Before you thought of Spring
Except as a Surmise
You see — God bless his suddenness —
A Fellow in the Skies
Of independent Hues
A little weather worn
Inspiriting habiliments
Of Indigo and Brown —
With specimens of Song
As if for you to choose —
Discretion...
I saw a Moslem work upon his shroud alone,
With earnest care, even as the silk-worms weave their own.
In his illness it always near his bedside lay,
And he wrote Koran-verses on it night and day.
When with that sacred script it was filled from side to side,
He wrapt it round his body, and in calmness...
They christened my brother of old--
And a saintly name he bears--
They gave him his place to hold
At the head of the belfry-stairs,
Where the minister-towers stand
And the breeding kestrels cry.
Would I change with my brother a league inland?
(Shoal! 'Ware shoal!) Not I!...
Rattle of block and sheet--
"Ready about-stand by!"
Shall I ask them a fee ere they fetch the quay?
(Shoal! 'Ware shoal!) Not I!
I dip and I surge and I swing
In the rip of the racing tide,
By the gates of doom I sing,
On the horns of death I ride.
A ship-...
At the careless end of night
I thrill to the nearing screw,
I turn to the nearing light,
And I call to the drowsy crew;
And the mud boils foul and blue
As the blind bow backs away.
Do they give me their thanks if she clear the banks?
(Shoal! 'Ware shoal!) Not they.
...
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.
You left me, sweet, two legacies, —
A legacy of love
A Heavenly Father would content,
Had He the offer of ;
You left me boundaries of pain
Capacious as the sea,
Between eternity and time,
Your consciousness...
Bereaved of all, I went abroad —
No less bereaved was I
Upon a New Peninsula —
The Grave preceded me —
Obtained my Lodgings, ere myself —
And when I sought my Bed —
The Grave it was reposed upon
The Pillow for my Head —
I waked to find it first awake —
I...
Bereavement in their death to feel
Whom We have never seen —
A Vital Kinsmanship import
Our Soul and theirs — between —
For Stranger — Strangers do not mourn —
There be Immortal friends
Whom Death see first — 'tis news of this
That paralyze Ourselves —
Who, vital only...