Was ever idleness like this?
Within a hut of stone
To bask the centuries away
Nor once look up for noon?
LVIII.
RETROSPECT.
'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 look
When Richard went to mill;
And then I wanted to get out,
But something held my will.
I thought just how red apples wedged
The stubble's joints between;
And carts went stooping round the fields
To take the pumpkins in.
I wondered which would miss me least,
And when Thanksgiving came,
If father'd multiply the plates
To make an even sum.
And if my stocking hung too high,
Would it blur the Christmas glee,
That not a Santa Claus could reach
The altitude of me?
But this sort grieved myself, and so
I thought how it would be
When just this time, some perfect year,
Themselves should come to me.
LIX.
ETERNITY.
On this wondrous sea,
Sailing silently,
Ho! pilot, ho!
Knowest thou the shore
Where no breakers roar,
Where the storm is o'er?
In the silent west
Many sails at rest,
Their anchors fast;
Thither I pilot thee, —
Land, ho! Eternity!
Ashore at last!
A bird came down the walk:A charm invests a faceA clock stopped — not the mantel's;A death-blow is a life-blow to someA deed knocks first at thought,A dew sufficed itselfA door just opened on a street —A drop fell on the apple tree,A face devoid of love or grace,A lady red upon the hillA light exists in springA little road not made of man,A long, long sleep, a famous sleepA modest lot, a fame petite,A murmur in the trees to note,A narrow fellow in the grassA poor torn heart, a tattered heart,A precious, mouldering pleasure 't isA route of evanescenceA sepal, petal, and a thornA shady friend for torrid daysA sickness of this world it most occasionsA sloop of amber slips awayA solemn thing it was, I said,A something in a summer's day,A spider sewed at nightA thought went up my mind to-dayA throe upon the featuresA toad can die of light!A word is deadA wounded deer leaps highest,Adrift! A little boat adrift!Afraid? Of whom am I afraid?After a hundred yearsAll overgrown by cunning moss,Alter? When the hills do.Ample make this bed.An altered look about the hills;An awful tempest mashed the air,An everywhere of silver,Angels in the early morningApparently with no surpriseArcturus is his other name, —Are friends delight or pain?As by the dead we love to sit,As children bid the guest good-night,As far from pity as complaint,As if some little Arctic flower,As imperceptibly as griefAshes denote that fire was;At half-past three a single birdAt last to be identified!At least to pray is left, is left.Because I could not stop for Death,Before I got my eye put out,Before the ice is in the pools,Before you thought of spring,Belshazzar had a letter, —Bereaved of all, I went abroad,Besides the autumn poets sing,Blazing in gold and quenching in purple,Bless God, he went as soldiers,Bring me the sunset in a cup,Come slowly, Eden!Could I but ride indefinite,Could mortal lip divineDare you see a soul at the white heat?Dear March, come in!Death is a dialogue betweenDeath is like the insectDeath sets a thing significantDelayed till she had ceased to know,Delight becomes pictorialDeparted to the judgment,Did the harebell loose her girdleDoubt me, my dim companion!Drab habitation of whom?Drowning is not so pitifulEach life converges to some centreEach that we lose takes part of us;Elysium is as far as toEssential oils are wrung:Except the heaven had come so near,Except to heaven, she is nought;Experiment to meExultation is the goingFar from love the Heavenly FatherFarther in summer than the birds,Fate slew him, but he did not drop;Father, I bring thee not myself, —Few get enough, — enough is one;Finite to fail, but infinite to venture.For each ecstatic instantForbidden fruit a flavor hasFrequently the woods are pink,From all the jails the boys and girlsFrom cocoon forth a butterflyFrom us she wandered now a year,Given in marriage unto thee,Glee! The great storm is over!God gave a loaf to every bird,God made a little gentian;God permits industrious angelsGoing to heaven!"Going to him! Happy letter! Tell him —Good night! which put the candle out?Great streets of silence led awayHave you got a brook in your little heart,He ate and drank the precious words,He fumbles at your spiritHe preached upon "breadth" till it argued him narrow, —He put the belt around my life, —He touched me, so I live to knowHeart not so heavy as mine,Heart, we will forget him!Heaven is what I cannot reach!Her final summer was it,High from the earth I heard a bird;His bill an auger is,Hope is a subtle glutton;Hope is the thing with feathersHow dare the robins sing,How happy is the little stoneHow many times these low feet staggered,How still the bells in steeples stand,How the old mountains drip with sunset,I asked no other thing,I breathed enough to learn