Jesus To meet so enabled a Man!
1208
Our own possessions -- though our own -- 'Tis well to hoard anew --
Remembering the Dimensions
Of Possibility.
To disappear enhances -The Man that runs away Is tinctured for an instant With Immortality
But yesterday a Vagrant -- Today in Memory lain With superstitious value We tamper with "Again"
But "Never" far as Honor Withdraws the Worthless thing And impotent to cherish
We hasten to adorn --
Of Death the sternest function That just as we discern
The Excellence defies us -- Securest gathered then
The Fruit perverse to plucking, But leaning to the Sight
With the ecstatic limit
Of unobtained Delight --
The Sea said "Come" to the Brook -- The Brook said "Let me grow" -- The Sea said "Then you will be a Sea -- I want a Brook -- Come now"!
The Sea said "Go" to the Sea -- The Sea said "I am he
You cherished" -- "Learned Waters -- Wisdom is stale -- to Me"
A Sparrow took a Slice of Twig And thought it very nice
I think, because his empty Plate Was handed Nature twice --
Invigorated, waded In all the deepest Sky Until his little Figure Was forfeited away --
1212A word is dead When it is said, Some say.
I say it just Begins to live That day.
1213We like March.
His Shoes are Purple --
He is new and high --
Makes he Mud for Dog and Peddler. Makes he Forests dry.
Knows the Adder Tongue his coming And presents her Spot --
Stands the Sun so close and mighty That our Minds are hot.
News is he of all the others -- Bold it were to die
With the Blue Birds exercising On his British Sky.
We like March -- his shoes are Purple. He is new and high --
Makes he Mud for Dog and Peddler -- Makes he Forests Dry --
Knows the Adder's Tongue his coming And begets her spot --
Stands the Sun so close and mighty -- That our Minds are hot.
News is he of all the others --
Bold it were to die
With the Blue Birds buccaneering On his British sky --
We introduce ourselves To Planets and to Flowers But with ourselves
Have etiquettes
Embarrassments
And awes
I bet with every Wind that blew Till Nature in chagrin
Employed a Fact to visit me And scuttle my Balloon --
1216 A Deed knocks first at Thought And then -- it knocks at Will -- That is the manufacturing spot And Will at Home and well
It then goes out an Act Or is entombed so still That only to the ear of God Its Doom is audible --
1217Fortitude incarnate Here is laid away In the swift Partitions Of the awful Sea --
Babble of the Happy Cavil of the Bold Hoary the Fruition But the Sea is old
Edifice of Ocean
Thy tumultuous Rooms Suit me at a venture Better than the Tombs
Let my first Knowing be of thee With morning's warming Light -- And my first Fearing, lest Unknowns Engulf thee in the night -
1219Now I knew I lost her -Not that she was gone -- But Remoteness travelled On her Face and Tongue.
Alien, though adjoining
As a Foreign Race --
Traversed she though pausing Latitudeless Place.
Elements Unaltered -- Universe the same
But Love's transmigration -- Somehow this had come --
Henceforth to remember Nature took the Day
I had paid so much for -- His is Penury
Not who toils for Freedom Or for Family
But the Restitution
Of Idolatry.
Of Nature I shall have enough When I have entered these Entitled to a Bumble bee's Familiarities.
1221Some we see no more, Tenements of Wonder Occupy to us though perhaps to them
Simpler are the Days than the Supposition Leave us to presume
That oblique Belief which we call Conjecture Grapples with a Theme stubborn as Sublime Able as the Dust to equip its feature
Adequate as Drums To enlist the Tomb.
The Riddle we can guess We speedily despise -- Not anything is stale so long As Yesterday's surprise --
1223Who goes to dine must take his Feast Or find the Banquet mean --
The Table is not laid without
Till it is laid within.
For Pattern is the Mind bestowed That imitating her
Our most ignoble Services Exhibit worthier.
