I would not paint — a picture —
I'd rather be the One
Its bright impossibility
To dwell — delicious — on —
And wonder how the fingers feel
Whose rare — celestial — stir —
Evokes so sweet a Torment —
Such sumptuous — Despair —
I would not talk, like Cornets —
I'd...
I'll send the feather from my Hat!
Who knows — but at the sight of that
My Sovereign will relent?
As trinket — worn by faded Child —
Confronting eyes long — comforted —
Blisters the Adamant!
I'm "wife" — I've finished that —
That other state —
I'm Czar — I'm "Woman" now —
It's safer so —
How odd the Girl's life looks
Behind this soft Eclipse —
I think that Earth feels so
To folks in Heaven — now —
This being comfort — then
That other kind — was...
I'm ceded — I've stopped being Theirs —
The name They dropped upon my face
With water, in the country church
Is finished using, now,
And They can put it with my Dolls,
My childhood, and the string of spools,
I've finished threading — too —
Baptized, before, without the choice,
...
I've dropped my Brain — My Soul is numb —
The Veins that used to run
Stop palsied — 'tis Paralysis
Done perfecter on stone
Vitality is Carved and cool.
My nerve in Marble lies —
A Breathing Woman
Yesterday — Endowed with Paradise.
Not dumb — I had a sort that moved —...
I've got an arrow here.
Loving the hand that sent it
I the dart revere.
Fell, they will say, in "skirmish"!
Vanquished, my soul will know
By but a simple arrow
Sped by an archer's bow.
I've heard an Organ talk, sometimes
In a Cathedral Aisle,
And understood no word it said —
Yet held my breath, the while —
And risen up — and gone away,
A more Berdardine Girl —
Yet — know not what was done to me
In that old Chapel Aisle.
I've known a Heaven, like a Tent —
To wrap its shining Yards —
Pluck up its stakes, and disappear —
Without the sound of Boards
Or Rip of Nail — Or Carpenter —
But just the miles of Stare —
That signalize a Show's Retreat —
In North America —
No Trace — no Figment of the...
I've none to tell me to but Thee
So when Thou failest, nobody.
It was a little tie —
It just held Two, nor those it held
Since Somewhere thy sweet Face has spilled
Beyond my Boundary —
If things were opposite — and Me
And Me it were — that ebbed from Thee
On some unanswering...
I've seen a dying eye
Run round and round a room
In search of something, as it seemed,
Then cloudier become ;
And then, obscure with fog,
And then be soldered down,
Without disclosing what it be,
'T were blessed...