Till opposite I spied a cheek
That bore another rose;
Just opposite, another speech
That like the drunkard goes;
A vest that, like the bodice, danced
To the immortal tune,—
Till those two troubled little clocks
Ticked softly into one.
XXX
IN lands I never saw, they say,
Immortal Alps look down,
Whose bonnets touch the firmament,
Whose sandals touch the town,—
Meek at whose everlasting feet
A myriad daisies play.
Which, sir, are you, and which am I,
Upon an August day?
XXXI
THE moon is distant from the sea,
And yet with amber hands
She leads him, docile as a boy,
Along appointed sands.
He never misses a degree;
Obedient to her eye,
He comes just so far toward the town,
Just so far goes away.
Oh, Signor, thine the amber hand,
And mine the distant sea,—
Obedient to the least command
Thine eyes impose on me.
XXXII
HE put the belt around my life,—
I heard the buckle snap,
And turned away, imperial,
My lifetime folding up
Deliberate, as a duke would do
A kingdom’s title-deed,—
Henceforth a dedicated sort,
A member of the cloud.
Yet not too far to come at call,
And do the little toils
That make the circuit of the rest,
And deal occasional smiles
To lives that stoop to notice mine
And kindly ask it in,—
Whose invitation, knew you not
For whom I must decline?
XXXIII
I held a jewel in my fingers
And went to sleep.
The day was warm, and winds were prosy;
I said: “ ’T will keep.”
I woke and chid my honest fingers,—
The gem was gone;
And now an amethyst remembrance
Is all I own.
XXXIV
WHAT if I say I shall not wait?
What if I burst the fleshly gate
And pass, escaped, to thee?
What if I file this mortal off,
See where it hurt me,-that’s enough,—
And wade in liberty?
They cannot take us any more,—
Dungeons may call, and guns implore;
Unmeaning now, to me,
As laughter was an hour ago,
Or laces, or a travelling show,
Or who died yesterday!
XXXV
PROUD of my broken heart since thou didst
break it,
Proud of the pain I did not feel till thee,
Proud of my night since thou with moons dost
slake it,
Not to partake thy passion, my humility.
XXXVI
MY worthiness is all my doubt,
His merit all my fear,
Contrasting which, my qualities
Do lowlier appear;
Lest I should insufficient prove
For his beloved need,
The chiefest apprehension
Within my loving creed.
So I, the undivine abode
Of his elect content,
Conform my soul as ’t were a church
Unto her sacrament.
XXXVII
LOVE is anterior to life,
Posterior to death,
Initial of creation, and
The exponent of breath.
XXXVIII
ONE blessing had I, than the rest
So larger to my eyes
That I stopped gauging, satisfied,
For this enchanted size.
It was the limit of my dream,
The focus of my prayer,—
A perfect, paralyzing bliss
Contented as despair.
I knew no more of want or cold,
Phantasms both become,
For this new value in the soul,
Supremest earthly sum.
The heaven below the heaven above
Obscured with ruddier hue.
Life’s latitude leant over-full;
The judgment perished, too.
Why joys so scantily disburse,
Why Paradise defer,
Why floods are served to us in bowts,—
I speculate no more.
XXXIX
WHEN roses cease to bloom, dear,
And violets are done,
When bumble-bees in solemn flight
Have passed beyond the sun,
The hand that paused to gather
Upon this summer’s day
Will idle lie, in Auburn,—
166
Then take my flower, pray!
XL
SUMMER for thee grant I may be
When summer days are flown!
Thy music still when whippoorwill
And oriole are done!
For thee to bloom, I’ll skip the tomb
And sow my blossoms o‘er!
Pray gather me, Anemone,
Thy flower forevermore!
XLI
SPLIT the lark and you’ll find the music,
Bulb after bulb, in silver rolled,
Scantily dealt to the summer morning,
Saved for your ear when lutes be old.
Loose the flood, you shall find it patent,
Gush after gush, reserved for you;
Scarlet experiment! sceptic Thomas,
167
Now, do you doubt that your bird was true?
XLII
TO lose thee, sweeter than to gain
All other hearts I knew.
’T is true the drought is destitute,
But then I had the dew!
The Caspian
168
has its realms of sand,
Its other realm of sea;
Without the sterile perquisite
169
No Caspian could be.
XLIII
POOR little heart!
Did they forget thee?
Then dinna
170
care! Then dinna care!
Proud little heart!
Did they forsake thee?
Be debonair! Be debonair!
Frail little heart!
I would not break thee:
Could‘st credit me? Could’st credit me?
Gay little heart!
Like morning glory
Thou’ll wilted be; thou’ll wilted be!
XLIV
THERE is a word
Which bears a sword
Can pierce an armed man.
It hurls its barbed syllables,—
At once is mute again.
But where it fell
The saved will tell
On patriotic day,
Some epauletted
171
brother
Gave his breath away.
Wherever runs the breathless sun,
Wherever roams the day,
There is its noiseless onset,
There is its victory!
Behold the keenest marksman!
The most accomplished shot!
Time’s sublimest target
Is a soul “forgot”!
XLV
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.
XLVI
HE fumbles at your spirit
As players at the keys
Before they drop full music on;
He stuns you by degrees,
Prepares your brittle substance
For the ethereal blow,
By fainter hammers, further heard,
Then nearer, then so slow
Your breath has time to straighten,
Your brain to bubble cool,—
Deals one imperial thunderbolt
That scalps your naked soul.
XLVII
HEART, we will forget him!
You and I, to-night!
You may forget the warmth he gave,
I will forget the light.