the trick,I bring an unaccustomed wineI can wade grief,I cannot live with you,I died for beauty, but was scarceI dreaded that first robin so,I envy seas whereon he rides,I felt a clearing in my mindI felt a funeral in my brain,I found the phrase to every thoughtI gained it so,I gave myself to him,I had a daily blissI had a guinea golden;I had been hungry all the years;I had no cause to be awake,I had no time to hate, becauseI have a king who does not speak;I have no life but this,I have not told my garden yet,I heard a fly buzz when I died;I held a jewel in my fingersI hide myself within my flower,I know a place where summer strivesI know some lonely houses off the roadI know that he existsI like a look of agony,I like to see it lap the miles,I live with him, I see his face;I lived on dread; to those who knowI lost a world the other day.I many times thought peace had come,I meant to find her when I came;I meant to have but modest needs,I measure every grief I meetI never hear the word "escape"I never lost as much but twice,I never saw a moor,I noticed people disappeared,I read my sentence steadily,I reason, earth is short,I shall know why, when time is over,I should have been too glad, I see,I should not dare to leave my friend,I sing to use the waiting,I started early, took my dog,I stepped from plank to plankI taste a liquor never brewed,I think just how my shape will riseI think the hemlock likes to standI took my power in my hand.I went to heaven, —I went to thank her,I wish I knew that woman's name,I wonder if the sepulchreI worked for chaff, and earning wheatI years had been from home,I'll tell you how the sun rose, —I'm ceded, I've stopped being theirs;I'm nobody! Who are you?I'm wife; I've finished that,I've got an arrow here;I've seen a dying eyeIf I can stop one heart from breaking,If I may have it when it's deadIf I should die,If I shouldn't be aliveIf anybody's friend be dead,If recollecting were forgetting,If the foolish call them 'flowers,'If tolling bell I ask the cause.If you were coming in the fall,Immortal is an ample wordIn lands I never saw, they say,Is Heaven a physician?Is bliss, then, such abyssIt can't be summer, — that got through;It dropped so low in my regardIt is an honorable thought,It makes no difference abroad,It might be easierIt sifts from leaden sieves,It sounded as if the streets were running,It struck me every dayIt tossed and tossed, —It was not death, for I stood up,It was too late for man,It's like the light, —It's such a little thing to weep,Just lost when I was saved!Lay this laurel on the oneLet down the bars, O Death!Let me not mar that perfect dreamLife, and Death, and GiantsLike mighty footlights burned the redLike trains of cars on tracks of plushLook back on time with kindly eyes,Love is anterior to life,Me! Come! My dazzled faceMine by the right of the white election!Mine enemy is growing old, —Morning is the place for dew,Morns like these we parted;Much madness is divinest senseMusicians wrestle everywhere:My cocoon tightens, colors tease,My country need not change her gown,My friend must be a bird,My life closed twice before its close;My river runs to thee:My worthiness is all my doubt,Nature rarer uses yellowNature, the gentlest mother,New feet within my garden go,No brigadier throughout the yearNo rack can torture me,Not any higher stands the graveNot in this world to see his faceNot knowing when the dawn will comeNot with a club the heart is broken,Of all the souls that stand createOf all the sounds despatched abroad,Of bronze and blazeOf tribulation these are theyOn such a night, or such a night,On the bleakness of my lotOn this long storm the rainbow rose,On this wondrous sea,One blessing had I, than the restOne day is there of the seriesOne dignity delays for all,One need not be a chamber to be haunted,One of the ones that Midas touched,Our journey had advanced;Our lives are Swiss, —Our share of night to bear,Pain has an element of blank;Perhaps you'd like to buy a flower?Pigmy seraphs gone astray,Pink, small, and punctual,Pompless no life can pass away;Poor little heart!Portraits are to daily facesPrayer is the little implementPresentiment is that long shadow on the lawnProud of my broken heart since thou didst break it,Read, sweet, how others strove,Remembrance has a rear and front, —Remorse is memory awake,Safe in their alabaster chambers,She died, — this was the way she died;She laid her docile crescent down,She rose to his requirement, droppedShe slept beneath a treeShe sweeps with many-colored brooms,She went as quiet as the dewSleep is supposed to be,So bashful when I spied her,So proud she was to dieSoftened by Time's consummate plush,Some keep the Sabbath going to church;Some rainbow coming from the fair!Some things that fly there be, —Some, too fragile