There is a pain — so utter —
It swallows substance up —
Then covers the Abyss with Trance —
So Memory can step
Around — across — upon it —
As one within a Swoon —
Goes safely — where an open eye —
Would drop Him — Bone by Bone.
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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 that's — Behind the Grave — -
There is a solitude of space
A solitude of sea
A solitude of death, but these
Society shall be
Compared with that profounder site
That polar privacy
A soul admitted to itself —
Finite infinity. -
There is a word
Which bears a sword
Can pierce an armed man -
It hurls it's barbed syllables
And is mute again -
But where it fell
The saved will tell
On patriotic day,
Some epauletted Brother
Gave his breath away.
Wherever runs the breathless sun -...There is a Zone whose even Years
No Solstice interrupt —
Whose Sun constructs perpetual Noon
Whose perfect Seasons wait —
Whose Summer set in Summer, till
The Centuries of June
And Centuries of August cease
And Consciousness — is Noon.There is an arid Pleasure —
As different from Joy —
As Frost is different from Dew —
Like element — are they —
Yet one — rejoices Flowers —
And one — the Flowers abhor —
The finest Honey — curdled —
Is worthless — to the Bee —There is another Loneliness
That many die without —
Not want of friend occasions it
Or circumstances of Lot
But nature, sometimes, sometimes thought
And whoso it befall
Is richer than could be revealed
By mortal numeral —there is another sky
ever serene and fair,
and there is another sunshine,
tho' it be darkness there -
never mind faded forests, Austin,
never mind silent fields -
here is a little forest
whose leaf is ever green -
here is a brighter garden -
where...There is no Frigate like a Book
To take us Lands away
Nor any Coursers like a Page
Of prancing Poetry—
This Traverse may the poorest take
Without opress of Toll—
How frugal is the Chariot
That bears the Human soulThere is no Silence in the Earth — so silent
As that endured
Which uttered, would discourage Nature
And haunt the World.