1600
Upon his Saddle sprung a Bird
And crossed a thousand Trees
Before a Fence without a Fare
His Fantasy did please
And then he lifted up his Throat
And squandered such a Note
A Universe that overheard
Is stricken by it yet --
1601
Of God we ask one favor,
That we may be forgiven --
For what, he is presumed to know --
The Crime, from us, is hidden --
Immured the whole of Life
Within a magic Prison
We reprimand the Happiness
That too competes with Heaven.
1602
Pursuing you in your transitions,
In other Motes --
Of other Myths
Your requisition be.
The Prism never held the Hues,
It only heard them play --
1603
The going from a world we know
To one a wonder still
Is like the child's adversity
Whose vista is a hill,
Behind the hill is sorcery
And everything unknown,
But will the secret compensate
For climbing it alone?
1604
We send the Wave to find the Wave --
An Errand so divine,
The Messenger enamored too,
Forgetting to return,
We make the wise distinction still,
Soever made in vain,
The sagest time to dam the sea is when the sea is gone --
1605
Each that we lose takes part of us;
A crescent still abides,
Which like the moon, some turbid night,
Is summoned by the tides.
1606
Quite empty, quite at rest,
The Robin locks her Nest, and tries her Wings.
She does not know a Route
But puts her Craft about
For rumored Springs --
She does not ask for Noon --
She does not ask for Boon,
Crumbless and homeless, of but one request --
The Birds she lost --
1607
Within that little Hive
Such Hints of Honey lay
As made Reality a Dream
And Dreams, Reality --
1608
The ecstasy to guess
Were a receipted bliss
If grace could talk.
1609
Sunset that screens, reveals --
Enhancing what we see
By menaces of Amethyst
And Moats of Mystery.
1610
Morning that comes but once,
Considers coming twice --
Two Dawns upon a single Morn,
Make Life a sudden price.
1611
Their dappled importunity
Disparage or dismiss --
The Obloquies of Etiquette
Are obsolete to Bliss --
1612
The Auctioneer of Parting
His "Going, going, gone"
Shouts even from the Crucifix,
And brings his Hammer down --
He only sells the Wilderness,
The prices of Despair
Range from a single human Heart
To Two -- not any more --
1613
Not Sickness stains the Brave,
Nor any Dart,
Nor Doubt of Scene to come,
But an adjourning Heart --
1614
Parting with Thee reluctantly,
That we have never met,
A Heart sometimes a Foreigner,
Remembers it forgot --
1615
Oh what a Grace is this,
What Majesties of Peace,
That having breathed
The fine -- ensuing Right
Without Diminuet Proceed!
1616
Who abdicated Ambush
And went the way of Dusk,
And now against his subtle Name
There stands an Asterisk
As confident of him as we --
Impregnable we are --
The whole of Immortality
Secreted in a Star.
1617
To try to speak, and miss the way
And ask it of the Tears,
Is Gratitude's sweet poverty,
The Tatters that he wears --
A better Coat if he possessed
Would help him to conceal,
Not subjugate, the Mutineer
Whose title is "the Soul."
1618
There are two Mays
And then a Must
And after that a Shall.
How infinite the compromise
That indicates I will!
1619
Not knowing when the Dawn will come,
I open every Door,
Or has it Feathers, like a Bird,
Or Billows, like a Shore --
1620
Circumference thou Bride of Awe
Possessing thou shalt be
Possessed by every hallowed Knight
That dares to covet thee
1621
A Flower will not trouble her, it has so small a Foot,
And yet if you compare the Lasts,
Hers is the smallest Boot --
1622
A Sloop of Amber slips away
Upon an Ether Sea,
And wrecks in Peace a Purple Tar,
The Son of Ecstasy --
1623
A World made penniless by that departure
Of minor fabrics begs
But sustenance is of the spirit
The Gods but Dregs
1624
Apparently with no surprise
To any happy Flower
The Frost beheads it at its play --
In accidental power --
The blonde Assassin passes on --
The Sun proceeds unmoved
To measure off another Day
For an Approving God.
