• The bustle in a house

    The morning after death

    Is solemnest of industries

    Enacted upon earth, —


    The sweeping up the heart,

    And putting love away

    We shall not want to use again

    Until eternity.

  • The Butterfly in honored Dust

    Assuredly will lie

    But none will pass the Catacomb

    So chastened as the Fly —

  • The butterfly obtains

    But little sympathy

    Though favorably mentioned

    In Entomology —


    Because he travels freely

    And wears a proper coat

    The circumspect are certain

    That he is dissolute —


    Had he the homely scutcheon

    Of modest Industry

    'Twere...

  • The Butterfly upon the Sky,

    That doesn't know its Name

    And hasn't any tax to pay

    And hasn't any Home

    Is just as high as you and I,

    And higher, I believe,

    So soar away and never sigh

    And that's the way to grieve —

  • The butterfly's assumption-gown,

    In chrysoprase apartments hung,

      This afternoon put on.


    How condescending to descend,

    And be of buttercups the friend

      In a New England town !

  • The Butterfly's Numidian Gown

    With spots of Burnish roasted on

    Is proof against the Sun

    Yet prone to shut its spotted Fan

    And panting on a Clover lean

    As if it were undone —

  • Go, lovely boy! to yonder tow'r

    The fane of Janus, ruthless King!

    And shut, O! shut the brazen door,

    And here the keys in triumph bring.


    Full many a tender heart hath bled,

    Its joys in Belgia's soil entomb'd:

    Which thou to Hymen's smiling bed,

    And length of sweetest hours had...

  •    THRICE happy cat, if, in thy A— House,

    Thou luckily shouldst find a half-starv'd mouse;

    The mice, that only for his music stay,

    Are proofs that Orpheus did not better play.

    Thou too, if danger could alarm thy fears,

    Hast to this Orpheus strangely tied thy ears:

    For oh! the fatal...

  • We paused before a house that seemed

    A swelling of the ground ;

    The roof was scarcely visible,

    The cornice but a mound.


    Since then 't is centuries ;  but each

    Feels shorter than the day

    I first surmised the horses' heads

    Were toward eternity.

  • The Chemical conviction

    That Nought be lost

    Enable in Disaster

    My fractured Trust —


    The Faces of the Atoms

    If I shall see

    How more the Finished Creatures

    Departed me!