Thine is the stillest night,
Thine the securest fold;
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Too near thou art for seeking thee,
Too tender to be told.
XLII
GOING to heaven!
I don’t know when,
Pray do not ask me how,—
Indeed, I’m too astonished
To think of answering you!
Going to heaven!—
How dim it sounds!
And yet it will be done
As sure as flocks go home at night
Unto the shepherd’s arm!
Perhaps you’re going too!
Who knows?
If you should get there first,
Save just a little place for me
Close to the two I lost!
The smallest “robe” will fit me,
And just a bit of “crown”;
For you know we do not mind our dress
When we are going home.
I’m glad I don’t believe it,
For it would stop my breath,
And I’d like to look a little more
At such a curious earth!
I am glad they did believe it
Whom I have never found
Since the mighty autumn afternoon
I left them in the ground.
XLIII
AT least to pray is left, is left.
O Jesus! in the air
I know not which thy chamber is,—
I’m knocking everywhere.
Thou stirrest earthquake in the South,
And maelstrom in the sea;
Say, Jesus Christ of Nazareth,
Hast thou no arm for me?
XLIV
STEP lightly on this narrow spot!
The broadest land that grows
Is not so ample as the breast
These emerald seams enclose.
Step lofty; for this name is told
As far as cannon dwell,
Or flag subsist, or fame export
Her deathless syllable.
XLV
MORNS like these we parted;
Noons like these she rose,
Fluttering first, then firmer,
To her fair repose.
Never did she lisp it,
And ’t was not for me;
She was mute from transport,
I, from agony!
Till the evening, nearing,
One the shutters drew—
Quick! a sharper rustling!
And this linnet
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flew!
XLVI
A death-blow is a life-blow to some
Who, till they died, did not alive become;
Who, had they lived, had died, but when
They died, vitality begun.
XLVII
I read my sentence steadily,
Reviewed it with my eyes,
To see that I made no mistake
In its extremest clause,—
The date, and manner of the shame;
And then the pious form
That “God have mercy”
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on the soul
The jury voted him.
I made my soul familiar
With her extremity,
That at the last it should not be
A novel agony,
But she and Death, acquainted,
Meet tranquilly as friends,
Salute and pass without a hint—
And there the matter ends.
XLVIII
I have not told my garden yet,
Lest that should conquer me;
I have not quite the strength now
To break it to the bee.
I will not name it in the street,
For shops would stare, that I,
So shy, so very ignorant,
Should have the face to die.
The hillsides must not know it,
Where I have rambled so,
Nor tell the loving forests
The day that I shall go,
Nor lisp it at the table,
Nor heedless by the way
Hint that within the riddle
One will walk to-day!
XLIX
THEY dropped like flakes, they dropped like stars,
Like petals from a rose,
When suddenly across the June
A wind with fingers goes.
They perished in the seamless grass,—
No eye could find the place;
But God on his repealless
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list
Can summon every face.
L
THE only ghost I ever saw
Was dressed in mechlin,
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—so;
He wore no sandal on his foot,
And stepped like flakes of snow.
His gait was soundless, like the bird,
But rapid, like the roe;
His fashions quaint, mosaic,
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Or, haply, mistletoe.
His conversation seldom,
His laughter like the breeze
That dies away in dimples
Among the pensive trees.
Our interview was transient,—
Of me, himself was shy;
And God forbid I look behind
Since that appalling day!
LI
SOME, too fragile for winter winds,
The thoughtful grave encloses,—
Tenderly tucking them in from frost
Before their feet are cold.
Never the treasures in her nest
The cautious grave exposes,
Building where schoolboy dare not look
And sportsman is not bold.
This covert
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have all the children
Early aged, and often cold,—
Sparrows unnoticed by the Father;
Lambs for whom time had not a fold.
LII
As by the dead we love to sit,
Become so wondrous dear,
As for the lost we grapple,
Though all the rest are here,—
In broken mathematics
We estimate our prize,
Vast, in its fading ratio,
To our penurious eyes!
LIII
DEATH sets a thing significant
The eye had hurried by,
Except a perished creature
Entreat us tenderly
To ponder little workmanships
In crayon or in wool,
With “This was last her fingers did,”
Industrious until
The thimble weighed too heavy,
The stitches stopped themselves,
And then ’t was put among the dust
Upon the closet shelves.
A book I have, a friend gave,
Whose pencil, here and there,
Had notched the place that pleased him,—
At rest his fingers are.
Now, when I read, I read not,
For interrupting tears
Obliterate the etchings
Too costly for repairs.
LIV
I went to heaven,—
’T was a small town,
Lit with a ruby,
Lathed
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with down.
Stiller than the fields
At the full dew,
Beautiful as pictures
No man drew.
People like the moth,
Of mechlin, frames,
Duties of gossamer,
And eider
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names.
Almost contented
I could be
‘Mong such unique
Society.
LV
THEIR height in heaven comforts not,
Their glory nought to me;
’T was best imperfect, as it was;
I’m finite, I can’t see.
The house of supposition,
The glimmering frontier
That skirts the acres of perhaps,
To me shows insecure.
The wealth I had contented me;
If ’t was a meaner size,
Then I had counted it until
It pleased my narrow eyes
Better than larger values,
However true their show;
This timid life of evidence
Keeps pleading, “I don’t know.”
LVI
THERE is a shame of nobleness
Confronting sudden pelf,—
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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 this involves the grave.
