Except to Heaven, she is nought.
Except for Angels — lone.
Except to some wide-wandering Bee
A flower superfluous blown.
Except for winds — provincial.
Except by Butterflies
Unnoticed as a single dew
That on the Acre lies.
The smallest Housewife in the grass,
...
The soul selects her own society,
Then shuts the door ;
On her divine majority
Obtrude no more.
Unmoved, she notes the chariot's pausing
At her low gate ;
Unmoved, an emperor is kneeling
Upon her mat.
...
Exhilaration is the Breeze
That lifts us from the Ground
And leaves us in another place
Whose statement is not found —
Returns us not, but after time
We soberly descend
A little newer for the term
Upon Enchanted Ground —
Exhilaration — is within —
There can no Outer Wine
So royally intoxicate
As that diviner Brand
The Soul achieves — Herself —
To drink — or set away
For Visitor — Or Sacrament —
'Tis not of Holiday
To stimulate a Man
Who hath the Ample Rhine
...
Expanse cannot be lost —
Not Joy, but a Decree
Is Deity —
His Scene, Infinity —
Whose rumor's Gate was shut so tight
Before my Beam was sown,
Not even a Prognostic's push
Could make a Dent thereon —
The World that thou hast opened
Shuts for thee,
But...
Expectation — is Contentment —
Gain — Satiety —
But Satiety — Conviction
Of Necessity
Of an Austere trait in Pleasure —
Good, without alarm
Is a too established Fortune —
Danger — deepens Sum —
Experience is the Angled Road
Preferred against the Mind
By — Paradox — the Mind itself —
Presuming it to lead
Quite Opposite — How Complicate
The Discipline of Man —
Compelling Him to Choose Himself
His Preappointed Pain —
Experiment escorts us last -
His pungent company
Will not allow an Axiom
An Opportunity
Experiment to me
Is every one I meet
If it contain a Kernel?
The Figure of a Nut
Presents upon a Tree
Equally plausibly,
But Meat within, is requisite
To Squirrels, and to Me.
SO, so, break off this last lamenting kiss,
Which sucks two souls, and vapours both away;
Turn, thou ghost, that way, and let me turn this,
And let ourselves benight our happiest day.
We ask none leave to love; nor will we owe
...