1625
Back from the cordial Grave I drag thee
He shall not take thy Hand
Nor put his spacious arm around thee
That none can understand
1626
No Life can pompless pass away --
The lowliest career
To the same Pageant wends its way
As that exalted here --
How cordial is the mystery!
The hospitable Pall
A "this way" beckons spaciously --
A Miracle for all!
1627
The pedigree of Honey
Does not concern the Bee,
Nor lineage of Ecstasy
Delay the Butterfly
On spangle journeys to the peak
Of some perceiveless thing --
The right of way to Tripoli
A more essential thing.
--
The Pedigree of Honey
Does not concern the Bee --
A Clover, any time, to him,
Is Aristocracy --
1628
A Drunkard cannot meet a Cork
Without a Revery --
And so encountering a Fly
This January Day
Jamaicas of Remembrance stir
That send me reeling in --
The moderate drinker of Delight
Does not deserve the spring --
Of juleps, part are the Jug
And more are in the joy --
Your connoisseur in Liquours
Consults the Bumble Bee --
1629
Arrows enamored of his Heart --
Forgot to rankle there
And Venoms he mistook for Balms
disdained to rankle there --
1630
As from the earth the light Balloon
Asks nothing but release --
Ascension that for which it was,
Its soaring Residence.
The spirit looks upon the Dust
That fastened it so long
With indignation,
As a Bird
Defrauded of its song.
1631
Oh Future! thou secreted peace
Or subterranean woe --
Is there no wandering route of grace
That leads away from thee --
No circuit sage of all the course
Descried by cunning Men
To balk thee of thy sacred Prey --
Advancing to thy Den --
1632
So give me back to Death --
The Death I never feared
Except that it deprived of thee --
And now, by Life deprived,
In my own Grave I breathe
And estimate its size --
Its size is all that Hell can guess --
And all that Heaven was --
1633
Still own thee -- still thou art
What surgeons call alive --
Though slipping -- slipping I perceive
To thy reportless Grave --
Which question shall I clutch --
What answer wrest from thee
Before thou dost exude away
In the recallless sea?
1634
Talk not to me of Summer Trees
The foliage of the mind
A Tabernacle is for Birds
Of no corporeal kind
And winds do go that way at noon
To their Ethereal Homes
Whose Bugles call the least of us
To undepicted Realms
1635
The Jay his Castanet has struck
Put on your muff for Winter
The Tippet that ignores his voice
Is impudent to nature
Of Swarthy Days he is the close
His Lotus is a chestnut
The Cricket drops a sable line
No more from yours at present
1636
The Sun in reigning to the West
Makes not as much of sound
As Cart of man in road below
Adroitly turning round
That Whiffletree of Amethyst
1637
Is it too late to touch you, Dear?
We this moment knew --
Love Marine and Love terrene --
Love celestial too --
1638
Go thy great way!
The Stars thou meetst
Are even as Thyself --
For what are Stars but Asterisks
To point a human Life?
1639
A Letter is a joy of Earth --
It is denied the Gods --
1640
Take all away from me, but leave me Ecstasy,
And I am richer then than all my Fellow Men --
Ill it becometh me to dwell so wealthily
When at my very Door are those possessing more,
In abject poverty --
1641
Betrothed to Righteousness might be
An Ecstasy discreet
But Nature relishes the Pinks
Which she was taught to eat --
1642
"Red Sea," indeed! Talk not to me
Of purple Pharaoh --
I have a Navy in the West
Would pierce his Columns thro' --
Guileless, yet of such Glory fine
That all along the Line
Is it, or is it not, divine --
The Eye inquires with a sigh
That Earth sh'd be so big --
What Exultation in the Woe --
What Wine in the fatigue!
1643
Extol thee -- could I? Then I will
By saying nothing new --
But just the truest truth
That thou art heavenly.
Perceiving thee is evidence
That we are of the sky
Partaking thee a guaranty
Of immortality
1644
Some one prepared this mighty show
To which without a Ticket go
The nations and the Days --
Displayed before the simplest Door
That all may witness it and more,
The pomp of summer Days.
1645
The Ditch is dear to the Drunken man
For is it not his Bed --
His Advocate -- his Edifice?
How safe his fallen Head
In her disheveled Sanctity --
Above him is the sky --
Oblivion bending over him
And Honor leagues away.
