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EmiTalks3

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-III. NATURE.
 I.
 New feet within my garden go,
 New fingers stir the sod;
 A troubadour upon the elm
 Betrays the solitude.
 New children play upon the green,
 New weary sleep below;
 And still the pensive spring returns,
 And still the punctual snow!
 II.
 MAY-FLOWER.
 Pink, small, and punctual,
 Aromatic, low,
 Covert in April,
 Candid in May,
 Dear to the moss,
 Known by the knoll,
 Next to the robin
 In every human soul.
 Bold little beauty,
 Bedecked with thee,
 Nature forswears
 Antiquity.
 III.
 WHY?
 The murmur of a bee
 A witchcraft yieldeth me.
 If any ask me why,
 'T were easier to die
 Than tell.
 The red upon the hill
 Taketh away my will;
 If anybody sneer,
 Take care, for God is here,
 That's all.
 The breaking of the day
 Addeth to my degree;
 If any ask me how,
 Artist, who drew me so,
 Must tell!
 IV.
 Perhaps you'd like to buy a flower?
 But I could never sell.
 If you would like to borrow
 Until the daffodil
 Unties her yellow bonnet
 Beneath the village door,
 Until the bees, from clover rows
 Their hock and sherry draw,
 Why, I will lend until just then,
 But not an hour more!
 V.
 The pedigree of honey
 Does not concern the bee;
 A clover, any time, to him
 Is aristocracy.
 VI.
 A SERVICE OF SONG.
 Some keep the Sabbath going to church;
 I keep it staying at home,
 With a bobolink for a chorister,
 And an orchard for a dome.
 Some keep the Sabbath in surplice;
 I just wear my wings,
 And instead of tolling the bell for church,
 Our little sexton sings.
 God preaches, -- a noted clergyman, --
 And the sermon is never long;
 So instead of getting to heaven at last,
 I'm going all along!
 VII.
 The bee is not afraid of me,
 I know the butterfly;
 The pretty people in the woods
 Receive me cordially.
 The brooks laugh louder when I come,
 The breezes madder play.
 Wherefore, mine eyes, thy silver mists?
 Wherefore, O summer's day?
 VIII.
 SUMMER'S ARMIES.
 Some rainbow coming from the fair!
 Some vision of the world Cashmere
 I confidently see!
@@ -203,7 +117,6 @@ Or else a peacock's purple train,
 Feather by feather, on the plain
 Fritters itself away!
 The dreamy butterflies bestir,
 Lethargic pools resume the whir
 Of last year's sundered tune.
@@ -211,7 +124,6 @@ From some old fortress on the sun
 Baronial bees march, one by one,
 In murmuring platoon!
 The robins stand as thick to-day
 As flakes of snow stood yesterday,
 On fence and roof and twig.
@@ -219,7 +131,6 @@ The orchis binds her feather on
 For her old lover, Don the Sun,
 Revisiting the bog!
 Without commander, countless, still,
 The regiment of wood and hill
 In bright detachment stand.
@@ -227,578 +138,350 @@ Behold! Whose multitudes are these?
 The children of whose turbaned seas,
 Or what Circassian land?
 IX.
 THE GRASS.
 The grass so little has to do, --
 A sphere of simple green,
 With only butterflies to brood,
 And bees to entertain,
 And stir all day to pretty tunes
 The breezes fetch along,
 And hold the sunshine in its lap
 And bow to everything;
 And thread the dews all night, like pearls,
 And make itself so fine, --
 A duchess were too common
 For such a noticing.
 And even when it dies, to pass
 In odors so divine,
 As lowly spices gone to sleep,
 Or amulets of pine.
 And then to dwell in sovereign barns,
 And dream the days away, --
 The grass so little has to do,
 I wish I were the hay!
 X.
 A little road not made of man,
 Enabled of the eye,
 Accessible to thill of bee,
 Or cart of butterfly.
 If town it have, beyond itself,
 'T is that I cannot say;
 I only sigh, -- no vehicle
 Bears me along that way.
 XI.
 SUMMER SHOWER.
 A drop fell on the apple tree,
 Another on the roof;
 A half a dozen kissed the eaves,
 And made the gables laugh.
 A few went out to help the brook,
 That went to help the sea.
 Myself conjectured, Were they pearls,
 What necklaces could be!
 The dust replaced in hoisted roads,
 The birds jocoser sung;
 The sunshine threw his hat away,
 The orchards spangles hung.
 The breezes brought dejected lutes,
 And bathed them in the glee;
 The East put out a single flag,
 And signed the fete away.
 XII.
 PSALM OF THE DAY.
 A something in a summer's day,
 As slow her flambeaux burn away,
 Which solemnizes me.
 A something in a summer's noon, --
 An azure depth, a wordless tune,
 Transcending ecstasy.
 And still within a summer's night
 A something so transporting bright,
 I clap my hands to see;
 Then veil my too inspecting face,
 Lest such a subtle, shimmering grace
 Flutter too far for me.
 The wizard-fingers never rest,
 The purple brook within the breast
 Still chafes its narrow bed;
 Still rears the East her amber flag,
 Guides still the sun along the crag
 His caravan of red,
 Like flowers that heard the tale of dews,
 But never deemed the dripping prize
 Awaited their low brows;
 Or bees, that thought the summer's name
 Some rumor of delirium
 No summer could for them;
 Or Arctic creature, dimly stirred
 By tropic hint, -- some travelled bird
 Imported to the wood;
 Or wind's bright signal to the ear,
 Making that homely and severe,
 Contented, known, before
 The heaven unexpected came,
 To lives that thought their worshipping
 A too presumptuous psalm.
 XIII.
 THE SEA OF SUNSET.
 This is the land the sunset washes,
 These are the banks of the Yellow Sea;
 Where it rose, or whither it rushes,
 These are the western mystery!
 Night after night her purple traffic
 Strews the landing with opal bales;
 Merchantmen poise upon horizons,
 Dip, and vanish with fairy sails.
 XIV.
 PURPLE CLOVER.
 There is a flower that bees prefer,
 And butterflies desire;
 To gain the purple democrat
 The humming-birds aspire.
 And whatsoever insect pass,
 A honey bears away
 Proportioned to his several dearth
 And her capacity.
 Her face is rounder than the moon,
 And ruddier than the gown
 Of orchis in the pasture,
 Or rhododendron worn.
 She doth not wait for June;
 Before the world is green
 Her sturdy little countenance
 Against the wind is seen,
 Contending with the grass,
 Near kinsman to herself,
 For privilege of sod and sun,
 Sweet litigants for life.
 And when the hills are full,
 And newer fashions blow,
 Doth not retract a single spice
 For pang of jealousy.
 Her public is the noon,
 Her providence the sun,
 Her progress by the bee proclaimed
 In sovereign, swerveless tune.
 The bravest of the host,
 Surrendering the last,
 Nor even of defeat aware
 When cancelled by the frost.
 XV.
 THE BEE.
 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.
 His feet are shod with gauze,
 His helmet is of gold;
 His breast, a single onyx
 With chrysoprase, inlaid.
 His labor is a chant,
 His idleness a tune;
 Oh, for a bee's experience
 Of clovers and of noon!
 XVI.
 Presentiment is that long shadow on the lawn
 Indicative that suns go down;
 The notice to the startled grass
 That darkness is about to pass.
