We know not what it is, dear, this sleep so deep and still;
The folded hands, the awful calm, the cheek so pale and chill;
The lids that will not lift again, though we may call and call;
The strange, white solitude of peace that settles over all.
We know not what it means, dear, this desolate heart-pain;
This dread to take our daily way, and walk in it...
Once before, this self-same air
Passed me, though I know not where.
Strange! how very like it came!
Touch and fragrance were the same;
Sound of mingled voices, too,
With a light laugh ringing through;
Some one moving,—here or there,—
Some one passing up the stair,
Some one calling from without,
Or a far-off childish shout...
They wait all day unseen by us, unfelt;
Patient they bide behind the day’s full glare;
And we, who watched the dawn when they were there,
Thought we had seen them in the daylight melt,
While the slow sun upon the earth-line knelt.
Because the teeming sky seemed void and bare,
When we explored it through the dazzled air,
We had no thought...
We took it to the woods, we two,
The book well worn and brown,
To read his words where stirring leaves
Rained their soft shadows down.
Yet as we sat and breathed the scene,
We opened not a page;
Enough that he was with us there,
Our silent, friendly sage!
His fresh “Rhodora” bloomed again;
His “Humble-bee”...
Swift o’er the sunny grass,
I saw a shadow pass
With subtle charm,—
So quick, so full of life,
With thrilling joy so rife,
I started lest, unknown,
My step—ere it was flown—
Had done it harm.
Why look up to the blue?
The bird was gone, I knew,
Far out of sight.
Steady and keen of wing,...
Whenever a snowflake leaves the sky,
It turns and turns to say “Good-by!
Good-by, dear clouds, so cool and gray!”
Then lightly travels on its way.
And when a snowflake finds a tree,
“Good-day!” it says—“Good-day to thee!
Thou art so bare and lonely, dear,
I ’ll rest and call my comrades here.”
But when a snowflake, brave and...
[“In the middle of the room, in its white coffin, lay the dead child, the nephew of the poet. Near it, in a great chair, sat Walt Whitman, surrounded by little ones, and holding a beautiful little girl on his lap. She looked wonderingly at the spectacle of death, and then inquiringly into the old man’s face. ‘You don’t know what it is, do you, my dear?’ said he, and added, ‘We don’t, either...
Whenever a snow-flake leaves the sky,
It turns and turns to say “Good-bye!
Good-bye, dear clouds, so cool and gray!”
Then lightly travels on its way.
And when a snow-flake finds a tree,
“Good-day!” it says—“Good-day to thee!
Thou art so bare, and lonely, dear,
I ’ll rest and call my comrades here.”
But when a snow-flake, brave...
Once before, this self-same air
Passed me, though I know not where.
Strange! how very like it came!
Touch and fragrance were the same;
Sound of mingled voices, too,
With a light laugh ringing through;
Some one moving,—here or there,—
Some one passing up the stair,
Some one calling from without,
Or a far-off childish shout...