1646
Why should we hurry -- why indeed?
When every way we fly
We are molested equally
By immortality.
No respite from the inference
That this which is begun,
Though where its labors lie
A bland uncertainty
Besets the sight
This mighty night --
1647
Of Glory not a Beam is left
But her Eternal House --
The Asterisk is for the Dead,
The Living, for the Stars --
1648
The immortality she gave
We borrowed at her Grave --
For just one Plaudit famishing,
The Might of Human love --
1649
A Cap of Lead across the sky
Was tight and surly drawn
We could not find the mighty Face
The Figure was withdrawn --
A Chill came up as from a shaft
Our noon became a well
A Thunder storm combines the charms
Of Winter and of Hell.
1650
A lane of Yellow led the eye
Unto a Purple Wood
Whose soft inhabitants to be
Surpasses solitude
If Bird the silence contradict
Or flower presume to show
In that low summer of the West
Impossible to know --
1651
A Word made Flesh is seldom
And tremblingly partook
Nor then perhaps reported
But have I not mistook
Each one of us has tasted
With ecstasies of stealth
The very food debated
To our specific strength --
A Word that breathes distinctly
Has not the power to die
Cohesive as the Spirit
It may expire if He --
"Made Flesh and dwelt among us"
Could condescension be
Like this consent of Language
This loved Philology.
1652
Advance is Life's condition
The Grave but a Relay
Supposed to be a terminus
That makes it hated so --
The Tunnel is not lighted
Existence with a wall
Is better we consider
Than not exist at all --
1653
As we pass Houses musing slow
If they be occupied
So minds pass minds
If they be occupied
1654
Beauty crowds me till I die
Beauty mercy have on me
But if I expire today
Let it be in sight of thee --
1655
Conferring with myself
My stranger disappeared
Though first upon a berry fat
Miraculously fared
How paltry looked my cares
My practise how absurd
Superfluous my whole career
Beside this travelling Bird
1656
Down Time's quaint stream
Without an oar
We are enforced to sail
Our Port a secret
Our Perchance a Gale
What Skipper would
Incur the Risk
What Buccaneer would ride
Without a surety from the Wind
Or schedule of the Tide --
1657
Eden is that old-fashioned House
We dwell in every day
Without suspecting our abode
Until we drive away.
How fair on looking back, the Day
We sauntered from the Door --
Unconscious our returning,
But discover it no more.
1658
Endanger it, and the Demand
Of tickets for a sigh
Amazes the Humility
Of Credibility --
Recover it to Nature
And that dejected Fleet
Find Consternation's Carnival
Divested of its Meat.
1659
Fame is a fickle food
Upon a shifting plate
Whose table once a
Guest but not
The second time is set.
Whose crumbs the crows inspect
And with ironic caw
Flap past it to the
Farmer's Corn --
Men eat of it and die.
1660
Glory is that bright tragic thing
That for an instant
Means Dominion --
Warms some poor name
That never felt the Sun,
Gently replacing
In oblivion --
1661
Guest am I to have
Light my northern room
Why to cordiality so averse to come
Other friends adjourn
Other bonds decay
Why avoid so narrowly
My fidelity --
1662
He went by sleep that drowsy route
To the surmising Inn --
At day break to begin his race
Or ever to remain --
1663
His mind of man, a secret makes
I meet him with a start
He carries a circumference
In which I have no part --
Or even if I deem I do
He otherwise may know
Impregnable to inquest
However neighborly --
1664
I did not reach Thee
But my feet slip nearer every day
Three Rivers and a Hill to cross
One Desert and a Sea
I shall not count the journey one
When I am telling thee.
Two deserts, but the Year is cold
So that will help the sand
One desert crossed --
The second one
Will feel as cool as land
Sahara is too little price
To pay for thy Right hand.
The Sea comes last -- Step merry, feet,
So short we have to go --
To play together we are prone,
But we must labor now,
The last shall be the lightest load
That we have had to draw.
The Sun goes crooked --
That is Night
Before he makes the bend.
We must have passed the Middle Sea --
Almost we wish the End
Were further off --
Too great it seems
So near the Whole to stand.
