Poems: Third Series | Page 8

sunset's yellow play
To eyelids in the sepulchre.?How still the dancer lies,?While color's revelations break,?And blaze the butterflies!
XVIII.
THE SPIRIT.
'T is whiter than an Indian pipe,?'T is dimmer than a lace;?No stature has it, like a fog,?When you approach the place.
Not any voice denotes it here,?Or intimates it there;?A spirit, how doth it accost??What customs hath the air?
This limitless hyperbole?Each one of us shall be;?'T is drama, if (hypothesis)?It be not tragedy!
XIX.
THE MONUMENT.
She laid her docile crescent down,?And this mechanic stone?Still states, to dates that have forgot,?The news that she is gone.
So constant to its stolid trust,?The shaft that never knew,?It shames the constancy that fled?Before its emblem flew.
XX.
Bless God, he went as soldiers,?His musket on his breast;?Grant, God, he charge the bravest?Of all the martial blest.
Please God, might I behold him?In epauletted white,?I should not fear the foe then,?I should not fear the fight.
XXI.
Immortal is an ample word?When what we need is by,?But when it leaves us for a time,?'T is a necessity.
Of heaven above the firmest proof?We fundamental know,?Except for its marauding hand,?It had been heaven below.
XXII.
Where every bird is bold to go,?And bees abashless play,?The foreigner before he knocks?Must thrust the tears away.
XXIII.
The grave my little cottage is,?Where, keeping house for thee,?I make my parlor orderly,?And lay the marble tea,
For two divided, briefly,?A cycle, it may be,?Till everlasting life unite?In strong society.
XXIV.
This was in the white of the year,?That was in the green,?Drifts were as difficult then to think?As daisies now to be seen.
Looking back is best that is left,?Or if it be before,?Retrospection is prospect's half,?Sometimes almost more.
XXV.
Sweet hours have perished here;?This is a mighty room;?Within its precincts hopes have played, --?Now shadows in the tomb.
XXVI.
Me! Come! My dazzled face?In such a shining place!
Me! Hear! My foreign ear?The sounds of welcome near!
The saints shall meet?Our bashful feet.
My holiday shall be?That they remember me;
My paradise, the fame?That they pronounce my name.
XXVII.
INVISIBLE.
From us she wandered now a year,?Her tarrying unknown;?If wilderness prevent her feet,?Or that ethereal zone
No eye hath seen and lived,?We ignorant must be.?We only know what time of year?We took the mystery.
XXVIII.
I wish I knew that woman's name,?So, when she comes this way,?To hold my life, and hold my ears,?For fear I hear her say
She's 'sorry I am dead,' again,?Just when the grave and I?Have sobbed ourselves almost to sleep, --?Our only lullaby.
XXIX.
TRYING TO FORGET.
Bereaved of all, I went abroad,?No less bereaved to be?Upon a new peninsula, --?The grave preceded me,
Obtained my lodgings ere myself,?And when I sought my bed,?The grave it was, reposed upon?The pillow for my head.
I waked, to find it first awake,?I rose, -- it followed me;?I tried to drop it in the crowd,?To lose it in the sea,
In cups of artificial drowse?To sleep its shape away, --?The grave was finished, but the spade?Remained in memory.
XXX.
I felt a funeral in my brain,?And mourners, to and fro,?Kept treading, treading, till it seemed?That sense was breaking through.
And when they all were seated,?A service like a drum?Kept beating, beating, till I thought?My mind was going numb.
And then I heard them lift a box,?And creak across my soul?With those same boots of lead, again.?Then space began to toll
As all the heavens were a bell,?And Being but an ear,?And I and silence some strange race,?Wrecked, solitary, here.
XXXI.
I meant to find her when I came;?Death had the same design;?But the success was his, it seems,?And the discomfit mine.
I meant to tell her how I longed?For just this single time;?But Death had told her so the first,?And she had hearkened him.
To wander now is my abode;?To rest, -- to rest would be?A privilege of hurricane?To memory and me.
XXXII.
WAITING.
I sing to use the waiting,?My bonnet but to tie,?And shut the door unto my house;?No more to do have I,
Till, his best step approaching,?We journey to the day,?And tell each other how we sang?To keep the dark away.
XXXIII.
A sickness of this world it most occasions?When best men die;?A wishfulness their far condition?To occupy.
A chief indifference, as foreign?A world must be?Themselves forsake contented,?For Deity.
XXXIV.
Superfluous were the sun?When excellence is dead;?He were superfluous every day,?For every day is said
That syllable whose faith?Just saves it from despair,?And whose 'I'll meet you' hesitates?If love inquire, 'Where?'
Upon his dateless fame?Our periods may lie,?As stars that drop anonymous?From an abundant sky.
XXXV.
So proud she was to die?It made us all ashamed?That what we cherished, so unknown?To her desire seemed.
So satisfied to go?Where none of us should be,?Immediately, that anguish stooped?Almost to jealousy.
XXXVI.
FAREWELL.
Tie the strings to my life, my Lord,?Then I am ready to go!?Just a look at the horses --?Rapid! That will do!
Put me in on the firmest side,?So I shall never fall;?For we must ride to the Judgment,?And it's partly down hill.
But never I mind the bridges,?And never I mind the sea;?Held fast in everlasting race?By my own choice and thee.
Good-by to the life I used to live,?And the world