 XVII.
 As children bid the guest good-night,
 And then reluctant turn,
 My flowers raise their pretty lips,
 Then put their nightgowns on.
 As children caper when they wake,
 Merry that it is morn,
 My flowers from a hundred cribs
 Will peep, and prance again.
 XVIII.
 Angels in the early morning
 May be seen the dews among,
 Stooping, plucking, smiling, flying:
 Do the buds to them belong?
 Angels when the sun is hottest
 May be seen the sands among,
 Stooping, plucking, sighing, flying;
 Parched the flowers they bear along.
 XIX.
 So bashful when I spied her,
 So pretty, so ashamed!
 So hidden in her leaflets,
 Lest anybody find;
 So breathless till I passed her,
 So helpless when I turned
 And bore her, struggling, blushing,
 Her simple haunts beyond!
 For whom I robbed the dingle,
 For whom betrayed the dell,
 Many will doubtless ask me,
 But I shall never tell!
 XX.
 TWO WORLDS.
 It makes no difference abroad,
 The seasons fit the same,
 The mornings blossom into noons,
 And split their pods of flame.
 Wild-flowers kindle in the woods,
 The brooks brag all the day;
 No blackbird bates his jargoning
 For passing Calvary.
 Auto-da-fe and judgment
 Are nothing to the bee;
 His separation from his rose
 To him seems misery.
-XXI.
-THE MOUNTAIN.
 The mountain sat upon the plain
 In his eternal chair,
 His observation omnifold,
 His inquest everywhere.
 The seasons prayed around his knees,
 Like children round a sire:
 Grandfather of the days is he,
 Of dawn the ancestor.
 XXII.
 A DAY.
 I'll tell you how the sun rose, --
 A ribbon at a time.
 The steeples swam in amethyst,
 The news like squirrels ran.
 The hills untied their bonnets,
 The bobolinks begun.
 Then I said softly to myself,
 "That must have been the sun!"
-        *  *  *
 But how he set, I know not.
 There seemed a purple stile
 Which little yellow boys and girls
 Were climbing all the while
 Till when they reached the other side,
 A dominie in gray
 Put gently up the evening bars,
 And led the flock away.
 XXIII.
 The 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!
 XXIV.
 THE WIND.
 Of all the sounds despatched abroad,
 There's not a charge to me
 Like that old measure in the boughs,
 That phraseless melody
 The wind does, working like a hand
 Whose fingers brush the sky,
 Then quiver down, with tufts of tune
 Permitted gods and me.
 When winds go round and round in bands,
 And thrum upon the door,
 And birds take places overhead,
 To bear them orchestra,
 I crave him grace, of summer boughs,
 If such an outcast be,
 He never heard that fleshless chant
 Rise solemn in the tree,
 As if some caravan of sound
 On deserts, in the sky,
 Had broken rank,
 Then knit, and passed
 In seamless company.
 XXV.
 DEATH AND LIFE.
 Apparently with no surprise
 To any happy flower,
 The frost beheads it at its play
@@ -808,3056 +491,14 @@ The sun proceeds unmoved
 To measure off another day
 For an approving God.
 XXVI.
 'T WAS later when the summer went
 Than when the cricket came,
 And yet we knew that gentle clock
 Meant nought but going home.
 'T was sooner when the cricket went
 Than when the winter came,
 Yet that pathetic pendulum
-Keeps esoteric time.
-XXVII.
-INDIAN SUMMER.
-These are the days when birds come back,
-A very few, a bird or two,
-To take a backward look.
-These are the days when skies put on
-The old, old sophistries of June, --
-A blue and gold mistake.
-Oh, fraud that cannot cheat the bee,
-Almost thy plausibility
-Induces my belief,
-Till ranks of seeds their witness bear,
-And softly through the altered air
-Hurries a timid leaf!
-Oh, sacrament of summer days,
-Oh, last communion in the haze,
-Permit a child to join,
-Thy sacred emblems to partake,
-Thy consecrated bread to break,
-Taste thine immortal wine!
-XXVIII.
-AUTUMN.
-The morns are meeker than they were,
-The nuts are getting brown;
-The berry's cheek is plumper,
-The rose is out of town.
-The maple wears a gayer scarf,
-The field a scarlet gown.
-Lest I should be old-fashioned,
-I'll put a trinket on.
-XXIX.
-BECLOUDED.
-The sky is low, the clouds are mean,
-A travelling flake of snow
-Across a barn or through a rut
-Debates if it will go.
-A narrow wind complains all day
-How some one treated him;
-Nature, like us, is sometimes caught
-Without her diadem.
-XXX.
-THE HEMLOCK.
-I think the hemlock likes to stand
-Upon a marge of snow;
-It suits his own austerity,
-And satisfies an awe
-That men must slake in wilderness,
-Or in the desert cloy, --
-An instinct for the hoar, the bald,
-Lapland's necessity.
-The hemlock's nature thrives on cold;
-The gnash of northern winds
-Is sweetest nutriment to him,
-His best Norwegian wines.
-To satin races he is nought;
-But children on the Don
-Beneath his tabernacles play,
-And Dnieper wrestlers run.
-XXXI.
-There's a certain slant of light,
-On winter afternoons,
-That oppresses, like the weight
-Of cathedral tunes.
-Heavenly hurt it gives us;
-We can find no scar,
-But internal difference
-Where the meanings are.
-None may teach it anything,
-'T is the seal, despair, --
-An imperial affliction
-Sent us of the air.
-When it comes, the landscape listens,
-Shadows hold their breath;
-When it goes, 't is like the distance
-On the look of death.
-IV. TIME AND ETERNITY.
-I.
-One dignity delays for all,
-One mitred afternoon.
-None can avoid this purple,
-None evade this crown.
-Coach it insures, and footmen,
-Chamber and state and throng;
-Bells, also, in the village,
-As we ride grand along.
-What dignified attendants,
-What service when we pause!
-How loyally at parting
-Their hundred hats they raise!
-How pomp surpassing ermine,
-When simple you and I
-Present our meek escutcheon,
-And claim the rank to die!
-II.
-TOO LATE.
-Delayed till she had ceased to know,
-Delayed till in its vest of snow
-   Her loving bosom lay.
-An hour behind the fleeting breath,
-Later by just an hour than death, --
-   Oh, lagging yesterday!
-Could she have guessed that it would be;
-Could but a crier of the glee
-   Have climbed the distant hill;
-Had not the bliss so slow a pace, --
-Who knows but this surrendered face
-   Were undefeated still?
-Oh, if there may departing be
-Any forgot by victory
-   In her imperial round,
-Show them this meek apparelled thing,
-That could not stop to be a king,
-   Doubtful if it be crowned!
-III.
-ASTRA CASTRA.
-Departed to the judgment,
-A mighty afternoon;
-Great clouds like ushers leaning,
-Creation looking on.
-The flesh surrendered, cancelled,
-The bodiless begun;
-Two worlds, like audiences, disperse
-And leave the soul alone.
-IV.
-Safe in their alabaster chambers,
-Untouched by morning and untouched by noon,
-Sleep the meek members of the resurrection,
-Rafter of satin, and roof of stone.
-Light laughs the breeze in her castle of sunshine;
-Babbles the bee in a stolid ear;
-Pipe the sweet birds in ignorant cadence, --
-Ah, what sagacity perished here!
