800
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.
801
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 --
802
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 --
803
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
804
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 --
805
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.
806
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 --
807
Expectation -- 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 --
808
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?
809
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.
810
Her Grace is all she has --
And that, so least displays --
One Art to recognize, must be,
Another Art, to praise.
811
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.
812
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.
813
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 --
814
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.
815
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.
816
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.
817
Given 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.
819
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.
820
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.
821
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.
822
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.
823
Not that We did, shall be the test
When Act and Will are done
But what Our Lord infers We would
Had We diviner been --
824
[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 --
[second version]
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 --
825
An Hour is a Sea
Between a few, and me --
With them would Harbor be --
826
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 --
827
The 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 --
828
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
829
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 --
830
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.
832
Soto! Explore thyself!
Therein thyself shalt find
The "Undiscovered Continent" --
No Settler had the Mind.
833
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?
834
Before He comes we weigh the Time!
'Tis Heavy and 'tis Light.
When He depart, an Emptiness
Is the prevailing Freight.
835
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 --
836
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.
837
How well I knew Her not
Whom not to know has been
A Bounty in prospective, now
Next Door to mine the Pain.
838
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 --
839
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.
840
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.
Nature is fond, I sometimes think,
Of Trinkets, as a Girl.
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 --
843
I 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.
844
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.
845
Be Mine the Doom --
Sufficient Fame --
To perish in Her Hand!
846
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?
847
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 --
848
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.
849
The good Will of a Flower
The Man who would possess
Must first present
Certificate
Of minted Holiness.
850
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.
851
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.
852
Apology for Her
Be rendered by the Bee --
Herself, without a Parliament
Apology for Me.
853
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.
854
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.
856
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.
857
Uncertain lease -- develops lustre
On Time
Uncertain Grasp, appreciation
Of Sum --
The shorter Fate -- is oftener the chiefest
Because
Inheritors upon a tenure
Prize --
858
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 --
859
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.
860
Absence disembodies -- so does Death
Hiding individuals from the Earth
Superposition helps, as well as love --
Tenderness decreases as we prove --
861
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?
862
Light 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.
863
That Distance was between Us
That is not of Mile or Main --
The Will it is that situates --
Equator -- never can --
864
The Robin for the Crumb
Returns no syllable
But long records the Lady's name
In Silver Chronicle.
865
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.
866
Fame is the tine that Scholars leave
Upon their Setting Names --
The Iris not of Occident
That disappears as comes --
867
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.
868
They ask but our Delight --
The Darlings of the Soil
And grant us all their Countenance
For a penurious smile.
869
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.
870
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.
871
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 --
872
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.
873
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?
874
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.
875
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.
876
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.
877
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.
878
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
879
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!
880
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 --
881
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 --
882
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?
883
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 --
884
As Everywhere of Silver
With Ropes of Sand
To keep it from effacing
The Track called Land.
885
Our 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.
886
These 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 --
887
We outgrow love, like other things
And put it in the Drawer --
Till it an Antique fashion shows --
Like Costumes Grandsires wore.
888
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
889
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 --
890
From 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.
891
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 visible --
892
Who occupies this House?
A Stranger I must judge
Since No one know His Circumstance --
'Tis well the name and age
Are writ upon the Door
Or I should fear to pause
Where not so much as Honest Dog
Approach encourages.
It seems a curious Town --
Some Houses very old,
Some -- newly raised this Afternoon,
Were I compelled to build
It should not be among
Inhabitants so still
But where the Birds assemble
And Boys were possible.
Before Myself was born
'Twas settled, so they say,
A Territory for the Ghosts --
And Squirrels, formerly.
Until a Pioneer, as
Settlers often do
Liking the quiet of the Place
Attracted more unto --
And from a Settlement
A Capital has grown
Distinguished for the gravity
Of every Citizen.
The Owner of this House
A Stranger He must be --
Eternity's Acquaintances
Are mostly so -- to me.
893
Drab Habitation of Whom?
Tabernacle or Tomb --
Or Dome of Worm --
Or Porch of Gnome --
Or some Elf's Catacomb?
894
Of Consciousness, her awful Mate
The Soul cannot be rid --
As easy the secreting her
Behind the Eyes of God.
The deepest hid is sighted first
And scant to Him the Crowd --
What triple Lenses burn upon
The Escapade from God --
895
A Cloud withdrew from the Sky
Superior Glory be
But that Cloud and its Auxiliaries
Are forever lost to me
Had I but further scanned
Had I secured the Glow
In an Hermetic Memory
It had availed me now.
Never to pass the Angel
With a glance and a Bow
Till I am firm in Heaven
Is my intention now.
896
Of Silken Speech and Specious Shoe
A Traitor is the Bee
His service to the newest Grace
Present continually
His Suit a chance
His Troth a Term
Protracted as the Breeze
Continual Ban propoundeth He
Continual Divorce.
897
How fortunate the Grave --
All Prizes to obtain --
Successful certain, if at last,
First Suitor not in vain.
898
How happy I was if I could forget
To remember how sad I am
Would be an easy adversity
But the recollecting of Bloom
Keeps making November difficult
Till I who was almost bold
Lose my way like a little Child
And perish of the cold.
899
Herein a Blossom lies --
A Sepulchre, between --
Cross it, and overcome the Bee --
Remain -- 'tis but a Rind.