Thou foolish blossom, all untimely blown!
Poor jest of summer, come when woods are chill!
Thy sister buds, in June’s warm redness grown,
That lit with laughter all the upland hill,
Have traceless passed; save on each thornëd stem
Red drops tell how their hearts, in dying, bled.
Theirs was the noon’s rich languor, and for them
...
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.
E’en such is time; that takes in trust
Our youth, our joys, our all we have,
And pays us but with earth and dust;
Who in the dark and silent grave,
When we have wandered all our ways,
Shuts up the story of our days:
But from this earth, this grave, this dust,
My God shall raise me up, I trust.
He found my Being — set it up —
Adjusted it to place —
Then carved his name — upon it —
And bade it to the East
Be faithful — in his absence —
And he would come again —
With Equipage of Amber —
That time — to take it Home —
I found the words to every thought
I ever had — but One —
And that — defies me —
As a Hand did try to chalk the Sun
To Races — nurtured in the Dark —
How would your own — begin?
Can Blaze be shown in Cochineal —
Or Noon — in Mazarin?
I've met thee, whom I dared not hope to meet,
Save in the enchanted land of my day-dreams:
Yes, in this common world, this waking state,
Thy living presence on my vision beams --
Life's dream embodied in reality,
And in thine eyes I read indifference to me!...
Who has not found the Heaven — below —
Will fail of it above —
For Angels rent the House next ours,
Wherever we remove —
