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.
We thirst at first, — 't is Nature's act;And later, when we die,A little water supplicateOf fingers going by.
It intimates the finer want,Whose adequate supplyIs that great water in the westTermed immortality.
A clock stopped — not the mantel's;Geneva's farthest skillCan't put the puppet bowingThat just now dangled still.
An awe came on the trinket!The figures hunched with pain,Then quivered out of decimalsInto degreeless noon.
It will not stir for doctors,This pendulum of snow;The shopman importunes it,While cool, concernless No
Nods from the gilded pointers,Nods from the seconds slim,Decades of arrogance betweenThe dial life and him.
All overgrown by cunning moss,All interspersed with weed,The little cage of 'Currer Bell,'In quiet Haworth laid.
This bird, observing others,When frosts too sharp became,Retire to other latitudes,Quietly did the same,
But differed in returning;Since Yorkshire hills are green,Yet not in all the nests I meetCan nightingale be seen.
Gathered from many wanderings,Gethsemane can tellThrough what transporting anguishShe reached the asphodel!
Soft fall the sounds of EdenUpon her puzzled ear;Oh, what an afternoon for heaven,When 'Brontë' entered there!
A toad can die of light!Death is the common rightOf toads and men, —Of earl and midgeThe privilege.Why swagger then?The gnat's supremacyIs large as thine.
Far from love the Heavenly FatherLeads the chosen child;Oftener through realm of briarThan the meadow mild,
Oftener by the claw of dragonThan the hand of friend,Guides the little one predestinedTo the native land.
A long, long sleep, a famous sleepThat makes no show for dawnBy stretch of limb or stir of lid, —An independent one.
Was ever idleness like this?Within a hut of stoneTo bask the centuries awayNor once look up for noon?
'T was just this time last year I died.I know I heard the corn,When I was carried by the farms, —It had the tassels on.
I thought how yellow it would lookWhen Richard went to mill;And then I wanted to get out,But something held my will.
I thought just how red apples wedgedThe stubble's joints between;And carts went stooping round the fieldsTo take the pumpkins in.
I wondered which would miss me least,And when Thanksgiving came,If father'd multiply the platesTo make an even sum.
And if my stocking hung too high,Would it blur the Christmas glee,That not a Santa Claus could reachThe altitude of me?
But this sort grieved myself, and soI thought how it would beWhen just this time, some perfect year,Themselves should come to me.
On this wondrous sea,Sailing silently,Ho! pilot, ho!Knowest thou the shoreWhere no breakers roar,Where the storm is o'er?
In the silent westMany sails at rest,Their anchors fast;Thither I pilot thee, —Land, ho! Eternity!Ashore at last!