Life
our share of night to bear,
Our share of morning,
Our blank in bliss to fill,
Our blank in scorning.
Here a star, and there a star,
Some lose their way.
Here a mist, and there a mist,
Afterwards—day!
A BOOK
HE ate and drank the precious words,
His spirit grew robust;
He knew no more that he...
Choice
of all the souls that stand create
I have elected one.
When sense from spirit files away,
And subterfuge is done;
When that which is and that which was
Apart, intrinsic, stand,
And this brief tragedy of flesh
Is shifted like a sand;
When figures show their royal front
And mists are carved away,—
...
The waking YEAR
A LADY red upon the hill
Her annual secret keeps;
A lady white within the field
In placid lily sleeps!
The tidy breezes with their brooms
Sweep vail, and hill, and tree!
Prithee, my pretty housewives!
Who may expected be?
The neighbors do not yet suspect!
The woods exchange a smile,—...
Too late
delayed till she had ceased to know,
Delayed till in its vest of snow
Her loving bosom lay:
An hour behind the fleeting breath,
Later by just an hour than death,—
Oh, lagging yesterday!
Could she have guessed that it would be;
Could but a crier of the glee
Have climbed the distant hill;
Had not the...
Will there really be a morning?
Is there such a thing as day?
Could I see it from the mountains
If I were as tall as they?
Has it feet like water lilies?
Has it feathers like a bird?
Is it brought from famous countries
Of which I ’ve never heard?
Oh some scholar, oh some sailor,
Oh some wise man from the skies,
...
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.
I Never saw a moor,
I never saw the sea;
Yet know I how the heather looks,
And what a wave must be.
I never spake with God,
Nor visited in heaven;
Yet certain am I of the spot
As if the chart were given.