for winter winds,Soul, wilt thou toss again?South winds jostle them,Split the lark and you'll find the music,Step lightly on this narrow spot!Success is counted sweetestSummer for thee grant I may beSuperfluous were the sunSuperiority to fateSurgeons must be very carefulSweet hours have perished here;Sweet is the swamp with its secrets,Taken from men this morning,Talk with prudence to a beggarThat I did always love,That is solemn we have ended, —That short, potential stirThat such have died enables usThe bat is dun with wrinkled wingsThe bee is not afraid of me,The body grows outside, —The bone that has no marrow;The brain is wider than the sky,The brain within its grooveThe bustle in a houseThe butterfly's assumption-gown,The clouds their backs together laid,The cricket sang,The daisy follows soft the sun,The day came slow, till five o'clock,The distance that the dead have goneThe dying need but little, dear, —The farthest thunder that I heardThe gentian weaves her fringes,The grass so little has to do, —The grave my little cottage is,The heart asks pleasure first,The last night that she lived,The leaves, like women, interchangeThe moon is distant from the sea,The moon was but a chin of goldThe morns are meeker than they were,The mountain sat upon the plainThe murmur of a beeThe murmuring of bees has ceased;The mushroom is the elf of plants,The nearest dream recedes, unrealized.The night was wide, and furnished scantThe one that could repeat the summer dayThe only ghost I ever sawThe past is such a curious creature,The pedigree of honeyThe rat is the concisest tenant.The reticent volcano keepsThe robin is the oneThe rose did caper on her cheek,The show is not the show,The skies can't keep their secret!The sky is low, the clouds are mean,The soul selects her own society,The soul should always stand ajar,The soul unto itselfThe spider as an artistThe springtime's pallid landscapeThe stimulus, beyond the graveThe sun just touched the morning;The sun kept setting, setting still;The thought beneath so slight a filmThe way I read a letter 's this:The wind begun to rock the grassTheir height in heaven comforts not,There came a day at summer's fullThere came a wind like a bugle;There is a flower that bees prefer,There is a shame of noblenessThere is a wordThere is no frigate like a bookThere's a certain slant of light,There's been a death in the opposite houseThere's something quieter than sleepThese are the days when birds come back,They dropped like flakes, they dropped like stars,They say that 'time assuages,' —They won't frown always, — some sweet dayThis is my letter to the world,This is the land the sunset washes,This merit hath the worst, —This was in the white of the year,This world is not conclusion;Though I get home how late, how late!Three weeks passed since I had seen her, —Through the straight pass of suffering'T is so much joy! 'T is so much joy!'T is sunrise, little maid, hast thou'T is whiter than an Indian pipe,Tie the strings to my life, my Lord,To fight aloud is very brave,To hang our head ostensibly,To hear an oriole singTo help our bleaker partsTo know just how he suffered would be dear;To learn the transport by the pain,To lose one's faith surpassesTo lose thee, sweeter than to gainTo make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee, —To my quick ear the leaves conferred;To venerate the simple daysTriumph may be of several kinds.'T is little I could care for pearls'T was a long parting, but the time'T was just this time last year I died.'T was later when the summer went'T was such a little, little boatTwo butterflies went out at noonTwo swimmers wrestled on the sparUndue significance a starving man attachesUnto my books so good to turnUpon the gallows hung a wretch,Victory comes late,Wait till the majesty of DeathWater is taught by thirst;We cover thee, sweet face.We learn in the retreatingWe like March, his shoes are purple,We never know how high we areWe never know we go, — when we are goingWe outgrow love like other thingsWe play at paste,We thirst at first, — 't is Nature's act;Went up a year this evening!What if I say I shall not wait?What inn is thisWhat mystery pervades a well!What soft, cherubic creaturesWhen I hoped I feared,When I was small, a woman died.When night is almost done,When roses cease to bloom, dear,Where every bird is bold to go,Where ships of purple gently tossWhether my bark went down at sea,While I was fearing it, it came,Who has not found the heaven belowWho never lost, are unpreparedWho never wanted, — maddest joyWho robbed the woods,"Whose are the little beds," I asked,Wild nights! Wild nights!Will there really be a morning?Within my reach!You cannot put a fire out;You left me, sweet, two legacies, —You've seen balloons set, haven't you?Your riches taught me poverty.