-Grand go the years in the crescent above them;
-Worlds scoop their arcs, and firmaments row,
-Diadems drop and Doges surrender,
-Soundless as dots on a disk of snow.
-V.
-On this long storm the rainbow rose,
-On this late morn the sun;
-The clouds, like listless elephants,
-Horizons straggled down.
-The birds rose smiling in their nests,
-The gales indeed were done;
-Alas! how heedless were the eyes
-On whom the summer shone!
-The quiet nonchalance of death
-No daybreak can bestir;
-The slow archangel's syllables
-Must awaken her.
-VI.
-FROM THE CHRYSALIS.
-My cocoon tightens, colors tease,
-I'm feeling for the air;
-A dim capacity for wings
-Degrades the dress I wear.
-A power of butterfly must be
-The aptitude to fly,
-Meadows of majesty concedes
-And easy sweeps of sky.
-So I must baffle at the hint
-And cipher at the sign,
-And make much blunder, if at last
-I take the clew divine.
-VII.
-SETTING SAIL.
-Exultation is the going
-Of an inland soul to sea, --
-Past the houses, past the headlands,
-Into deep eternity!
-Bred as we, among the mountains,
-Can the sailor understand
-The divine intoxication
-Of the first league out from land?
-VIII.
-Look back on time with kindly eyes,
-He doubtless did his best;
-How softly sinks his trembling sun
-In human nature's west!
-IX.
-A train went through a burial gate,
-A bird broke forth and sang,
-And trilled, and quivered, and shook his throat
-Till all the churchyard rang;
-And then adjusted his little notes,
-And bowed and sang again.
-Doubtless, he thought it meet of him
-To say good-by to men.
-X.
-I died for beauty, but was scarce
-Adjusted in the tomb,
-When one who died for truth was lain
-In an adjoining room.
-He questioned softly why I failed?
-"For beauty," I replied.
-"And I for truth, -- the two are one;
-We brethren are," he said.
-And so, as kinsmen met a night,
-We talked between the rooms,
-Until the moss had reached our lips,
-And covered up our names.
-XI.
-"TROUBLED ABOUT MANY THINGS."
-How many times these low feet staggered,
-Only the soldered mouth can tell;
-Try! can you stir the awful rivet?
-Try! can you lift the hasps of steel?
-Stroke the cool forehead, hot so often,
-Lift, if you can, the listless hair;
-Handle the adamantine fingers
-Never a thimble more shall wear.
-Buzz the dull flies on the chamber window;
-Brave shines the sun through the freckled pane;
-Fearless the cobweb swings from the ceiling --
-Indolent housewife, in daisies lain!
-XII.
-REAL.
-I like a look of agony,
-Because I know it 's true;
-Men do not sham convulsion,
-Nor simulate a throe.
-The eyes glaze once, and that is death.
-Impossible to feign
-The beads upon the forehead
-By homely anguish strung.
-XIII.
-THE FUNERAL.
-That short, potential stir
-That each can make but once,
-That bustle so illustrious
-'T is almost consequence,
-Is the eclat of death.
-Oh, thou unknown renown
-That not a beggar would accept,
-Had he the power to spurn!
-XIV.
-I went to thank her,
-But she slept;
-Her bed a funnelled stone,
-With nosegays at the head and foot,
-That travellers had thrown,
-Who went to thank her;
-But she slept.
-'T was short to cross the sea
-To look upon her like, alive,
-But turning back 't was slow.
-XV.
-I've seen a dying eye
-Run round and round a room
-In search of something, as it seemed,
-Then cloudier become;
-And then, obscure with fog,
-And then be soldered down,
-Without disclosing what it be,
-'T were blessed to have seen.
-XVI.
-REFUGE.
-The clouds their backs together laid,
-The north begun to push,
-The forests galloped till they fell,
-The lightning skipped like mice;
-The thunder crumbled like a stuff --
-How good to be safe in tombs,
-Where nature's temper cannot reach,
-Nor vengeance ever comes!
-XVII.
-I never saw a moor,
-I never saw the sea;
-Yet know I how the heather looks,
-And what a wave must be.
-I never spoke with God,
-Nor visited in heaven;
-Yet certain am I of the spot
-As if the chart were given.
-XVIII.
-PLAYMATES.
-God permits industrious angels
-Afternoons to play.
-I met one, -- forgot my school-mates,
-All, for him, straightway.
-God calls home the angels promptly
-At the setting sun;
-I missed mine. How dreary marbles,
-After playing Crown!
-XIX.
-To know just how he suffered would be dear;
-To know if any human eyes were near
-To whom he could intrust his wavering gaze,
-Until it settled firm on Paradise.
-To know if he was patient, part content,
-Was dying as he thought, or different;
-Was it a pleasant day to die,
-And did the sunshine face his way?
-What was his furthest mind, of home, or God,
-Or what the distant say
-At news that he ceased human nature
-On such a day?
-And wishes, had he any?
-Just his sigh, accented,
-Had been legible to me.
-And was he confident until
-Ill fluttered out in everlasting well?
-And if he spoke, what name was best,
-What first,
-What one broke off with
-At the drowsiest?
-Was he afraid, or tranquil?
-Might he know
-How conscious consciousness could grow,
-Till love that was, and love too blest to be,
-Meet -- and the junction be Eternity?
-XX.
-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 't were.
-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, shivered scarce,
-Consented, and was dead.
-And we, we placed the hair,
-And drew the head erect;
-And then an awful leisure was,
-Our faith to regulate.
-XXII.
-The bustle in a house
-The morning after death
-Is solemnest of industries
-Enacted upon earth, --
-The sweeping up the heart,
-And putting love away
-We shall not want to use again
-Until eternity.
-XXIII.
-I reason, earth is short,
-And anguish absolute,
-And many hurt;
-But what of that?
-I reason, we could die:
-The best vitality
-Cannot excel decay;
-But what of that?
-I reason that in heaven
-Somehow, it will be even,
-Some new equation given;
-But what of that?
-XXIV.
-Afraid? Of whom am I afraid?
-Not death; for who is he?
-The porter of my father's lodge
-As much abasheth me.
-Of life? 'T were odd I fear a thing
-That comprehendeth me
-In one or more existences
-At Deity's decree.
-Of resurrection? Is the east
-Afraid to trust the morn
-With her fastidious forehead?
-As soon impeach my crown!
-XXV.
-DYING.
-The sun kept setting, setting still;
-No hue of afternoon
-Upon the village I perceived, --
-From house to house 't was noon.
-The dusk kept dropping, dropping still;
-No dew upon the grass,
-But only on my forehead stopped,
-And wandered in my face.
-My feet kept drowsing, drowsing still,
-My fingers were awake;
-Yet why so little sound myself
-Unto my seeming make?
-How well I knew the light before!
-I could not see it now.
-'T is dying, I am doing; but
-I'm not afraid to know.
-XXVI.
-Two swimmers wrestled on the spar
-Until the morning sun,
-When one turned smiling to the land.
-O God, the other one!
-The stray ships passing spied a face
-Upon the waters borne,
-With eyes in death still begging raised,
-And hands beseeching thrown.
-XXVII.
-THE CHARIOT.
-Because I could not stop for Death,
-He kindly stopped for me;
-The carriage held but just ourselves
-And Immortality.