Like Trains of Cars on Tracks of Plush I hear the level Bee --
A Jar across the Flowers goes
Their Velvet Masonry --
Withstands until the sweet Assault Their Chivalry consumes --
While He, victorious tilts away To vanquish other Blooms.
1225 Its Hour with itself
The Spirit never shows.
What Terror would enthrall the Street Could Countenance disclose
The Subterranean Freight
The Cellars of the Soul --
Thank God the loudest Place he made Is license to be still.
The Popular Heart is a Cannon first -Subsequent a Drum --
Bells for an Auxiliary
And an Afterward of Rum --
Not a Tomorrow to know its name Nor a Past to stare --
Ditches for Realms and a Trip to Jail For a Souvenir --
My Triumph lasted till the Drums Had left the Dead alone
And then I dropped my Victory And chastened stole along To where the finished Faces Conclusion turned on me
And then I hated Glory
And wished myself were They.
What is to be is best descried When it has also been -
Could Prospect taste of Retrospect The tyrannies of Men
Were Tenderer -- diviner
The Transitive toward.
A Bayonet's contrition Is nothing to the Dead.
So much of Heaven has gone from Earth That there must be a Heaven
If only to enclose the Saints
To Affidavit given.
The Missionary to the Mole
Must prove there is a Sky
Location doubtless he would plead But what excuse have I?
Too much of Proof affronts Belief The Turtle will not try
Unless you leave him -- then return And he has hauled away.
Because He loves Her
We will pry and see if she is fair What difference is on her Face From Features others wear.
It will not harm her magic pace That we so far behind -
Her Distances propitiate
As Forests touch the Wind
Not hoping for his notice vast But nearer to adore
'Tis Glory's far sufficiency That makes our trying poor.
It came at last but prompter Death Had occupied the House --
His pallid Furniture arranged And his metallic Peace --
Oh faithful Frost that kept the Date Had Love as punctual been Delight had aggrandized the Gate And blocked the coming in.
1231Somewhere upon the general Earth Itself exist Today --
The Magic passive but extant That consecrated me --
Indifferent Seasons doubtless play Where I for right to be -
Would pay each Atom that I am But Immortality --
Reserving that but just to prove Another Date of Thee --
Oh God of Width, do not for us Curtail Eternity!
The Clover's simple Fame
Remembered of the Cow -- Is better than enameled Realms Of notability.
Renown perceives itself
And that degrades the Flower -- The Daisy that has looked behind Has compromised its power -- Had I not seen the Sun
I could have borne the shade But Light a newer Wilderness My Wilderness has made --
If my Bark sink
'Tis to another sea -- Mortality's Ground Floor Is Immortality --
Like Rain it sounded till it curved And then I new 'twas Wind --
It walked as wet as any Wave But swept as dry as sand --
When it had pushed itself away To some remotest Plain
A coming as of Hosts was heard It filled the Wells, it pleased the Pools It warbled in the Road --
It pulled the spigot from the Hills And let the Floods abroad --
It loosened acres, lifted seas
The sites of Centres stirred
Then like Elijah rode away
Upon a Wheel of Cloud.
Like Time's insidious wrinkle On a beloved Face
We clutch the Grace the tighter Though we resent the crease
The Frost himself so comely Dishevels every prime Asserting from his Prism That none can punish him
1237My Heart ran so to thee It would not wait for me And I affronted grew And drew away
For whatsoe'er my pace He first achieve they Face How general a Grace Allotted two --
Not in malignity
Mentioned I this to thee -Had he obliquity
Soonest to share
But for the Greed of him -- Boasting my Premium -- Basking in Bethleem
Ere I be there --
Power is a familiar growth -- Not foreign -- not to be --
Beside us like a bland Abyss In every company --
Escape it -- there is but a chance -When consciousness and clay Lean forward for a final glance -- Disprove that and you may -- Risk is the Hair that holds the Tun Seductive in the Air --
That Tun is hollow -- but the Tun -- With Hundred Weights -- to spare -
Too ponderous to suspect the snare Espies that fickle chair
And seats itself to be let go
By that perfidious Hair -
The "foolish Tun" the Critics say -- While that delusive Hair
Persuasive as Perdition,
Decoys its Traveller.
