I thought that nature was enough
Till Human nature came
But that the other did absorb
As Parallax a Flame —
Of Human nature just aware
There added the Divine
Brief struggle for capacity
The power to contain
Is always as the contents
But give a Giant room...
-
-
I thought the Train would never come —
How slow the whistle sang —
I don't believe a peevish Bird
So whimpered for the Spring —
I taught my Heart a hundred times
Precisely what to say —
Provoking Lover, when you came
Its Treatise flew away
To hide my strategy too late
... -
If wrecked upon the Shoal of Thought
How is it with the Sea?
The only Vessel that is shunned
Is safe — Simplicity — -
It is an honorable Thought
And make One lift One's Hat
As One met sudden Gentlefolk
Upon a daily Street
That We've immortal Place
Though Pyramids decay
And Kingdoms, like the Orchard
Flit Russetly away -
The right to perish might be thought
An undisputed right —
Attempt it, and the Universe
Upon the opposite
Will concentrate its officers —
You cannot even die
But nature and mankind must pause
To pay you scrutiny. -
The things we thought that we should do
We other things have done
But those peculiar industries
Have never been begun —
The Lands we thought that we should seek
When large enough to run
By Speculation ceded
To Speculation's Son —
The Heaven, in which we hoped to pause... -
The thought beneath so slight a film —
Is more distinctly seen —
As laces just reveal the surge —
Or mists — the Apennine -
"Even in our ashes live their wonted fires."
Bury me by the sea,
When on my heart the hand of Death is press'd.
If the soul lingers ere she join the bless'd,
And haunts awhile her clay,
Then 'mid the forest shades I would... -
"Thought I, the fallen flowers
Are returning to their branch;
But lo! they were butterflies." -
Alas! my thoughts, how faint they rise,
Their pinions clogg'd with dirt;
They cannot gain the distant skies,
But gravitate to earth.
No angel...