We step like Plush,
We stand like snow,
The waters murmur new.
Three rivers and the Hill are passed --
Two deserts and the sea!
Now Death usurps my Premium
And gets the look at Thee.
1665
I know of people in the Grave
Who would be very glad
To know the news I know tonight
If they the chance had had.
'Tis this expands the least event
And swells the scantest deed --
My right to walk upon the Earth
If they this moment had.
1666
I see thee clearer for the Grave
That took thy face between
No Mirror could illumine thee
Like that impassive stone --
I know thee better for the Act
That made thee first unknown
The stature of the empty nest
Attests the Bird that's gone.
1667
I watcher her face to see which way
She took the awful news --
Whether she died before she heard
Or in protracted bruise
Remained a few slow years with us --
Each heavier than the last --
A further afternoon to fail,
As Flower at fall of Frost.
1668
If I could tell how glad I was
I should not be so glad --
But when I cannot make the Force,
Nor mould it into Word,
I know it is a sign
That new Dilemna be
From mathematics further off
Than for Eternity.
1669
In snow thou comest --
Thou shalt go with the resuming ground,
The sweet derision of the crow,
And Glee's advancing sound.
In fear thou comest --
Thou shalt go at such a gait of joy
That man anew embark to live
Upon the depth of thee.
1670
In Winter in my Room
I came upon a Worm --
Pink, lank and warm --
But as he was a worm
And worms presume
Not quite with him at home --
Secured him by a string
To something neighboring
And went along.
A Trifle afterward
A thing occurred
I'd not believe it if I heard
But state with creeping blood --
A snake with mottles rare
Surveyed my chamber floor
In feature as the worm before
But ringed with power --
The very string with which
I tied him -- too
When he was mean and new
That string was there --
I shrank -- "How fair you are"!
Propitiation's claw --
"Afraid," he hissed
"Of me"?
"No cordiality" --
He fathomed me --
Then to a Rhythm Slim
Secreted in his Form
As Patterns swim
Projected him.
That time I flew
Both eyes his way
Lest he pursue
Nor ever ceased to run
Till in a distant Town
Towns on from mine
I set me down
This was a dream.
1671
Judgment is justest
When the Judged,
His action laid away,
Divested is of every Disk
But his sincerity.
Honor is then the safest hue
In a posthumous Sun --
Not any color will endure
That scrutiny can burn.
1672
Lightly stepped a yellow star
To its lofty place --
Loosed the Moon her silver hat
From her lustral Face --
All of Evening softly lit
As an Astral Hall --
Father, I observed to Heaven,
You are punctual.
1673
Nature can do no more
She has fulfilled her Dyes
Whatever Flower fail to come
Of other Summer days
Her crescent reimburse
If other Summers be
Nature's imposing negative
Nulls opportunity --
1674
Not any sunny tone
From any fervent zone
Find entrance there --
Better a grave of Balm
Toward human nature's home --
And Robins near --
Than a stupendous Tomb
Proclaiming to the Gloom
How dead we are --
1675
Of this is Day composed
A morning and a noon
A Revelry unspeakable
And then a gay unknown
Whose Pomps allure and spurn
And dower and deprive
And penury for Glory
Remedilessly leave.
1676
Of Yellow was the outer Sky
In Yellower Yellow hewn
Till Saffron in Vermilion slid
Whose seam could not be shewn.
1677
On my volcano grows the Grass
A meditative spot --
An acre for a Bird to choose
Would be the General thought --
How red the Fire rocks below --
How insecure the sod
Did I disclose
Would populate with awe my solitude.
1678
Peril as a Possesssion
'Tis Good to hear
Danger disintegrates Satiety
There's Basis there --
Begets an awe
That searches Human Nature's creases
As clean as Fire.
1679
Rather arid delight
If Contentment accrue
Make an abstemious Ecstasy
Not so good as joy --
But Rapture's Expense
Must not be incurred
With a tomorrow knocking
And the Rent unpaid --
1680
Sometimes with the Heart
Seldom with the Soul
Scarcer once with the Might
Few -- love at all.
