VII.
I read my sentence steadily,
Reviewed it with my eyes,
To see that I made no mistake
In its extremest clause, —
The date, and manner of the shame;
And then the pious form
That "God have mercy" on the soul
The jury voted him.
I made my soul familiar
With her extremity,
That at the last it should not be
A novel agony,
But she and Death, acquainted,
Meet tranquilly as friends,
Salute and pass without a hint —
And there the matter ends.
VIII.
I have not told my garden yet,
Lest that should conquer me;
I have not quite the strength now
To break it to the bee.
I will not name it in the street,
For shops would stare, that I,
So shy, so very ignorant,
Should have the face to die.
The hillsides must not know it,
Where I have rambled so,
Nor tell the loving forests
The day that I shall go,
Nor lisp it at the table,
Nor heedless by the way
Hint that within the riddle
One will walk to-day!
IX.
THE BATTLE-FIELD.
They dropped like flakes, they dropped like stars,
Like petals from a rose,
When suddenly across the June
A wind with fingers goes.
They perished in the seamless grass, —
No eye could find the place;
But God on his repealless list
Can summon every face.
X.
The only ghost I ever saw
Was dressed in mechlin, — so;
He wore no sandal on his foot,
And stepped like flakes of snow.
His gait was soundless, like the bird,
But rapid, like the roe;
His fashions quaint, mosaic,
Or, haply, mistletoe.
His conversation seldom,
His laughter like the breeze
That dies away in dimples
Among the pensive trees.
Our interview was transient,—
Of me, himself was shy;
And God forbid I look behind
Since that appalling day!
XI.
Some, too fragile for winter winds,
The thoughtful grave encloses, —
Tenderly tucking them in from frost
Before their feet are cold.
Never the treasures in her nest
The cautious grave exposes,
Building where schoolboy dare not look
And sportsman is not bold.
This covert have all the children
Early aged, and often cold, —
Sparrows unnoticed by the Father;
Lambs for whom time had not a fold.
XII.
As by the dead we love to sit,
Become so wondrous dear,
As for the lost we grapple,
Though all the rest are here, —
In broken mathematics
We estimate our prize,
Vast, in its fading ratio,
To our penurious eyes!
XIII.
MEMORIALS.
Death sets a thing significant
The eye had hurried by,
Except a perished creature
Entreat us tenderly
To ponder little workmanships
In crayon or in wool,
With "This was last her fingers did,"
Industrious until
The thimble weighed too heavy,
The stitches stopped themselves,
And then 't was put among the dust
Upon the closet shelves.
A book I have, a friend gave,
Whose pencil, here and there,
Had notched the place that pleased him, —
At rest his fingers are.
Now, when I read, I read not,
For interrupting tears
Obliterate the etchings
Too costly for repairs.
XIV.
I went to heaven, —
'T was a small town,
Lit with a ruby,
Lathed with down.
Stiller than the fields
At the full dew,
Beautiful as pictures
No man drew.
People like the moth,
Of mechlin, frames,
Duties of gossamer,
And eider names.
Almost contented
I could be
'Mong such unique
Society.
XV.
Their height in heaven comforts not,
Their glory nought to me;
'T was best imperfect, as it was;
I 'm finite, I can't see.
The house of supposition,
The glimmering frontier
That skirts the acres of perhaps,
To me shows insecure.
The wealth I had contented me;
If 't was a meaner size,
Then I had counted it until
It pleased my narrow eyes
Better than larger values,
However true their show;
This timid life of evidence
Keeps pleading, "I don't know."
XVI.
There is a shame of nobleness
Confronting sudden pelf, —
A finer shame of ecstasy
Convicted of itself.
A best disgrace a brave man feels,
Acknowledged of the brave, —
One more "Ye Blessed" to be told;
But this involves the grave.
XVII.
TRIUMPH.
Triumph may be of several kinds.
There 's triumph in the room
When that old imperator, Death,
By faith is overcome.
There 's triumph of the finer mind
When truth, affronted long,
Advances calm to her supreme,
Her God her only throng.
A triumph when temptation's bribe
Is slowly handed back,
One eye upon the heaven renounced
And one upon the rack.
Severer triumph, by himself
Experienced, who can pass
Acquitted from that naked bar,
Jehovah's countenance!
XVIII.
Pompless no life can pass away;
The lowliest career
To the same pageant wends its way
As that exalted here.
How cordial is the mystery!
The hospitable pall
A "this way" beckons spaciously, —
A miracle for all!
XIX.
I noticed people disappeared,
When but a little child, —
Supposed they visited remote,
Or settled regions wild.
Now know I they both visited
And settled regions wild,
But did because they died, — a fact
Withheld the little child!
XX.
FOLLOWING.
I had no cause to be awake,
My best was gone to sleep,
And morn a new politeness took,
And failed to wake them up,
But called the others clear,
And passed their curtains by.
Sweet morning, when I over-sleep,
Knock, recollect, for me!
I looked at sunrise once,
And then I looked at them,
And wishfulness in me arose
For circumstance the same.
'T was such an ample peace,
It could not hold a sigh, —
'T was Sabbath with the bells divorced,
'T was sunset all the day.
So choosing but a gown
And taking but a prayer,
The only raiment I should need,
I struggled, and was there.
XXI.
If anybody's friend be dead,
It 's sharpest of the theme
The thinking how they walked alive,
At such and such a time.
Their costume, of a Sunday,
Some manner of the hair, —
A prank nobody knew but them,
Lost, in the sepulchre.
How warm they were on such a day:
You almost feel the date,
So short way off it seems; and now,
They 're centuries from that.