Datasets:

financeart
/

EmiTalks4

@@ -1,210 +1,128 @@
-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
@@ -212,96 +130,51 @@ 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
@@ -311,25 +184,14 @@ 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
@@ -339,7 +201,6 @@ 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
@@ -349,21 +210,10 @@ 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;
@@ -371,7 +221,6 @@ 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
@@ -379,7 +228,6 @@ 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
@@ -387,7 +235,6 @@ 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.
@@ -395,51 +242,28 @@ The reefs in old Gethsemane
 '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
@@ -457,21 +281,10 @@ 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, --
@@ -481,7 +294,6 @@ 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,
@@ -491,316 +303,174 @@ 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
@@ -808,2332 +478,9 @@ 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.
-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?
-XIII.
-The moon is distant from the sea,
-And yet with amber hands
-She leads him, docile as a boy,
-Along appointed sands.
-He never misses a degree;
-Obedient to her eye,
-He comes just so far toward the town,
-Just so far goes away.
-Oh, Signor, thine the amber hand,
-And mine the distant sea, --
-Obedient to the least command
-Thine eyes impose on me.
-XIV.
-He put the belt around my life, --
-I heard the buckle snap,
-And turned away, imperial,
-My lifetime folding up
-Deliberate, as a duke would do
-A kingdom's title-deed, --
-Henceforth a dedicated sort,
-A member of the cloud.
-Yet not too far to come at call,
-And do the little toils
-That make the circuit of the rest,
-And deal occasional smiles
-To lives that stoop to notice mine
-And kindly ask it in, --
-Whose invitation, knew you not
-For whom I must decline?
-XV.
-THE LOST JEWEL.
-I held a jewel in my fingers
-And went to sleep.
-The day was warm, and winds were prosy;
-I said: "'T will keep."
-I woke and chid my honest fingers, --
-The gem was gone;
-And now an amethyst remembrance
-Is all I own.
-XVI.
-What if I say I shall not wait?
-What if I burst the fleshly gate
-And pass, escaped, to thee?
-What if I file this mortal off,
-See where it hurt me, -- that 's enough, --
-And wade in liberty?
-They cannot take us any more, --
-Dungeons may call, and guns implore;
-Unmeaning now, to me,
-As laughter was an hour ago,
-Or laces, or a travelling show,
-Or who died yesterday!
-III. NATURE.
-I.
-MOTHER NATURE.
-Nature, the gentlest mother,
-Impatient of no child,
-The feeblest or the waywardest, --
-Her admonition mild
-In forest and the hill
-By traveller is heard,
-Restraining rampant squirrel
-Or too impetuous bird.
-How fair her conversation,
-A summer afternoon, --
-Her household, her assembly;
-And when the sun goes down
-Her voice among the aisles
-Incites the timid prayer
-Of the minutest cricket,
-The most unworthy flower.
-When all the children sleep
-She turns as long away
-As will suffice to light her lamps;
-Then, bending from the sky
-With infinite affection
-And infiniter care,
-Her golden finger on her lip,
-Wills silence everywhere.
-II.
-OUT OF THE MORNING.
-Will there really be a morning?
-Is there such a thing as day?
-Could I see it from the mountains
-If I were as tall as they?
-Has it feet like water-lilies?
-Has it feathers like a bird?
-Is it brought from famous countries
-Of which I have never heard?
-Oh, some scholar! Oh, some sailor!
-Oh, some wise man from the skies!
-Please to tell a little pilgrim
-Where the place called morning lies!
-III.
-At half-past three a single bird
-Unto a silent sky
-Propounded but a single term
-Of cautious melody.
-At half-past four, experiment
-Had subjugated test,
-And lo! her silver principle
-Supplanted all the rest.
-At half-past seven, element
-Nor implement was seen,
-And place was where the presence was,
-Circumference between.
-IV.
-DAY'S PARLOR.
-The day came slow, till five o'clock,
-Then sprang before the hills
-Like hindered rubies, or the light
-A sudden musket spills.
-The purple could not keep the east,
-The sunrise shook from fold,
-Like breadths of topaz, packed a night,
-The lady just unrolled.
-The happy winds their timbrels took;
-The birds, in docile rows,
-Arranged themselves around their prince
-(The wind is prince of those).
-The orchard sparkled like a Jew, --
-How mighty 't was, to stay
-A guest in this stupendous place,
-The parlor of the day!
-V.
-THE SUN'S WOOING.
-The sun just touched the morning;
-The morning, happy thing,
-Supposed that he had come to dwell,
-And life would be all spring.
-She felt herself supremer, --
-A raised, ethereal thing;
-Henceforth for her what holiday!
-Meanwhile, her wheeling king
-Trailed slow along the orchards
-His haughty, spangled hems,
-Leaving a new necessity, --
-The want of diadems!
-The morning fluttered, staggered,
-Felt feebly for her crown, --
-Her unanointed forehead
-Henceforth her only one.
-VI.
-THE ROBIN.
-The robin is the one
-That interrupts the morn
-With hurried, few, express reports
-When March is scarcely on.
-The robin is the one
-That overflows the noon
-With her cherubic quantity,
-An April but begun.
-The robin is the one
-That speechless from her nest
-Submits that home and certainty
-And sanctity are best.
-VII.
-THE BUTTERFLY'S DAY.
-From cocoon forth a butterfly
-As lady from her door
-Emerged -- a summer afternoon --
-Repairing everywhere,
-Without design, that I could trace,
-Except to stray abroad
-On miscellaneous enterprise
-The clovers understood.
-Her pretty parasol was seen
-Contracting in a field
-Where men made hay, then struggling hard
-With an opposing cloud,
-Where parties, phantom as herself,
-To Nowhere seemed to go
-In purposeless circumference,
-As 't were a tropic show.
-And notwithstanding bee that worked,
-And flower that zealous blew,
-This audience of idleness
-Disdained them, from the sky,
-Till sundown crept, a steady tide,
-And men that made the hay,
-And afternoon, and butterfly,
-Extinguished in its sea.
-VIII.
-THE BLUEBIRD.
-Before you thought of spring,
-Except as a surmise,
-You see, God bless his suddenness,
-A fellow in the skies
-Of independent hues,
-A little weather-worn,
-Inspiriting habiliments
-Of indigo and brown.
-With specimens of song,
-As if for you to choose,
-Discretion in the interval,
-With gay delays he goes
-To some superior tree
-Without a single leaf,
-And shouts for joy to nobody
-But his seraphic self!
-IX.
-APRIL.
-An altered look about the hills;
-A Tyrian light the village fills;
-A wider sunrise in the dawn;
-A deeper twilight on the lawn;
-A print of a vermilion foot;
-A purple finger on the slope;
-A flippant fly upon the pane;
-A spider at his trade again;
-An added strut in chanticleer;
-A flower expected everywhere;
-An axe shrill singing in the woods;
-Fern-odors on untravelled roads, --
-All this, and more I cannot tell,
-A furtive look you know as well,
-And Nicodemus' mystery
-Receives its annual reply.

+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
 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
 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
 Intent upon the vision
 Of latitudes unknown.
 The angels, happening that way,
 This dusty heart espied;
 Tenderly took it up from toil
 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;
 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
 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
 The palm without the Calvary;
    So, Saviour, crucify.
 Defeat whets victory, they say;
 The reefs in old Gethsemane
    Endear the shore beyond.
 '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
 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, --
 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,
 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
 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!