I asked no other thing.
No other was denied.
I offered Being for it ;
The mighty merchant smiled.
Brazil ? He twirled a button,
Without a glance my way :
"But, madam, is there nothing else
That we can show...
I tried to think a lonelier Thing
Than any I had seen —
Some Polar Expiation — An Omen in the Bone
Of Death's tremendous nearness —
I probed Retrieveless things
My Duplicate — to borrow —
A Haggard Comfort springs
From the belief that Somewhere —
Within the Clutch of...
It was a hard thing to undo this knot.
The rainbow shines, but only in the thought
Of him that looks. Yet not in that alone,
For who makes rainbows by invention?
And many standing round a waterfall
See one bow each, yet not the same to all,
But each a hand's breadth further than the next.
...
It's such a little thing to weep —
So short a thing to sigh —
And yet — by Trades — the size of these
We men and women die!
One thing of it we borrow
And promise to return —
The Booty and the Sorrow
Its Sweetness to have known —
One thing of it we covet —
The power to forget —
The Anguish of the Avarice
Defrays the Dross of it —
Opinion is a flitting thing,
But Truth, outlasts the Sun —
If then we cannot own them both —
Possess the oldest one —
The most pathetic thing I do
Is play I hear from you —
I make believe until my Heart
Almost believes it too
But when I break it with the news
You knew it was not true
I wish I had not broken it —
Goliah — so would you —
To do a magnanimous thing
And take oneself by surprise
If oneself is not in the habit of him
Is precisely the finest of Joys —
Not to do a magnanimous thing
Notwithstanding it never be known
Notwithstanding it cost us existence once
Is Rapture herself spurn —