• 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.

  • 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 soul

  • There is no Silence in the Earth — so silent

    As that endured

    Which uttered, would discourage Nature

    And haunt the World.