-We slowly drove, he knew no haste,
-And I had put away
-My labor, and my leisure too,
-For his civility.
-We passed the school where children played,
-Their lessons scarcely done;
-We passed the fields of gazing grain,
-We passed the setting sun.
-We paused before a house that seemed
-A swelling of the ground;
-The roof was scarcely visible,
-The cornice but a mound.
-Since then 't is centuries; but each
-Feels shorter than the day
-I first surmised the horses' heads
-Were toward eternity.
-XXVIII.
-She went as quiet as the dew
-From a familiar flower.
-Not like the dew did she return
-At the accustomed hour!
-She dropt as softly as a star
-From out my summer's eve;
-Less skilful than Leverrier
-It's sorer to believe!
-XXIX.
-RESURGAM.
-At last to be identified!
-At last, the lamps upon thy side,
-The rest of life to see!
-Past midnight, past the morning star!
-Past sunrise! Ah! what leagues there are
-Between our feet and day!
-XXX.
-Except to heaven, she is nought;
-Except for angels, lone;
-Except to some wide-wandering bee,
-A flower superfluous blown;
-Except for winds, provincial;
-Except by butterflies,
-Unnoticed as a single dew
-That on the acre lies.
-The smallest housewife in the grass,
-Yet take her from the lawn,
-And somebody has lost the face
-That made existence home!
-XXXI.
-Death is a dialogue between
-The spirit and the dust.
-"Dissolve," says Death. The Spirit, "Sir,
-I have another trust."
-Death doubts it, argues from the ground.
-The Spirit turns away,
-Just laying off, for evidence,
-An overcoat of clay.
-XXXII.
-It was too late for man,
-But early yet for God;
-Creation impotent to help,
-But prayer remained our side.
-How excellent the heaven,
-When earth cannot be had;
-How hospitable, then, the face
-Of our old neighbor, God!
-XXXIII.
-ALONG THE POTOMAC.
-When I was small, a woman died.
-To-day her only boy
-Went up from the Potomac,
-His face all victory,
-To look at her; how slowly
-The seasons must have turned
-Till bullets clipt an angle,
-And he passed quickly round!
-If pride shall be in Paradise
-I never can decide;
-Of their imperial conduct,
-No person testified.
-But proud in apparition,
-That woman and her boy
-Pass back and forth before my brain,
-As ever in the sky.
-XXXIV.
-The daisy follows soft the sun,
-And when his golden walk is done,
-   Sits shyly at his feet.
-He, waking, finds the flower near.
-"Wherefore, marauder, art thou here?"
-   "Because, sir, love is sweet!"
-We are the flower, Thou the sun!
-Forgive us, if as days decline,
-   We nearer steal to Thee, --
-Enamoured of the parting west,
-The peace, the flight, the amethyst,
-   Night's possibility!
-XXXV.
-EMANCIPATION.
-No rack can torture me,
-My soul's at liberty
-Behind this mortal bone
-There knits a bolder one
-You cannot prick with saw,
-Nor rend with scymitar.
-Two bodies therefore be;
-Bind one, and one will flee.
-The eagle of his nest
-No easier divest
-And gain the sky,
-Than mayest thou,
-Except thyself may be
-Thine enemy;
-Captivity is consciousness,
-So's liberty.
-XXXVI.
-LOST.
-XI.
-COMPENSATION.
-For each ecstatic instant
-We must an anguish pay
-In keen and quivering ratio
-To the ecstasy.
-For each beloved hour
-Sharp pittances of years,
-Bitter contested farthings
-And coffers heaped with tears.
-XII.
-THE MARTYRS.
-Through the straight pass of suffering
-The martyrs even trod,
-Their feet upon temptation,
-Their faces upon God.
-A stately, shriven company;
-Convulsion playing round,
-Harmless as streaks of meteor
-Upon a planet's bound.
-Their faith the everlasting troth;
-Their expectation fair;
-The needle to the north degree
-Wades so, through polar air.
-XIII.
-A PRAYER.
-I meant to have but modest needs,
-Such as content, and heaven;
-Within my income these could lie,
-And life and I keep even.
-But since the last included both,
-It would suffice my prayer
-But just for one to stipulate,
-And grace would grant the pair.
-And so, upon this wise I prayed, --
-Great Spirit, give to me
-A heaven not so large as yours,
-But large enough for me.
-A smile suffused Jehovah's face;
-The cherubim withdrew;
-Grave saints stole out to look at me,
-And showed their dimples, too.
-I left the place with all my might, --
-My prayer away I threw;
-The quiet ages picked it up,
-And Judgment twinkled, too,
-That one so honest be extant
-As take the tale for true
-That "Whatsoever you shall ask,
-Itself be given you."
-But I, grown shrewder, scan the skies
-With a suspicious air, --
-As children, swindled for the first,
-All swindlers be, infer.
-XIV.
-The thought beneath so slight a film
-Is more distinctly seen, --
-As laces just reveal the surge,
-Or mists the Apennine.
-XV.
-The soul unto itself
-Is an imperial friend, --
-Or the most agonizing spy
-An enemy could send.
-Secure against its own,
-No treason it can fear;
-Itself its sovereign, of itself
-The soul should stand in awe.
-XVI.
-Surgeons must be very careful
-When they take the knife!
-Underneath their fine incisions
-Stirs the culprit, -- Life!
-XVII.
-THE RAILWAY TRAIN.
-I like to see it lap the miles,
-And lick the valleys up,
-And stop to feed itself at tanks;
-And then, prodigious, step
-Around a pile of mountains,
-And, supercilious, peer
-In shanties by the sides of roads;
-And then a quarry pare
-To fit its sides, and crawl between,
-Complaining all the while
-In horrid, hooting stanza;
-Then chase itself down hill
-And neigh like Boanerges;
-Then, punctual as a star,
-Stop -- docile and omnipotent --
-At its own stable door.
-XVIII.
-THE SHOW.
-The show is not the show,
-But they that go.
-Menagerie to me
-My neighbor be.
-Fair play --
-Both went to see.
-XIX.
-Delight becomes pictorial
-When viewed through pain, --
-More fair, because impossible
-That any gain.
-The mountain at a given distance
-In amber lies;
-Approached, the amber flits a little, --
-And that 's the skies!
-XX.
-A thought went up my mind to-day
-That I have had before,
-But did not finish, -- some way back,
-I could not fix the year,
-Nor where it went, nor why it came
-The second time to me,
-Nor definitely what it was,
-Have I the art to say.
-But somewhere in my soul, I know
-I 've met the thing before;
-It just reminded me -- 't was all --
-And came my way no more.
-XXI.
-Is 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.
-XXII.
-THE RETURN.
-Though I get home how late, how late!
-So I get home, 't will compensate.
-Better will be the ecstasy
-That they have done expecting me,
-When, night descending, dumb and dark,
-They hear my unexpected knock.
-Transporting must the moment be,
-Brewed from decades of agony!
-To think just how the fire will burn,
-Just how long-cheated eyes will turn
-To wonder what myself will say,
-And what itself will say to me,
-Beguiles the centuries of way!
-XXIII.
-A poor torn heart, a tattered heart,
-That sat it down to rest,
-Nor noticed that the ebbing day
-Flowed silver to the west,
-Nor noticed night did soft descend
-Nor constellation burn,
-Intent upon the vision
-Of latitudes unknown.