The Beggar at the Door for Fame Were easily supplied
But Bread is that Diviner thing Disclosed to be denied
The Lilac is an ancient shrub
But ancienter than that
The Firmamental Lilac
Upon the Hill tonight --
The Sun subsiding on his Course Bequeaths this final Plant
To Contemplation -- not to Touch -- The Flower of Occident.
Of one Corolla is the West --
The Calyx is the Earth --
The Capsules burnished Seeds the Stars The Scientist of Faith
His research has but just begun -Above his synthesis
The Flora unimpeachable
To Time's Analysis --
"Eye hath not seen" may possibly Be current with the Blind
But let not Revelation
By theses be detained -
To flee from memory
Had we the Wings
Many would fly
Inured to slower things
Birds with surprise
Would scan the cowering Van Of men escaping
From the mind of man
Safe Despair it is that raves -- Agony is frugal.
Puts itself severe away
For its own perusal.
Garrisoned no Soul can be In the Front of Trouble -Love is one, not aggregate -- Nor is Dying double --
1244The Butterfly's Assumption Gown In Chrysoprase Apartments hung This afternoon put on --
How condescending to descend And be of Buttercups the friend In a New England Town -- The Suburbs of a Secret
A Strategist should keep, Better than on a Dream intrude To scrutinize the Sleep.
The Butterfly in honored Dust Assuredly will lie
But none will pass the Catacomb So chastened as the Fly --
To pile like Thunder to its close Then crumble grand away While Everything created hid This -- would be Poetry --
Or Love -- the two coeval come -- We both and neither prove -- Experience either and consume -- For None see God and live --
1248The incidents of love
Are more than its Events -- Investment's best Expositor Is the minute Per Cents --
1249 The Stars are old, that stood for me -- The West a little worn -
Yet newer glows the only Gold I ever cared to earn --
Presuming on that lone result Her infinite disdain
But vanquished her with my defeat 'Twas Victory was slain.
White as an Indian Pipe Red as a Cardinal Flower Fabulous as a Moon at Noon February Hour --
1251Silence is all we dread.
There's Ransom in a Voice -- But Silence is Infinity.
Himself have not a face.
Like Brooms of Steel
The Snow and Wind
Had swept the Winter Street -- The House was hooked
The Sun sent out
Faint Deputies of Heat -- Where rode the Bird
The Silence tied
His ample -- plodding Steed The Apple in the Cellar snug Was all the one that played. Had this one Day not been. Or could it cease to be
How smitten, how superfluous, Were every other Day!
Lest Love should value less What Loss would value more Had it the stricken privilege, It cherishes before.
1254Elijah's Wagon knew no thill Was innocent of Wheel Elijah's horses as unique As was his vehicle --
Elijah's journey to portray Expire with him the skill Who justified Elijah
In feats inscrutable --
Longing is like the Seed That wrestles in the Ground, Believing if it intercede It shall at length be found.
The Hour, and the Clime --
Each Circumstance unknown, What Constancy must be achieved Before it see the Sun!
Not any higher stands the Grave For Heroes than for Men --
Not any nearer for the Child
Than numb Three Score and Ten --
This latest Leisure equal lulls The Beggar and his Queen Propitiate this Democrat A Summer's Afternoon --
1257Dominion lasts until obtained -- Possession just as long --
But these -- endowing as they flit Eternally belong.
How everlasting are the Lips
Known only to the Dew --
These are the Brides of permanence Supplanting me and you.
Who were "the Father and the Son" We pondered when a child,
And what had they to do with us And when portentous told
With inference appalling
By Childhood fortified
We thought, at least they are no worse Than they have been described.
