• There is a Languor of the Life

    More imminent than Pain —

    'Tis Pain's Successor — When the Soul

    Has suffered all it can —


    A Drowsiness — diffuses —

    A Dimness like a Fog

    Envelops Consciousness —

    As Mists — obliterate a Crag.


    The Surgeon — does not blanch — at pain
    ...

  • There is a morn by men unseen —

    Whose maids upon remoter green

    Keep their Seraphic May —

    And all day long, with dance and game,

    And gambol I may never name —

    Employ their holiday.


    Here to light measure, move the feet

    Which walk no more the village street —

    Nor by the wood...

  • There is a pain — so utter —

    It swallows substance up —

    Then covers the Abyss with Trance —

    So Memory can step

    Around — across — upon it —

    As one within a Swoon —

    Goes safely — where an open eye —

    Would drop Him — Bone by Bone.

  • There is a Shame of Nobleness —

    Confronting Sudden Pelf —

    A finer Shame of Ecstasy —

    Convicted of Itself —


    A best Disgrace — a Brave Man feels —

    Acknowledged — of the Brave —

    One More — "Ye Blessed" — to be told —

    But that's — Behind the Grave —

  • There is a solitude of space

    A solitude of sea

    A solitude of death, but these

    Society shall be

    Compared with that profounder site

    That polar privacy

    A soul admitted to itself —

    Finite infinity.

  • There is an arid Pleasure —

    As different from Joy —

    As Frost is different from Dew —

    Like element — are they —


    Yet one — rejoices Flowers —

    And one — the Flowers abhor —

    The finest Honey — curdled —

    Is worthless — to the Bee —

  • There is no Frigate like a Book

    To take us Lands away

    Nor any Coursers like a Page

    Of prancing Poetry—

    This Traverse may the poorest take

    Without opress of Toll—

    How frugal is the Chariot

    That bears the Human soul

  • There is no Silence in the Earth — so silent

    As that endured

    Which uttered, would discourage Nature

    And haunt the World.

  •  * * *


     There was a young lady in white,

     Who looked out at the depths of the night;

     But the birds of the air,

     Filled her heart with despair,

     And oppressed that young lady in white.

     

     

     <Publ. 1872>



  •  * * *


    There was a Young Lady of Dorking,

    Who bought a large bonnet for walking;

           But its color and size

           So bedazzled her eyes,

    That she very soon went back to Dorking.

    <Publ. 1846>