If my Bark sink
'Tis to another sea —
Mortality's Ground Floor
Is Immortality —
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If Nature smiles — the Mother must
I'm sure, at many a whim
Of Her eccentric Family —
Is She so much to blame? -
If pain for peace prepares
Lo, what "Augustan" years
Our feet await!
If springs from winter rise,
Can the Anemones
Be reckoned up?
If night stands fast — then noon
To gird us for the sun,
What gaze!
When from a thousand skies
On our...If recollecting is forgetting,
then I remember yet.
And if forgetting, recollecting,
how near I shall forget.
And if to miss, were merry,
and to mourn, were gay,
how very blithe the fingers
that gather this todayIf she had been the Mistletoe
And I had been the Rose —
How gay upon your table
My velvet life to close —
Since I am of the Druid,
And she is of the dew —
I'll deck Tradition's buttonhole —
And send the Rose to you.If the foolish, call them "flowers" —
Need the wiser, tell?
If the Savants "Classify" them
It is just as well!
Those who read the "Revelations"
Must not criticize
Those who read the same Edition —
With beclouded Eyes!
Could we stand with that Old "Moses" —
...If this is "fading"
Oh let me immediately "fade"!
If this is "dying"
Bury me, in such a shroud of red!
If this is "sleep,"
On such a night
How proud to shut the eye!
Good Evening, gentle Fellow men!
Peacock presumes to die!If those I loved were lost
The Crier's voice would tell me —
If those I loved were found
The bells of Ghent would ring —
Did those I loved repose
The Daisy would impel me.
Philip — when bewildered
Bore his riddle in!If What we could — were what we would —
Criterion — be small —
It is the Ultimate of Talk —
The Impotence to Tell —If wrecked upon the Shoal of Thought
How is it with the Sea?
The only Vessel that is shunned
Is safe — Simplicity —