Poems: Third Series | Page 4

fly!
Her rusty ammunition

Might yet reply!
XLVI.
To help our bleaker parts
Salubrious hours are given,
Which if they
do not fit for earth
Drill silently for heaven.
XLVII.
What soft, cherubic creatures
These gentlewomen are!
One would
as soon assault a plush
Or violate a star.
Such dimity convictions,
A horror so refined
Of freckled human
nature,
Of Deity ashamed, --
It's such a common glory,
A fisherman's degree!
Redemption,
brittle lady,
Be so, ashamed of thee.
XLVIII.
DESIRE.
Who never wanted, -- maddest joy
Remains to him unknown:
The
banquet of abstemiousness
Surpasses that of wine.

Within its hope, though yet ungrasped
Desire's perfect goal,
No
nearer, lest reality
Should disenthrall thy soul.
XLIX.
PHILOSOPHY.
It might be easier
To fail with land in sight,
Than gain my blue
peninsula
To perish of delight.
L.
POWER.
You cannot put a fire out;
A thing that can ignite
Can go, itself,
without a fan
Upon the slowest night.
You cannot fold a flood
And put it in a drawer, --
Because the
winds would find it out,
And tell your cedar floor.
LI.
A modest lot, a fame petite,
A brief campaign of sting and sweet
Is
plenty! Is enough!
A sailor's business is the shore,
A soldier's --
balls. Who asketh more
Must seek the neighboring life!
LII.
Is bliss, then, such abyss
I must not put my foot amiss
For fear I
spoil my shoe?
I'd rather suit my foot
Than save my boot,
For yet to buy another
pair
Is possible
At any fair.
But bliss is sold just once;
The patent lost
None buy it any more.
LIII.

EXPERIENCE.
I stepped from plank to plank
So slow and cautiously;
The stars
about my head I felt,
About my feet the sea.
I knew not but the next
Would be my final inch, --
This gave me
that precarious gait
Some call experience.
LIV.
THANKSGIVING DAY.
One day is there of the series
Termed Thanksgiving day,
Celebrated
part at table,
Part in memory.
Neither patriarch nor pussy,
I dissect the play;
Seems it, to my
hooded thinking,
Reflex holiday.
Had there been no sharp subtraction
From the early sum,
Not an
acre or a caption
Where was once a room,
Not a mention, whose small pebble
Wrinkled any bay, --
Unto such,
were such assembly,
'T were Thanksgiving day.
LV.
CHILDISH GRIEFS.
Softened by Time's consummate plush,
How sleek the woe appears

That threatened childhood's citadel
And undermined the years!
Bisected now by bleaker griefs,
We envy the despair
That
devastated childhood's realm,
So easy to repair.
II. LOVE.
I.

CONSECRATION.
Proud of my broken heart since thou didst break it,
Proud of the pain
I did not feel till thee,
Proud of my night since thou with moons dost
slake it,
Not to partake thy passion, my humility.
II.
LOVE'S HUMILITY.
My worthiness is all my doubt,
His merit all my fear,
Contrasting
which, my qualities
Do lowlier appear;
Lest I should insufficient prove
For his beloved need,
The chiefest
apprehension
Within my loving creed.
So I, the undivine abode
Of his elect content,
Conform my soul as 't
were a church
Unto her sacrament.
III.
LOVE.
Love is anterior to life,
Posterior to death,
Initial of creation, and

The exponent of breath.
IV.
SATISFIED.
One blessing had I, than the rest
So larger to my eyes
That I
stopped gauging, satisfied,
For this enchanted size.
It was the limit of my dream,
The focus of my prayer, --
A perfect,
paralyzing bliss
Contented as despair.
I knew no more of want or cold,
Phantasms both become,
For this

new value in the soul,
Supremest earthly sum.
The heaven below the heaven above
Obscured with ruddier hue.

Life's latitude leant over-full;
The judgment perished, too.
Why joys so scantily disburse,
Why Paradise defer,
Why floods are
served to us in bowls, --
I speculate no more.
V.
WITH A FLOWER.
When roses cease to bloom, dear,
And violets are done,
When
bumble-bees in solemn flight
Have passed beyond the sun,
The hand that paused to gather
Upon this summer's day
Will idle lie,
in Auburn, --
Then take my flower, pray!
VI.
SONG.
Summer for thee grant I may be
When summer days are flown!
Thy
music still when whippoorwill
And oriole are done!
For thee to bloom, I'll skip the tomb
And sow my blossoms o'er!

Pray gather me, Anemone,
Thy flower forevermore!
VII.
LOYALTY.
Split the lark and you'll find the music,
Bulb after bulb, in silver
rolled,
Scantily dealt to the summer morning,
Saved for your ear
when lutes be old.
Loose the flood, you shall find it patent,
Gush after gush, reserved for

you;
Scarlet experiment! sceptic Thomas,
Now, do you doubt that
your bird was true?
VIII.
To lose thee, sweeter than to gain
All other hearts I knew.
'T is true
the drought is destitute,
But then I had the dew!
The Caspian has its realms of sand,
Its other realm of sea;
Without
the sterile perquisite
No Caspian could be.
IX.
Poor little heart!
Did they forget thee?
Then dinna care! Then dinna
care!
Proud little heart!
Did they forsake thee?
Be debonair! Be debonair!
Frail little heart!
I would not break thee:
Could'st credit me?
Could'st credit me?
Gay little heart!
Like morning glory
Thou'll wilted be; thou'll wilted
be!
X.
FORGOTTEN.
There is a word
Which bears a sword
Can pierce an armed man.
It
hurls its barbed syllables,--
At once is mute again.
But where it fell

The saved will tell
On patriotic day,
Some epauletted brother

Gave his breath away.
Wherever runs the breathless sun,
Wherever