-The angels, happening that way,
-This dusty heart espied;
-Tenderly took it up from toil
-And carried it to God.
-There, -- sandals for the barefoot;
-There, -- gathered from the gales,
-Do the blue havens by the hand
-Lead the wandering sails.
-XXIV.
-TOO MUCH.
-I should have been too glad, I see,
-Too lifted for the scant degree
-   Of life's penurious round;
-My little circuit would have shamed
-This new circumference, have blamed
-   The homelier time behind.
-I should have been too saved, I see,
-Too rescued; fear too dim to me
-   That I could spell the prayer
-I knew so perfect yesterday, --
-That scalding one, "Sabachthani,"
-   Recited fluent here.
-Earth would have been too much, I see,
-And heaven not enough for me;
-   I should have had the joy
-Without the fear to justify, --
-The palm without the Calvary;
-   So, Saviour, crucify.
-Defeat whets victory, they say;
-The reefs in old Gethsemane
-   Endear the shore beyond.
-'T is beggars banquets best define;
-'T is thirsting vitalizes wine, --
-   Faith faints to understand.
-XXV.
-SHIPWRECK.
-It tossed and tossed, --
-A little brig I knew, --
-O'ertook by blast,
-It spun and spun,
-And groped delirious, for morn.
-It slipped and slipped,
-As one that drunken stepped;
-Its white foot tripped,
-Then dropped from sight.
-Ah, brig, good-night
-To crew and you;
-The ocean's heart too smooth, too blue,
-To break for you.
-XXVI.
-Victory comes late,
-And is held low to freezing lips
-Too rapt with frost
-To take it.
-How sweet it would have tasted,
-Just a drop!
-Was God so economical?
-His table 's spread too high for us
-Unless we dine on tip-toe.
-Crumbs fit such little mouths,
-Cherries suit robins;
-The eagle's golden breakfast
-Strangles them.
-God keeps his oath to sparrows,
-Who of little love
-Know how to starve!
-XXVII.
-ENOUGH.
-God gave a loaf to every bird,
-But just a crumb to me;
-I dare not eat it, though I starve, --
-My poignant luxury
-To own it, touch it, prove the feat
-That made the pellet mine, --
-Too happy in my sparrow chance
-For ampler coveting.
-It might be famine all around,
-I could not miss an ear,
-Such plenty smiles upon my board,
-My garner shows so fair.
-I wonder how the rich may feel, --
-An Indiaman -- an Earl?
-I deem that I with but a crumb
-Am sovereign of them all.
-XXVIII.
-Experiment to me
-Is every one I meet.
-If it contain a kernel?
-The figure of a nut
-Presents upon a tree,
-Equally plausibly;
-But meat within is requisite,
-To squirrels and to me.
-XXIX.
-MY COUNTRY'S WARDROBE.
-My country need not change her gown,
-Her triple suit as sweet
-As when 't was cut at Lexington,
-And first pronounced "a fit."
-Great Britain disapproves "the stars;"
-Disparagement discreet, --
-There 's something in their attitude
-That taunts her bayonet.
-XXX.
-Faith is a fine invention
-For gentlemen who see;
-But microscopes are prudent
-In an emergency!
-XXXI.
-Except the heaven had come so near,
-So seemed to choose my door,
-The distance would not haunt me so;
-I had not hoped before.
-But just to hear the grace depart
-I never thought to see,
-Afflicts me with a double loss;
-'T is lost, and lost to me.
-XXXII.
-Portraits are to daily faces
-As an evening west
-To a fine, pedantic sunshine
-In a satin vest.
-XXXIII.
-THE DUEL.
-I took my power in my hand.
-And went against the world;
-'T was not so much as David had,
-But I was twice as bold.
-I aimed my pebble, but myself
-Was all the one that fell.
-Was it Goliath was too large,
-Or only I too small?
-XXXIV.
-A shady friend for torrid days
-Is easier to find
-Than one of higher temperature
-For frigid hour of mind.
-The vane a little to the east
-Scares muslin souls away;
-If broadcloth breasts are firmer
-Than those of organdy,
-Who is to blame? The weaver?
-Ah! the bewildering thread!
-The tapestries of paradise
-So notelessly are made!
-XXXV.
-THE GOAL.
-Each life converges to some centre
-Expressed or still;
-Exists in every human nature
-A goal,
-Admitted scarcely to itself, it may be,
-Too fair
-For credibility's temerity
-To dare.
-Adored with caution, as a brittle heaven,
-To reach
-Were hopeless as the rainbow's raiment
-To touch,
-Yet persevered toward, surer for the distance;
-How high
-Unto the saints' slow diligence
-The sky!
-Ungained, it may be, by a life's low venture,
-But then,
-Eternity enables the endeavoring
-Again.
-XXXVI.
-SIGHT.
-Before I got my eye put out,
-I liked as well to see
-As other creatures that have eyes,
-And know no other way.
-But were it told to me, to-day,
-That I might have the sky
-For mine, I tell you that my heart
-Would split, for size of me.
-The meadows mine, the mountains mine, --
-All forests, stintless stars,
-As much of noon as I could take
-Between my finite eyes.
-The motions of the dipping birds,
-The lightning's jointed road,
-For mine to look at when I liked, --
-The news would strike me dead!
-So safer, guess, with just my soul
-Upon the window-pane
-Where other creatures put their eyes,
-Incautious of the sun.
-XXXVII.
-Talk with prudence to a beggar
-Of 'Potosi' and the mines!
-Reverently to the hungry
-Of your viands and your wines!
-Cautious, hint to any captive
-You have passed enfranchised feet!
-Anecdotes of air in dungeons
-Have sometimes proved deadly sweet!
-XXXVIII.
-THE PREACHER.
-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!
-XXXIX.
-Good night! which put the candle out?
-A jealous zephyr, not a doubt.
-   Ah! friend, you little knew
-How long at that celestial wick
-The angels labored diligent;
-   Extinguished, now, for you!
-It might have been the lighthouse spark
-Some sailor, rowing in the dark,
-   Had importuned to see!
-It might have been the waning lamp
-That lit the drummer from the camp
-   To purer reveille!
-XL.
-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.
-XLI.
-DEED.
-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.
-XLII.
-TIME'S LESSON.
-Mine enemy is growing old, --
-I have at last revenge.
-The palate of the hate departs;
-If any would avenge, --
-Let him be quick, the viand flits,
-It is a faded meat.
-Anger as soon as fed is dead;
-'T is starving makes it fat.
-XLIII.
-REMORSE.
-Remorse is memory awake,
-Her companies astir, --
-A presence of departed acts
-At window and at door.
-It's past set down before the soul,
-And lighted with a match,
-Perusal to facilitate
-Of its condensed despatch.
-Remorse is cureless, -- the disease
-Not even God can heal;
-For 't is his institution, --
-The complement of hell.
-XLIV.
-THE SHELTER.
-The body grows outside, --
-The more convenient way, --
-That if the spirit like to hide,
-Its temple stands alway
-Ajar, secure, inviting;
-It never did betray
-The soul that asked its shelter
-In timid honesty.
-XLV.
-Undue significance a starving man attaches
-To food
-Far off; he sighs, and therefore hopeless,
-And therefore good.
