Poems: Third Series | Page 9

I used to know;?And kiss the hills for me, just once;?Now I am ready to go!
XXXVII.
The dying need but little, dear, --?A glass of water's all,?A flower's unobtrusive face?To punctuate the wall,
A fan, perhaps, a friend's regret,?And certainly that one?No color in the rainbow?Perceives when you are gone.
XXXVIII.
DEAD.
There's something quieter than sleep?Within this inner room!?It wears a sprig upon its breast,?And will not tell its name.
Some touch it and some kiss it,?Some chafe its idle hand;?It has a simple gravity?I do not understand!
While simple-hearted neighbors?Chat of the 'early dead,'?We, prone to periphrasis,?Remark that birds have fled!
XXXIX.
The soul should always stand ajar,?That if the heaven inquire,?He will not be obliged to wait,?Or shy of troubling her.
Depart, before the host has slid?The bolt upon the door,?To seek for the accomplished guest, --?Her visitor no more.
XL.
Three weeks passed since I had seen her, --?Some disease had vexed;?'T was with text and village singing?I beheld her next,
And a company -- our pleasure?To discourse alone;?Gracious now to me as any,?Gracious unto none.
Borne, without dissent of either,?To the parish night;?Of the separated people?Which are out of sight?
XLI.
I breathed enough to learn the trick,?And now, removed from air,?I simulate the breath so well,?That one, to be quite sure
The lungs are stirless, must descend?Among the cunning cells,?And touch the pantomime himself.?How cool the bellows feels!
XLII.
I wonder if the sepulchre?Is not a lonesome way,?When men and boys, and larks and June?Go down the fields to hay!
XLIII.
JOY IN DEATH.
If tolling bell I ask the cause.?'A soul has gone to God,'?I'm answered in a lonesome tone;?Is heaven then so sad?
That bells should joyful ring to tell?A soul had gone to heaven,?Would seem to me the proper way?A good news should be given.
XLIV.
If I may have it when it's dead?I will contented be;?If just as soon as breath is out?It shall belong to me,
Until they lock it in the grave,?'T is bliss I cannot weigh,?For though they lock thee in the grave,?Myself can hold the key.
Think of it, lover! I and thee?Permitted face to face to be;?After a life, a death we'll say, --?For death was that, and this is thee.
XLV.
Before the ice is in the pools,?Before the skaters go,?Or any cheek at nightfall?Is tarnished by the snow,
Before the fields have finished,?Before the Christmas tree,?Wonder upon wonder?Will arrive to me!
What we touch the hems of?On a summer's day;?What is only walking?Just a bridge away;
That which sings so, speaks so,?When there's no one here, --?Will the frock I wept in?Answer me to wear?
XLVI.
DYING.
I heard a fly buzz when I died;?The stillness round my form?Was like the stillness in the air?Between the heaves of storm.
The eyes beside had wrung them dry,?And breaths were gathering sure?For that last onset, when the king?Be witnessed in his power.
I willed my keepsakes, signed away?What portion of me I?Could make assignable, -- and then?There interposed a fly,
With blue, uncertain, stumbling buzz,?Between the light and me;?And then the windows failed, and then?I could not see to see.
XLVII.
Adrift! A little boat adrift!?And night is coming down!?Will no one guide a little boat?Unto the nearest town?
So sailors say, on yesterday,?Just as the dusk was brown,?One little boat gave up its strife,?And gurgled down and down.
But angels say, on yesterday,?Just as the dawn was red,?One little boat o'erspent with gales?Retrimmed its masts, redecked its sails?Exultant, onward sped!
XLVIII.
There's been a death in the opposite house?As lately as to-day.?I know it by the numb look?Such houses have alway.
The neighbors rustle in and out,?The doctor drives away.?A window opens like a pod,?Abrupt, mechanically;
Somebody flings a mattress out, --?The children hurry by;?They wonder if It died on that, --?I used to when a boy.
The minister goes stiffly in?As if the house were his,?And he owned all the mourners now,?And little boys besides;
And then the milliner, and the man?Of the appalling trade,?To take the measure of the house.?There'll be that dark parade
Of tassels and of coaches soon;?It's easy as a sign, --?The intuition of the news?In just a country town.
XLIX.
We never know we go, -- when we are going?We jest and shut the door;?Fate following behind us bolts it,?And we accost no more.
L.
THE SOUL'S STORM.
It struck me every day?The lightning was as new?As if the cloud that instant slit?And let the fire through.
It burned me in the night,?It blistered in my dream;?It sickened fresh upon my sight?With every morning's beam.
I thought that storm was brief, --?The maddest, quickest by;?But Nature lost the date of this,?And left it in the sky.
LI.
Water is taught by thirst;?Land, by the oceans passed;?Transport, by throe;?Peace, by its battles told;?Love, by memorial mould;?Birds, by the snow.
LII.
THIRST.
We thirst at first, -- 't is Nature's act;?And later, when we die,?A little water supplicate?Of fingers going by.
It intimates the finer want,?Whose adequate supply?Is that great water in the west?Termed immortality.
LIII.
A clock stopped -- not the mantel's;?Geneva's farthest skill?Can't put the puppet bowing?That just now dangled still.
An awe