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.