-Partaken, it relieves indeed, but proves us
-That spices fly
-In the receipt. It was the distance
-Was savory.
-XLVI.
-Heart not so heavy as mine,
-Wending late home,
-As it passed my window
-Whistled itself a tune, --
-A careless snatch, a ballad,
-A ditty of the street;
-Yet to my irritated ear
-An anodyne so sweet,
-It was as if a bobolink,
-Sauntering this way,
-Carolled and mused and carolled,
-Then bubbled slow away.
-It was as if a chirping brook
-Upon a toilsome way
-Set bleeding feet to minuets
-Without the knowing why.
-To-morrow, night will come again,
-Weary, perhaps, and sore.
-Ah, bugle, by my window,
-I pray you stroll once more!
-XLVII.
-I many times thought peace had come,
-When peace was far away;
-As wrecked men deem they sight the land
-At centre of the sea,
-And struggle slacker, but to prove,
-As hopelessly as I,
-How many the fictitious shores
-Before the harbor lie.
-XLVIII.
-Unto my books so good to turn
-Far ends of tired days;
-It half endears the abstinence,
-And pain is missed in praise.
-As flavors cheer retarded guests
-With banquetings to be,
-So spices stimulate the time
-Till my small library.
-It may be wilderness without,
-Far feet of failing men,
-But holiday excludes the night,
-And it is bells within.
-I thank these kinsmen of the shelf;
-Their countenances bland
-Enamour in prospective,
-And satisfy, obtained.
-XLIX.
-This merit hath the worst, --
-It cannot be again.
-When Fate hath taunted last
-And thrown her furthest stone,
-The maimed may pause and breathe,
-And glance securely round.
-The deer invites no longer
-Than it eludes the hound.
-L.
-HUNGER.
-I had been hungry all the years;
-My noon had come, to dine;
-I, trembling, drew the table near,
-And touched the curious wine.
-'T was this on tables I had seen,
-When turning, hungry, lone,
-I looked in windows, for the wealth
-I could not hope to own.
-I did not know the ample bread,
-'T was so unlike the crumb
-The birds and I had often shared
-In Nature's dining-room.
-The plenty hurt me, 't was so new, --
-Myself felt ill and odd,
-As berry of a mountain bush
-Transplanted to the road.
-Nor was I hungry; so I found
-That hunger was a way
-Of persons outside windows,
-The entering takes away.
-LI.
-I gained it so,
-      By climbing slow,
-By catching at the twigs that grow
-Between the bliss and me.
-      It hung so high,
-      As well the sky
-      Attempt by strategy.
-I said I gained it, --
-      This was all.
-Look, how I clutch it,
-      Lest it fall,
-And I a pauper go;
-Unfitted by an instant's grace
-For the contented beggar's face
-I wore an hour ago.
-LII.
-To learn the transport by the pain,
-As blind men learn the sun;
-To die of thirst, suspecting
-That brooks in meadows run;
-To stay the homesick, homesick feet
-Upon a foreign shore
-Haunted by native lands, the while,
-And blue, beloved air --
-This is the sovereign anguish,
-This, the signal woe!
-These are the patient laureates
-Whose voices, trained below,
-Ascend in ceaseless carol,
-Inaudible, indeed,
-To us, the duller scholars
-Of the mysterious bard!
-LIII.
-RETURNING.
-I years had been from home,
-And now, before the door,
-I dared not open, lest a face
-I never saw before
-Stare vacant into mine
-And ask my business there.
-My business, -- just a life I left,
-Was such still dwelling there?
-I fumbled at my nerve,
-I scanned the windows near;
-The silence like an ocean rolled,
-And broke against my ear.
-I laughed a wooden laugh
-That I could fear a door,
-Who danger and the dead had faced,
-But never quaked before.
-I fitted to the latch
-My hand, with trembling care,
-Lest back the awful door should spring,
-And leave me standing there.
-I moved my fingers off
-As cautiously as glass,
-And held my ears, and like a thief
-Fled gasping from the house.
-LIV.
-PRAYER.
-Prayer is the little implement
-Through which men reach
-Where presence is denied them.
-They fling their speech
-By means of it in God's ear;
-If then He hear,
-This sums the apparatus
-Comprised in prayer.
-LV.
-I know that he exists
-Somewhere, in silence.
-He has hid his rare life
-From our gross eyes.
-'T is an instant's play,
-'T is a fond ambush,
-Just to make bliss
-Earn her own surprise!
-But should the play
-Prove piercing earnest,
-Should the glee glaze
-In death's stiff stare,
-Would not the fun
-Look too expensive?
-Would not the jest
-Have crawled too far?
-LVI.
-MELODIES UNHEARD.
-Musicians wrestle everywhere:
-All day, among the crowded air,
-  I hear the silver strife;
-And -- waking long before the dawn --
-Such transport breaks upon the town
-  I think it that "new life!"
-It is not bird, it has no nest;
-Nor band, in brass and scarlet dressed,
-  Nor tambourine, nor man;
-It is not hymn from pulpit read, --
-The morning stars the treble led
-  On time's first afternoon!
-Some say it is the spheres at play!
-Some say that bright majority
-  Of vanished dames and men!
-Some think it service in the place
-Where we, with late, celestial face,
-  Please God, shall ascertain!
-LVII.
-CALLED BACK.
-Just lost when I was saved!
-Just felt the world go by!
-Just girt me for the onset with eternity,
-When breath blew back,
-And on the other side
-I heard recede the disappointed tide!
-Therefore, as one returned, I feel,
-Odd secrets of the line to tell!
-Some sailor, skirting foreign shores,
-Some pale reporter from the awful doors
-Before the seal!
-Next time, to stay!
-Next time, the things to see
-By ear unheard,
-Unscrutinized by eye.
-Next time, to tarry,
-While the ages steal, --
-Slow tramp the centuries,
-And the cycles wheel.
-II. LOVE.
-I.
-CHOICE.
-Of all the souls that stand create
-I have elected one.
-When sense from spirit files away,
-And subterfuge is done;
-When that which is and that which was
-Apart, intrinsic, stand,
-And this brief tragedy of flesh
-Is shifted like a sand;
-When figures show their royal front
-And mists are carved away, --
-Behold the atom I preferred
-To all the lists of clay!
-II.
-I have no life but this,
-To lead it here;
-Nor any death, but lest
-Dispelled from there;
-Nor tie to earths to come,
-Nor action new,
-Except through this extent,
-The realm of you.
-III.
-Your riches taught me poverty.
-Myself a millionnaire
-In little wealths, -- as girls could boast, --
-Till broad as Buenos Ayre,
-You drifted your dominions
-A different Peru;
-And I esteemed all poverty,
-For life's estate with you.
-Of mines I little know, myself,
-But just the names of gems, --
-The colors of the commonest;
-And scarce of diadems
-So much that, did I meet the queen,
-Her glory I should know:
-But this must be a different wealth,
-To miss it beggars so.
-I 'm sure 't is India all day
-To those who look on you
-Without a stint, without a blame, --
-Might I but be the Jew!
-I 'm sure it is Golconda,
-Beyond my power to deem, --
-To have a smile for mine each day,
-How better than a gem!
-At least, it solaces to know
-That there exists a gold,
-Although I prove it just in time
-Its distance to behold!