1681
Speech is one symptom of Affection
And Silence one --
The perfectest communication
Is heard of none --
Exists and its indorsement
Is had within --
Behold, said the Apostle,
Yet had not seen!
1682
Summer begins to have the look
Peruser of enchanting Book
Reluctantly but sure perceives
A gain upon the backward leaves --
Autumn begins to be inferred
By millinery of the cloud
Or deeper color in the shawl
That wraps the everlasting hill.
The eye begins its avarice
A meditation chastens speech
Some Dyer of a distant tree
Resumes his gaudy industry.
Conclusion is the course of All
At most to be perennial
And then elude stability
Recalls to immortality.
1683
That she forgot me was the least
I felt it second pain
That I was worthy to forget
Was most I thought upon.
Faithful was all that I could boast
But Constancy became
To her, by her innominate,
A something like a shame.
1684
The Blunder is in estimate.
Eternity is there
We say, as of a Station --
Meanwhile he is so near
He joins me in my Ramble --
Divides abode with me --
No Friend have I that so persists
As this Eternity.
1685
The butterfly obtains
But little sympathy
Though favorably mentioned
In Entomology --
Because he travels freely
And wears a proper coat
The circumspect are certain
That he is dissolute --
Had he the homely scutcheon
Of modest Industry
'Twere fitter certifying
For Immortality --
1686
The event was directly behind Him
Yet He did not guess
Fitted itself to Himself like a Robe
Relished His ignorance.
Motioned itself to drill
Loaded and Levelled
And let His Flesh
Centuries from His soul.
1687
The gleam of an heroic Act
Such strange illumination
The Possible's slow fuse is lit
By the Imagination.
1688
The Hills erect their Purple Heads
The Rivers lean to see
Yet Man has not of all the Throng
A Curiosity.
1689
The look of thee, what is it like
Hast thou a hand or Foot
Or Mansion of Identity
And what is thy Pursuit?
Thy fellows are they realms or Themes
Hast thou Delight or Fear
Or Longing -- and is that for us
Or values more severe?
Let change transfuse all other Traits
Enact all other Blame
But deign this least certificate --
That thou shalt be the same.
1690
The ones that disappeared are back
The Phoebe and the Crow
Precisely as in March is heard
The curtness of the Jay --
Be this an Autumn or a Spring
My wisdom loses way
One side of me the nuts are ripe
The other side is May.
1691
The overtakelessness of those
Who have accomplished Death
Majestic is to me beyond
The majesties of Earth.
The soul her "Not at Home"
Inscribes upon the flesh --
And takes her fair aerial gait
Beyond the hope of touch.
1692
The right to perish might be thought
An undisputed right --
Attempt it, and the Universe
Upon the opposite
Will concentrate its officers --
You cannot even die
But nature and mankind must pause
To pay you scrutiny.
1693
The Sun retired to a cloud
A Woman's shawl as big --
And then he sulked in mercury
Upon a scarlet log --
The drops on Nature's forehead stood
Home flew the loaded bees --
The South unrolled a purple fan
And handed to the trees.
1694
The wind drew off
Like hungry dogs
Defeated of a bone --
Through fissures in
Volcanic cloud
The yellow lightning shone --
The trees held up
Their mangled limbs
Like animals in pain --
When Nature falls upon herself
Beware an Austrian.
1695
There is a solitude of space
A solitude of sea
A solitude of death, but these
Society shall be
Compared with that profounder site
That polar privacy
A soul admitted to itself --
Finite infinity.
1696
These are the days that Reindeer love
And pranks the Northern star --
This is the Sun's objective,
And Finland of the Year.
1697
They talk as slow as Legends grow
No mushroom is their mind
But foliage of sterility
Too stolid for the wind --
They laugh as wise as Plots of Wit
Predestined to unfold
The point with bland prevision
Portentously untold.
1698
'Tis easier to pity those when dead
That which pity previous
Would have saved --
A Tragedy enacted
Secures Applause
That Tragedy enacting
Too seldom does.
1699
To do a magnanimous thing
And take oneself by surprise
If oneself is not in the habit of him
Is precisely the finest of Joys --
Not to do a magnanimous thing
Notwithstanding it never be known
Notwithstanding it cost us existence once
Is Rapture herself spurn --