Poems: Third Series | Page 9

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 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.