-It 's far, far treasure to surmise,
-And estimate the pearl
-That slipped my simple fingers through
-While just a girl at school!
-IV.
-THE CONTRACT.
-I gave myself to him,
-And took himself for pay.
-The solemn contract of a life
-Was ratified this way.
-The wealth might disappoint,
-Myself a poorer prove
-Than this great purchaser suspect,
-The daily own of Love
-Depreciate the vision;
-But, till the merchant buy,
-Still fable, in the isles of spice,
-The subtle cargoes lie.
-At least, 't is mutual risk, --
-Some found it mutual gain;
-Sweet debt of Life, -- each night to owe,
-Insolvent, every noon.
-V.
-THE LETTER.
-"GOING to him! Happy letter! Tell him --
-Tell him the page I didn't write;
-Tell him I only said the syntax,
-And left the verb and the pronoun out.
-Tell him just how the fingers hurried,
-Then how they waded, slow, slow, slow;
-And then you wished you had eyes in your pages,
-So you could see what moved them so.
-"Tell him it wasn't a practised writer,
-You guessed, from the way the sentence toiled;
-You could hear the bodice tug, behind you,
-As if it held but the might of a child;
-You almost pitied it, you, it worked so.
-Tell him -- No, you may quibble there,
-For it would split his heart to know it,
-And then you and I were silenter.
-"Tell him night finished before we finished,
-And the old clock kept neighing 'day!'
-And you got sleepy and begged to be ended --
-What could it hinder so, to say?
-Tell him just how she sealed you, cautious,
-But if he ask where you are hid
-Until to-morrow, -- happy letter!
-Gesture, coquette, and shake your head!"
-VI.
-The way I read a letter 's this:
-'T is first I lock the door,
-And push it with my fingers next,
-For transport it be sure.
-And then I go the furthest off
-To counteract a knock;
-Then draw my little letter forth
-And softly pick its lock.
-Then, glancing narrow at the wall,
-And narrow at the floor,
-For firm conviction of a mouse
-Not exorcised before,
-Peruse how infinite I am
-To -- no one that you know!
-And sigh for lack of heaven, -- but not
-The heaven the creeds bestow.
-VII.
-Wild nights! Wild nights!
-Were I with thee,
-Wild nights should be
-Our luxury!
-Futile the winds
-To a heart in port, --
-Done with the compass,
-Done with the chart.
-Rowing in Eden!
-Ah! the sea!
-Might I but moor
-To-night in thee!
-VIII.
-AT HOME.
-The night was wide, and furnished scant
-With but a single star,
-That often as a cloud it met
-Blew out itself for fear.
-The wind pursued the little bush,
-And drove away the leaves
-November left; then clambered up
-And fretted in the eaves.
-No squirrel went abroad;
-A dog's belated feet
-Like intermittent plush were heard
-Adown the empty street.
-To feel if blinds be fast,
-And closer to the fire
-Her little rocking-chair to draw,
-And shiver for the poor,
-The housewife's gentle task.
-"How pleasanter," said she
-Unto the sofa opposite,
-"The sleet than May -- no thee!"
-IX.
-POSSESSION.
-Did the harebell loose her girdle
-To the lover bee,
-Would the bee the harebell hallow
-Much as formerly?
-Did the paradise, persuaded,
-Yield her moat of pearl,
-Would the Eden be an Eden,
-Or the earl an earl?
-X.
-A charm invests a face
-Imperfectly beheld, --
-The lady dare not lift her veil
-For fear it be dispelled.
-But peers beyond her mesh,
-And wishes, and denies, --
-Lest interview annul a want
-That image satisfies.
-XI.
-THE LOVERS.
-The rose did caper on her cheek,
-Her bodice rose and fell,
-Her pretty speech, like drunken men,
-Did stagger pitiful.
-Her fingers fumbled at her work, --
-Her needle would not go;
-What ailed so smart a little maid
-It puzzled me to know,
-Till opposite I spied a cheek
-That bore another rose;
-Just opposite, another speech
-That like the drunkard goes;
-A vest that, like the bodice, danced
-To the immortal tune, --
-Till those two troubled little clocks
-Ticked softly into one.
-XII.
-In lands I never saw, they say,
-Immortal Alps look down,
-Whose bonnets touch the firmament,
-Whose sandals touch the town, --
-Meek at whose everlasting feet
-A myriad daisies play.
-Which, sir, are you, and which am I,
-Upon an August day?

+III. NATURE.
 I.
 New feet within my garden go,
 New fingers stir the sod;
 A troubadour upon the elm
 Betrays the solitude.
 New children play upon the green,
 New weary sleep below;
 And still the pensive spring returns,
 And still the punctual snow!
 II.
 MAY-FLOWER.
 Pink, small, and punctual,
 Aromatic, low,
 Covert in April,
 Candid in May,
 Dear to the moss,
 Known by the knoll,
 Next to the robin
 In every human soul.
 Bold little beauty,
 Bedecked with thee,
 Nature forswears
 Antiquity.
 III.
 WHY?
 The murmur of a bee
 A witchcraft yieldeth me.
 If any ask me why,
 'T were easier to die
 Than tell.
 The red upon the hill
 Taketh away my will;
 If anybody sneer,
 Take care, for God is here,
 That's all.
 The breaking of the day
 Addeth to my degree;
 If any ask me how,
 Artist, who drew me so,
 Must tell!
 IV.
 Perhaps you'd like to buy a flower?
 But I could never sell.
 If you would like to borrow
 Until the daffodil
 Unties her yellow bonnet
 Beneath the village door,
 Until the bees, from clover rows
 Their hock and sherry draw,
 Why, I will lend until just then,
 But not an hour more!
 V.
 The pedigree of honey
 Does not concern the bee;
 A clover, any time, to him
 Is aristocracy.
 VI.
 A SERVICE OF SONG.
 Some keep the Sabbath going to church;
 I keep it staying at home,
 With a bobolink for a chorister,
 And an orchard for a dome.
 Some keep the Sabbath in surplice;
 I just wear my wings,
 And instead of tolling the bell for church,
 Our little sexton sings.
 God preaches, -- a noted clergyman, --
 And the sermon is never long;
 So instead of getting to heaven at last,
 I'm going all along!
 VII.
 The bee is not afraid of me,
 I know the butterfly;
 The pretty people in the woods
 Receive me cordially.
 The brooks laugh louder when I come,
 The breezes madder play.
 Wherefore, mine eyes, thy silver mists?
 Wherefore, O summer's day?
 VIII.
 SUMMER'S ARMIES.
 Some rainbow coming from the fair!
 Some vision of the world Cashmere
 I confidently see!
 Feather by feather, on the plain
 Fritters itself away!
 The dreamy butterflies bestir,
 Lethargic pools resume the whir
 Of last year's sundered tune.
 Baronial bees march, one by one,
 In murmuring platoon!
 The robins stand as thick to-day
 As flakes of snow stood yesterday,
 On fence and roof and twig.
 For her old lover, Don the Sun,
 Revisiting the bog!
 Without commander, countless, still,
 The regiment of wood and hill
 In bright detachment stand.
 The children of whose turbaned seas,
 Or what Circassian land?
 IX.
 THE GRASS.
