A Pike County View of Special Providence
I DON’T go much on religion,
I never ain’t had no show;
But I ’ve got a middlin’ tight grip, sir,
On the handful o’ things I know.
I don’t pan out on the prophets
And free-will, and that sort o’ thing,—
But believe in God and the angels,
Ever sence one night last spring.
I...
As if some little Arctic flower
Upon the polar hem —
Went wandering down the Latitudes
Until it puzzled came
To continents of summer —
To firmaments of sun —
To strange, bright crowds of flowers —
And birds, of foreign tongue!
I say, As if this little flower
To Eden,...
Behold this little Bane —
The Boon of all alive —
As common as it is unknown
The name of it is Love —
To lack of it is Woe —
To own of it is Wound —
Not elsewhere — if in Paradise
Its Tantamount be found —
But little Carmine hath her face —
Of Emerald scant — her Gown —
Her Beauty — is the love she doth —
Itself — exhibit — Mine —
Give little Anguish —
Lives will fret —
Give Avalanches —
And they'll slant —
Straighten — look cautious for their Breath —
But make no syllable — like Death —
Who only shows the Marble Disc —
Sublimer sort — than Speech —
God made a little Gentian —
It tried — to be a Rose —
And failed — and all the Summer laughed —
But just before the Snows
There rose a Purple Creature —
That ravished all the Hill —
And Summer hid her Forehead —
And Mockery — was still —
The Frosts were her condition...
The Grass so little has to do —
A Sphere of simple Green —
With only Butterflies to brood
And Bees to entertain —
And stir all day to pretty Tunes
The Breezes fetch along —
And hold the Sunshine in its lap
And bow to everything —
And thread...
Have you got a brook in your little heart,
Where bashful flowers blow,
And blushing birds go down to drink,
And shadows tremble so ?
And nobody knows, so still it flows,
That any brook is there ;
And yet your little...
Her little Parasol to lift
And once to let it down
Her whole Responsibility —
To imitate be Mine.
A Summer further I must wear,
Content if Nature's Drawer
Present me from sepulchral Crease
As blemishless, as Her.
His little Hearse like Figure
Unto itself a Dirge
To a delusive Lilac
The vanity divulge
Of Industry and Morals
And every righteous thing
For the divine Perdition
Of Idleness and Spring —