When you have done, pray tell me,
That I my thoughts may dim;
Haste! lest while you’re lagging,
I may remember him!
XLVIII
FATHER, I bring thee not myself,—
That were the little load;
I bring thee the imperial heart
I had not strength to hold.
The heart I cherished in my own
Till mine too heavy grew,
Yet strangest, heavier since it went,
Is it too large for you?
XLIX
WE outgrow love like other things
And put it in the drawer,
Till it an antique fashion shows
Like costumes grandsires
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wore.
L
NOT with a club the heart is broken,
Nor with a stone;
A whip, so small you could not see it,
I’ve known
To lash the magic creature
Till it fell,
Yet that whip’s name too noble
Then to tell.
Magnanimous of bird
By boy descried,
To sing unto the stone
Of which it died.
LI
MY friend must be a bird,
Because it flies!
Mortal my friend must be,
Because it dies!
Barbs has it, like a bee.
Ah, curious friend,
Thou puzzlest me!
LII
HE touched me, so I live to know
That such a day, permitted so,
I groped upon his breast.
It was a boundless place to me,
And silenced, as the awful sea
Puts minor streams to rest.
And now, I’m different from before,
As if I breathed superior air,
Or brushed a royal gown;
My feet, too, that had wandered so,
My gypsy face transfigured now
To tenderer renown.
LIII
LET me not mar that perfect dream
By an auroral
173
stain,
But so adjust my daily night
That it will come again.
LIV
I live with him, I see his face;
I go no more away
For visitor, or sundown;
Death’s single privacy,
The only one forestalling mine,
And that by right that he
Presents a claim invisible,
No wedlock granted me.
I live with him, I hear his voice,
I stand alive to-day
To witness to the certainty
Of immortality
Taught me by Time,—the lower way,
Conviction every day,—
That life like this is endless,
Be judgment what it may.
LV
I envy seas whereon he rides,
I envy spokes of wheels
Of chariots that him convey,
I envy speechless hills
That gaze upon his journey;
How easy all can see
What is forbidden utterly
As heaven, unto me!
I envy nests of sparrows
That dot his distant eaves,
The wealthy fly upon his pane,
The happy, happy leaves
That just abroad his window
Have summer’s leave to be,
The earrings of Pizarro
174
Could not obtain for me.
I envy light that wakes him,
And bells that boldly ring
To tell him it is noon abroad,—
Myself his noon could bring,
Yet interdict my blossom
And abrogate my bee,
Lest noon in everlasting night
Drop Gabriel
175
and me.
LVI
A solemn thing it was, I said,
A woman white
176
to be,
And wear, if God should count me fit,
Her hallowed mystery.
A timid thing to drop a life
Into the purple well,
Too plummetless that it come back
Eternity until.
LVII
TITLE divine is mine
The Wife without
The Sign.
Acute degree
Conferred on me—
Empress of Calvary.
Royal all but the
Crown—
Betrothed, without the swoon
God gives us women
When two hold
Garnet to garnet,
Gold to gold—
Born—Bridalled—
Shrouded—
In a day
Tri-Victory—
“My Husband”
Women say
Stroking the melody,
Is this the way?
PART FOUR
TIME AND ETERNITY
I
ONE dignity delays for all,
One mitred
177
afternoon.
None can avoid this purple,
None evade this crown.
Coach it insures, and footmen,
Chamber and state and throng;
Bells, also, in the village,
As we ride grand along.
What dignified attendants,
What service when we pause!
How loyally at parting
Their hundred hats they raise!
How pomp surpassing ermine,
178
When simple you and I
Present our meek escutcheon,
179
And claim the rank to die!
II
DELAYED till she had ceased to know,
Delayed till in its vest of snow
Her loving bosom lay.
An hour behind the fleeting breath,
Later by just an hour than death,—
Oh, lagging yesterday!
Could she have guessed that it would be;
Could but a crier of the glee
Have climbed the distant hill;
Had not the bliss so slow a pace,—
Who knows but this surrendered face
Were undefeated still?
Oh, if there may departing be
Any forgot by victory
In her imperial round,
Show them this meek apparelled thing,
That could not stop to be a king,
Doubtful if it be crowned!
III
DEPARTED to the judgment,
A mighty afternoon;
Great clouds like ushers leaning,
Creation looking on.
The flesh surrendered, cancelled,
The bodiless begun;
Two worlds, like audiences, disperse
And leave the soul alone.
IV
SAFE in their alabaster chambers,
Untouched by morning and untouched by noon,
Sleep the meek members of the resurrection,
Rafter of satin, and roof of stone.
Light laughs the breeze in her castle of sunshine;
Babbles the bee in a stolid ear;
Pipe the sweet birds in ignorant cadence,—
Ah, what sagacity perished here!
Grand go the years in the crescent above them;
Worlds scoop their arcs, and firmaments row,
Diadems drop and Doges
180
surrender,
Soundless as dots on a disk of snow.
V
ON this long storm the rainbow rose,
On this late morn the sun;
The clouds, like listless elephants,
Horizons straggled down.
The birds rose smiling in their nests,
The gales indeed were done;
Alas! how heedless were the eyes
On whom the summer shone!
The quiet nonchalance of death
No daybreak can bestir;
The slow archangel’s syllables
Must awaken her.
VI
MY cocoon tightens, colors tease,
I’m feeling for the air;
A dim capacity for wings
Degrades the dress I wear.
A power of butterfly must be
The aptitude to fly,
Meadows of majesty concedes
And easy sweeps of sky.
So I must baffle at the hint
And cipher
181
at the sign,
And make much blunder, if at last
I take the clew
182
divine.