 The grass so little has to do, --
 A sphere of simple green,
 With only butterflies to brood,
 And bees to entertain,
 And stir all day to pretty tunes
 The breezes fetch along,
 And hold the sunshine in its lap
 And bow to everything;
 And thread the dews all night, like pearls,
 And make itself so fine, --
 A duchess were too common
 For such a noticing.
 And even when it dies, to pass
 In odors so divine,
 As lowly spices gone to sleep,
 Or amulets of pine.
 And then to dwell in sovereign barns,
 And dream the days away, --
 The grass so little has to do,
 I wish I were the hay!
 X.
 A little road not made of man,
 Enabled of the eye,
 Accessible to thill of bee,
 Or cart of butterfly.
 If town it have, beyond itself,
 'T is that I cannot say;
 I only sigh, -- no vehicle
 Bears me along that way.
 XI.
 SUMMER SHOWER.
 A drop fell on the apple tree,
 Another on the roof;
 A half a dozen kissed the eaves,
 And made the gables laugh.
 A few went out to help the brook,
 That went to help the sea.
 Myself conjectured, Were they pearls,
 What necklaces could be!
 The dust replaced in hoisted roads,
 The birds jocoser sung;
 The sunshine threw his hat away,
 The orchards spangles hung.
 The breezes brought dejected lutes,
 And bathed them in the glee;
 The East put out a single flag,
 And signed the fete away.
 XII.
 PSALM OF THE DAY.
 A something in a summer's day,
 As slow her flambeaux burn away,
 Which solemnizes me.
 A something in a summer's noon, --
 An azure depth, a wordless tune,
 Transcending ecstasy.
 And still within a summer's night
 A something so transporting bright,
 I clap my hands to see;
 Then veil my too inspecting face,
 Lest such a subtle, shimmering grace
 Flutter too far for me.
 The wizard-fingers never rest,
 The purple brook within the breast
 Still chafes its narrow bed;
 Still rears the East her amber flag,
 Guides still the sun along the crag
 His caravan of red,
 Like flowers that heard the tale of dews,
 But never deemed the dripping prize
 Awaited their low brows;
 Or bees, that thought the summer's name
 Some rumor of delirium
 No summer could for them;
 Or Arctic creature, dimly stirred
 By tropic hint, -- some travelled bird
 Imported to the wood;
 Or wind's bright signal to the ear,
 Making that homely and severe,
 Contented, known, before
 The heaven unexpected came,
 To lives that thought their worshipping
 A too presumptuous psalm.
 XIII.
 THE SEA OF SUNSET.
 This is the land the sunset washes,
 These are the banks of the Yellow Sea;
 Where it rose, or whither it rushes,
 These are the western mystery!
 Night after night her purple traffic
 Strews the landing with opal bales;
 Merchantmen poise upon horizons,
 Dip, and vanish with fairy sails.
 XIV.
 PURPLE CLOVER.
 There is a flower that bees prefer,
 And butterflies desire;
 To gain the purple democrat
 The humming-birds aspire.
 And whatsoever insect pass,
 A honey bears away
 Proportioned to his several dearth
 And her capacity.
 Her face is rounder than the moon,
 And ruddier than the gown
 Of orchis in the pasture,
 Or rhododendron worn.
 She doth not wait for June;
 Before the world is green
 Her sturdy little countenance
 Against the wind is seen,
 Contending with the grass,
 Near kinsman to herself,
 For privilege of sod and sun,
 Sweet litigants for life.
 And when the hills are full,
 And newer fashions blow,
 Doth not retract a single spice
 For pang of jealousy.
 Her public is the noon,
 Her providence the sun,
 Her progress by the bee proclaimed
 In sovereign, swerveless tune.
 The bravest of the host,
 Surrendering the last,
 Nor even of defeat aware
 When cancelled by the frost.
 XV.
 THE BEE.
 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.
 His feet are shod with gauze,
 His helmet is of gold;
 His breast, a single onyx
 With chrysoprase, inlaid.
 His labor is a chant,
 His idleness a tune;
 Oh, for a bee's experience
 Of clovers and of noon!
 XVI.
 Presentiment is that long shadow on the lawn
 Indicative that suns go down;
 The notice to the startled grass
 That darkness is about to pass.
 XVII.
 As children bid the guest good-night,
 And then reluctant turn,
 My flowers raise their pretty lips,
 Then put their nightgowns on.
 As children caper when they wake,
 Merry that it is morn,
 My flowers from a hundred cribs
 Will peep, and prance again.
 XVIII.
 Angels in the early morning
 May be seen the dews among,
 Stooping, plucking, smiling, flying:
 Do the buds to them belong?
 Angels when the sun is hottest
 May be seen the sands among,
 Stooping, plucking, sighing, flying;
 Parched the flowers they bear along.
 XIX.
 So bashful when I spied her,
 So pretty, so ashamed!
 So hidden in her leaflets,
 Lest anybody find;
 So breathless till I passed her,
 So helpless when I turned
 And bore her, struggling, blushing,
 Her simple haunts beyond!
 For whom I robbed the dingle,
 For whom betrayed the dell,
 Many will doubtless ask me,
 But I shall never tell!
 XX.
 TWO WORLDS.
 It makes no difference abroad,
 The seasons fit the same,
 The mornings blossom into noons,
 And split their pods of flame.
 Wild-flowers kindle in the woods,
 The brooks brag all the day;
 No blackbird bates his jargoning
 For passing Calvary.
 Auto-da-fe and judgment
 Are nothing to the bee;
 His separation from his rose
 To him seems misery.
+XXI.
+THE MOUNTAIN.
 The mountain sat upon the plain
 In his eternal chair,
 His observation omnifold,
 His inquest everywhere.
 The seasons prayed around his knees,
 Like children round a sire:
 Grandfather of the days is he,
 Of dawn the ancestor.
 XXII.
 A DAY.
 I'll tell you how the sun rose, --
 A ribbon at a time.
 The steeples swam in amethyst,
 The news like squirrels ran.
 The hills untied their bonnets,
 The bobolinks begun.
 Then I said softly to myself,
 "That must have been the sun!"
 But how he set, I know not.
 There seemed a purple stile
 Which little yellow boys and girls
 Were climbing all the while
 Till when they reached the other side,
 A dominie in gray
 Put gently up the evening bars,
 And led the flock away.
 XXIII.
 The 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!
 XXIV.
 THE WIND.
 Of all the sounds despatched abroad,
 There's not a charge to me
 Like that old measure in the boughs,
 That phraseless melody
 The wind does, working like a hand
 Whose fingers brush the sky,
 Then quiver down, with tufts of tune
 Permitted gods and me.
 When winds go round and round in bands,
 And thrum upon the door,
 And birds take places overhead,
 To bear them orchestra,
 I crave him grace, of summer boughs,
 If such an outcast be,
 He never heard that fleshless chant
 Rise solemn in the tree,
 As if some caravan of sound
 On deserts, in the sky,
 Had broken rank,
 Then knit, and passed
 In seamless company.
 XXV.
 DEATH AND LIFE.
 Apparently with no surprise
 To any happy flower,
 The frost beheads it at its play
 To measure off another day
 For an approving God.
 XXVI.
 'T WAS later when the summer went
 Than when the cricket came,
 And yet we knew that gentle clock
 Meant nought but going home.
 'T was sooner when the cricket went
 Than when the winter came,
 Yet that pathetic pendulum
+Keeps esoteric time.