Who are "the Father and the Son" Did we demand Today
"The Father and the Son" himself Would doubtless specify --
But had they the felicity
When we desired to know.
We better Friends had been, perhaps, Than time ensue to be -
We start -- to learn that we believe But once -- entirely --
Belief, it does not fit so well When altered frequently --
We blush, that Heaven if we achieve -- Event ineffable --
We shall have shunned until ashamed To own the Miracle --
A Wind that rose
Though not a Leaf
In any Forest stirred
But with itself did cold engage Beyond the Realm of Bird -- A Wind that woke a lone Delight Like Separation's Swell
Restored in Arctic Confidence To the Invisible --
Because that you are going And never coming back And I, however absolute, May overlook your Track --
Because that Death is final, However first it be,
This instant be suspended Above Mortality --
Significance that each has lived The other to detect
Discovery not God himself Could now annihilate
Eternity, Presumption
The instant I perceive
That you, who were Existence Yourself forgot to live --
The "Life that is" will then have been A thing I never knew --
As Paradise fictitious
Until the Realm of you --
The "Life that is to be," to me, A Residence too plain
Unless in my Redeemer's Face I recognize your own --
Of Immortality who doubts
He may exchange with me Curtailed by your obscuring Face Of everything but He --
Of Heaven and Hell I also yield The Right to reprehend
To whoso would commute this Face For his less priceless Friend.
If "God is Love" as he admits We think that me must be Because he is a "jealous God" He tells us certainly
If "All is possible with" him As he besides concedes He will refund us finally Our confiscated Gods --
1261A Word dropped careless on a Page May stimulate an eye
When folded in perpetual seam The Wrinkled Maker lie
Infection in the sentence breeds We may inhale Despair
At distances of Centuries
From the Malaria --
I cannot see my soul but know 'tis there Nor ever saw his house nor furniture, Who has invited me with him to dwell; But a confiding guest consult as well, What raiment honor him the most, That I be adequately dressed,
For he insures to none
Lest men specified adorn
Procuring him perpetual drest
By dating it a sudden feast.
There is no Frigate like a Book To take us Lands away
Nor any Coursers like a Page Of prancing Poetry --
This Traverse may the poorest take Without oppress of Toll -
How frugal is the Chariot
That bears the Human soul.
This is the place they hoped before, Where I am hoping now.
The seed of disappointment grew Within a capsule gay,
Too distant to arrest the feet That walk this plank of balm -- Before them lies escapeless sea -- The way is closed they came.
The most triumphant Bird I ever knew or met Embarked upon a twig today
And till Dominion set
I famish to behold so eminent a sight And sang for nothing scrutable
But intimate Delight.
Retired, and resumed his transitive Estate -- To what delicious Accident
Does finest Glory fit!
When Memory is full
Put on the perfect Lid -
This Morning's finest syllable Presumptuous Evening said --
I saw that the Flake was on it But plotted with Time to dispute -- "Unchanged" I urged with a candor That cost me my honest Heart --
But "you" -- she returned with valor Sagacious of my mistake
"Have altered -- Accept the pillage For the progress' sake" -
1268
Confirming All who analyze In the Opinion fair
That Eloquence is when the Heart Has not a Voice to spare --
I worked for chaff and earning Wheat Was haughty and betrayed.
What right had Fields to arbitrate In matters ratified?
I tasted Wheat and hated Chaff And thanked the ample friend -- Wisdom is more becoming viewed At distance than at hand.
1270Is Heaven a Physician?
They say that He can heal -- But Medicine Posthumous Is unavailable --
Is Heaven an Exchequer? They speak of what we owe -- But that negotiation
I'm not a Party to --
September's Baccalaureate
A combination is
Of Crickets -- Crows -- and Retrospects And a dissembling Breeze
That hints without assuming -- An Innuendo sear
That makes the Heart put up its Fun And turn Philosopher.
