From far away, from far away,
It journeyed swiftly night and day,
It rested not. With cruel haste
It crossed the ocean’s trackless waste.
It swerved no moment in its flight
Through mist and storm and deepest night.
No mercy prompted it to stay,
No pity moved it to delay.
O’er seas that rose up to detain,
Silent as Death it...
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I ’m sitting alone by the fire,
Dressed just as I came from the dance,
In a robe even you would admire,—
It cost a cool thousand in France;
I ’m bediamonded out of all reason,
My hair is done up in a cue:
In short, sir, “the belle of the season”
Is wasting an hour on you.A dozen engagements I ’ve broken;
I left in the... -
Belshazzar had a letter, —
He never had but one ;
Belshazzar's correspondent
Concluded and begun
In that immortal copy
The conscience of us all
Can read without its glasses
On revelation's wall. -
By a flower — By a letter —
By a nimble love —
If I weld the Rivet faster —
Final fast — above —
Never mind my breathless Anvil!
Never mind Repose!
Never mind the sooty faces
Tugging at the Forge! -
Going to Him! Happy letter!
Tell Him —
Tell Him the page I didn't write —
Tell Him — I only said the Syntax —
And left the Verb and the pronoun out —
Tell Him just how the fingers hurried —
Then — how they waded — slow — slow —
And then you wished you had eyes in your pages —
So...This is my letter to the World
That never wrote to Me —
The simple News that Nature told —
With tender Majesty
Her Message is committed
To Hands I cannot see —
For love of Her — Sweet — countrymen —
Judge tenderly — of Me