LVII
A triumph may be of several kinds.
There’s triumph in the room
When that old imperator,
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Death,
By faith is overcome.
There’s triumph of the finer mind
When truth, affronted long,
Advances calm to her supreme,
Her God her only throng.
A triumph when temptation’s bribe
Is slowly handed back,
One eye upon the heaven renounced
And one upon the rack.
Severer triumph, by himself
Experienced, who can pass
Acquitted from that naked bar,
Jehovah’s countenance!
LVIII
POMPLESS no life can pass away;
The lowliest career
To the same pageant wends
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its way
As that exalted here.
How cordial is the mystery!
The hospitable pall
A “this way” beckons spaciously,—
A miracle for all!
LIX
I noticed people disappeared,
When but a little child,—
Supposed they visited remote,
Or settled regions wild.
Now know I they both visited
And settled regions wild,
But did because they died,—a fact
Withheld the little child!
LX
I had no cause to be awake,
My best was gone to sleep,
And morn a new politeness took
And failed to wake them up,
But called the others clear,
And passed their curtains by.
Sweet morning, when I over-sleep,
Knock, recollect, for me!
I looked at sunrise once,
And then I looked at them,
And wishfulness in me arose
For circumstance the same.
’T was such an ample peace,
It could not hold a sigh,—
’T was Sabbath with the bells divorced,
’T was sunset all the day.
So choosing but a gown
And taking but a prayer,
The only raiment I should need,
I struggled, and was there.
LXI
IF anybody’s friend be dead,
It’s sharpest of the theme
The thinking how they walked alive,
At such and such a time.
Their costume, of a Sunday,
Some manner of the hair,—
A prank nobody knew but them,
Lost, in the sepulchre.
How warm they were on such a day:
You almost feel the date,
So short way off it seems; and now,
They’re centuries from that.
How pleased they were at what you said;
You try to touch the smile,
And dip your fingers in the frost:
When was it, can you tell,
You asked the company to tea,
Acquaintance, just a few,
And chatted close with this grand thing
That don’t remember you?
Past bows and invitations,
Past interview, and vow,
Past what ourselves can estimate,—
That makes the quick of woe!
LXII
OUR journey had advanced;
Our feet were almost come
To that odd fork in Being’s road,
Eternity by term.
Our pace took sudden awe,
Our feet reluctant led.
Before were cities, but between,
The forest of the dead.
Retreat was out of hope,—
Behind, a sealed route,
Eternity’s white flag before,
And God at every gate.
LXIII
AMPLE make this bed.
Make this bed with awe;
In it wait till judgment break
Excellent and fair.
Be its mattress straight,
Be its pillow round;
Let no sunrise’ yellow noise
Interrupt this ground.
LXIV
ON such a night, or such a night,
Would anybody care
If such a little figure
Slipped quiet from its chair,
So quiet, oh, how quiet!
That nobody might know
But that the little figure
Rocked softer, to and fro?
On such a dawn, or such a dawn,
Would anybody sigh
That such a little figure
Too sound asleep did lie
For chanticleer to wake it,—
Or stirring house below,
Or giddy bird in orchard,
Or early task to do?
There was a little figure plump
For every little knoll,
Busy needles, and spools of thread,
And trudging feet from school.
Playmates, and holidays, and nuts,
And visions vast and small.
Strange that the feet so precious charged
Should reach so small a goal!
LXV
ESSENTIAL oils are wrung:
The attar from the rose
Is not expressed by suns alone,
It is the gift of screws.
The general rose decays;
But this, in lady’s drawer,
Makes summer when the lady lies
In ceaseless rosemary.
LXVI
I lived on dread; to those who know
The stimulus there is
In danger, other impetus
Is numb and vital-less.
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As ’t were a spur upon the soul,
A fear will urge it where
To go without the spectre’s aid
Were challenging despair.
LXVII
IF I should die,
And you should live,
And time should gurgle on,
And morn should beam,
And noon should burn,
As it has usual done;
If birds should build as early,
And bees as bustling go,—
One might depart at option
From enterprise below!
’T is sweet to know that stocks will stand
When we with daisies lie,
That commerce will continue,
And trades as briskly fly.
It makes the parting tranquil
And keeps the soul serene,
That gentlemen so sprightly
Conduct the pleasing scene!
LXVIII
HER final summer was it,
And vet we guessed it not;
If tenderer industriousness
Pervaded her, we thought
A further force of life
Developed from within,—
When Death lit all the shortness up,
And made the hurry plain.
We wondered at our blindness,—
When nothing was to see
But her Carrara
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guide-post,—
At our stupidity,
When, duller than our dulness,
The busy darling lay,
So busy was she, finishing,
So leisurely were we!
LXIX
ONE need not be a chamber to be haunted,
One need not be a house;
The brain has corridors surpassing
Material place.
Far safer, of a midnight meeting
External ghost,
Than an interior confronting
That whiter host.
Far safer through an Abbey gallop,
The stones achase,
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Than, moonless, one’s own self encounter
In lonesome place.
Ourself, behind ourself concealed,
Should startle most;
Assassin, hid in our apartment,
Be horror’s least.
The prudent carries a revolver,
He bolts the door,
O‘erlooking a superior spectre
More near.
LXX
SHE died,—this was the way she died;
And when her breath was done,
Took up her simple wardrobe
And started for the sun.
Her little figure at the gate
The angels must have spied,
Since I could never find her
Upon the mortal side.