So proud she was to die
It made us all ashamed
That what we cherished, so unknown To her desire seemed --
So satisfied to go
Where none of us should be
Immediately -- that Anguish stooped Almost to Jealousy --
That sacred Closet when you sweep -- Entitled "Memory" --
Select a reverential Broom --
And do it silently.
'Twill be a Labor of surprise -- Besides Identity
Of other Interlocutors
A probability --
August the Dust of that Domain -- Unchallenged -- let it lie -
You cannot supersede itself But it can silence you --
The Bone that has no Marrow, What Ultimate for that?
It is not fit for Table
For Beggar or for Cat.
A Bone has obligations -- A Being has the same -- A Marrowless Assembly Is culpabler than shame.
But how shall finished Creatures A function fresh obtain?
Old Nicodemus' Phantom
Confronting us again!
The Spider as an Artist
Has never been employed -- Though his surpassing Merit Is freely certified
By every Broom and Bridget Throughout a Christian Land -- Neglected Son of Genius I take thee by the Hand --
1276'Twas later when the summer went Than when the Cricket came -- And yet we knew that gentle Clock Meant nought but Going Home -- 'Twas sooner when the Cricket went Than when the Winter came
Yet that pathetic Pendulum
Keeps esoteric Time.
While we were fearing it, it came -- But came with less of fear
Because that fearing it so long Had almost made it fair --
There is a Fitting -- a Dismay -- A Fitting -- a Despair
'Tis harder knowing it is Due Than knowing it is Here.
They Trying on the Utmost The Morning it is new Is Terribler than wearing it A whole existence through.
1278The Mountains stood in Haze -- The Valleys stopped below And went or waited as they liked The River and the Sky.
At leisure was the Sun --
His interests of Fire
A little from remark withdrawn -- The Twilight spoke the Spire,
So soft upon the Scene
The Act of evening fell
We felt how neighborly a Thing Was the Invisible.
The Way to know the Bobolink From every other Bird
Precisely as the Joy of him -- Obliged to be inferred.
Of impudent Habiliment Attired to defy,
Impertinence subordinate At times to Majesty.
Of Sentiments seditious Amenable to Law --
As Heresies of Transport Or Puck's Apostacy.
Extrinsic to Attention
Too intimate with Joy -- He compliments existence Until allured away
By Seasons or his Children -- Adult and urgent grown -- Or unforeseen aggrandizement Or, happily, Renown --
By Contrast certifying
The Bird of Birds is gone -- How nullified the Meadow -- Her Sorcerer withdrawn!
The harm of Years is on him -- The infamy of Time --
Depose him like a Fashion And give Dominion room.
Forget his Morning Forces -- The Glory of Decay
Is a minuter Pageant
Than least Vitality.
A stagnant pleasure like a Pool That lets its Rushes grow
Until they heedless tumble in And make the Water slow Impeding navigation bright Of Shadows going down Yet even this shall rouse itself When freshets come along.
Art thou the thing I wanted? Begone -- my Tooth has grown -- Supply the minor Palate
That has not starved so long -- I tell thee while I waited
The mystery of Food
Increased till I abjured it
And dine without Like God --
Art thou the thing I wanted? Begone -- my Tooth has grown -- Affront a minor palate
Thou could'st not goad so long --
I tell thee while I waited -- The mystery of Food
Increased till I abjured it Subsisting now like God --
Could Hope inspect her Basis Her Craft were done --
Has a fictitious Charter
Or it has none --
Balked in the vastest instance But to renew --
Felled by but one assassin -- Prosperity --
Had we our senses
But perhaps 'tis well they're not at Home So intimate with Madness
He's liable with them
Had we the eyes without our Head -- How well that we are Blind --
We could not look upon the Earth -- So utterly unmoved --
I know Suspense -- it steps so terse And turns so weak away --
Besides -