Poems: Third Series | Page 2

it came,?But came with less of fear,?Because that fearing it so long?Had almost made it dear.?There is a fitting a dismay,?A fitting a despair.?'Tis harder knowing it is due,?Than knowing it is here.?The trying on the utmost,?The morning it is new,?Is terribler than wearing it?A whole existence through.
XVI.
A BOOK.
There is no frigate like a book?To take us lands away,?Nor any coursers like a page?Of prancing poetry.?This traverse may the poorest take?Without oppress of toll;?How frugal is the chariot?That bears a human soul!
XVII.
Who has not found the heaven below?Will fail of it above.?God's residence is next to mine,?His furniture is love.
XVIII.
A PORTRAIT.
A face devoid of love or grace,?A hateful, hard, successful face,?A face with which a stone?Would feel as thoroughly at ease?As were they old acquaintances, --?First time together thrown.
XIX.
I HAD A GUINEA GOLDEN.
I had a guinea golden;?I lost it in the sand,?And though the sum was simple,?And pounds were in the land,?Still had it such a value?Unto my frugal eye,?That when I could not find it?I sat me down to sigh.
I had a crimson robin?Who sang full many a day,?But when the woods were painted?He, too, did fly away.?Time brought me other robins, --?Their ballads were the same, --?Still for my missing troubadour?I kept the 'house at hame.'
I had a star in heaven;?One Pleiad was its name,?And when I was not heeding?It wandered from the same.?And though the skies are crowded,?And all the night ashine,?I do not care about it,?Since none of them are mine.
My story has a moral:?I have a missing friend, --?Pleiad its name, and robin,?And guinea in the sand, --?And when this mournful ditty,?Accompanied with tear,?Shall meet the eye of traitor?In country far from here,?Grant that repentance solemn?May seize upon his mind,?And he no consolation?Beneath the sun may find.
NOTE. -- This poem may have had, like many others, a?personal origin. It is more than probable that it was?sent to some friend travelling in Europe, a dainty?reminder of letter-writing delinquencies.
XX.
SATURDAY AFTERNOON.
From all the jails the boys and girls?Ecstatically leap, --?Beloved, only afternoon?That prison doesn't keep.
They storm the earth and stun the air,?A mob of solid bliss.?Alas! that frowns could lie in wait?For such a foe as this!
XXI.
Few get enough, -- enough is one;?To that ethereal throng?Have not each one of us the right?To stealthily belong?
XXII.
Upon the gallows hung a wretch,?Too sullied for the hell?To which the law entitled him.?As nature's curtain fell?The one who bore him tottered in,?For this was woman's son.?''T was all I had,' she stricken gasped;?Oh, what a livid boon!
XXIII.
THE LOST THOUGHT.
I felt a clearing in my mind?As if my brain had split;?I tried to match it, seam by seam,?But could not make them fit.
The thought behind I strove to join?Unto the thought before,?But sequence ravelled out of reach?Like balls upon a floor.
XXIV.
RETICENCE.
The reticent volcano keeps?His never slumbering plan;?Confided are his projects pink?To no precarious man.
If nature will not tell the tale?Jehovah told to her,?Can human nature not survive?Without a listener?
Admonished by her buckled lips?Let every babbler be.?The only secret people keep?Is Immortality.
XXV.
WITH FLOWERS.
If recollecting were forgetting,?Then I remember not;?And if forgetting, recollecting,?How near I had forgot!?And if to miss were merry,?And if to mourn were gay,?How very blithe the fingers?That gathered these to-day!
XXVI.
The farthest thunder that I heard?Was nearer than the sky,?And rumbles still, though torrid noons?Have lain their missiles by.?The lightning that preceded it?Struck no one but myself,?But I would not exchange the bolt?For all the rest of life.?Indebtedness to oxygen?The chemist may repay,?But not the obligation?To electricity.?It founds the homes and decks the days,?And every clamor bright?Is but the gleam concomitant?Of that waylaying light.?The thought is quiet as a flake, --?A crash without a sound;?How life's reverberation?Its explanation found!
XXVII.
On the bleakness of my lot?Bloom I strove to raise.?Late, my acre of a rock?Yielded grape and maize.
Soil of flint if steadfast tilled?Will reward the hand;?Seed of palm by Lybian sun?Fructified in sand.
XXVIII.
CONTRAST.
A door just opened on a street --?I, lost, was passing by --?An instant's width of warmth disclosed,?And wealth, and company.
The door as sudden shut, and I,?I, lost, was passing by, --?Lost doubly, but by contrast most,?Enlightening misery.
XXIX.
FRIENDS.
Are friends delight or pain??Could bounty but remain?Riches were good.
But if they only stay?Bolder to fly away,?Riches are sad.
XXX.
FIRE.
Ashes denote that fire was;?Respect the grayest pile?For the departed creature's sake?That hovered there awhile.
Fire exists the first in light,?And then consolidates, --?Only the chemist can disclose?Into what carbonates.
XXXI.
A MAN.
Fate slew him, but he did not drop;?She felled -- he did not fall --?Impaled him on her fiercest stakes --?He neutralized them all.
She stung him, sapped his firm advance,?But, when her worst was done,?And he, unmoved, regarded her,?Acknowledged him a man.
XXXII.
VENTURES.
Finite to fail, but infinite to venture.?For the one ship that struts the shore?Many's the gallant, overwhelmed creature?Nodding in navies nevermore.
XXXIII.
GRIEFS.
I measure every grief I meet?With analytic eyes;?I wonder if it weighs like mine,?Or has an easier