LXXI
WAIT till the majesty of Death
Invests so mean a brow!
Almost a powdered footman
Might dare to touch it now!
Wait till in everlasting robes
This democrat is dressed,
Then prate about “preferment”
And “station” and the rest!
Around this quiet courtier
Obsequious angels wait!
Full royal is his retinue,
Full purple is his state!
A lord might dare to lift the hat
To such a modest clay,
Since that my Lord, “the Lord of lords”
Receives unblushingly!
LXXII
WENT up a year this evening!
I recollect it well!
Amid no bells nor bravos
The bystanders will tell!
Cheerful, as to the village,
Tranquil, as to repose,
Chastened, as to the chapel,
This humble tourist rose.
Did not talk of returning,
Alluded to no time
When, were the gales propitious,
We might look for him;
Was grateful for the roses
In life’s diverse bouquet,
Talked softly of new species
To pick another day.
Beguiling thus the wonder,
The wondrous nearer drew;
Hands bustled at the moorings—
The crowd respectful grew.
Ascended from our vision
To countenances new!
A difference, a daisy,
Is all the rest I knew!
LXXIII
TAKEN from men this morning,
Carried by men to-day,
Met by the gods with banners
Who marshalled her away.
One little maid from playmates,
One little mind from school,—
There must be guests in Eden;
All the rooms are full.
Far as the east from even,
Dim as the border star,—
Courtiers quaint, in kingdoms,
Our departed are.
LXXIV
WHAT inn is this
Where for the night
Peculiar traveller comes?
Who is the landlord?
Where the maids?
Behold, what curious rooms!
No ruddy fires on the hearth,
No brimming tankards flow.
Necromancer, landlord,
Who are these below?
LXXV
IT was not death, for I stood up,
And all the dead lie down;
It was not night, for all the bells
Put out their tongues, for noon.
It was not frost, for on my flesh
I felt siroccos
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crawl,—
Nor fire, for just my marble feet
Could keep a chancel
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cool.
And yet it tasted like them all;
The figures I have seen
Set orderly, for burial,
Reminded me of mine,
As if my life were shaven
And fitted to a frame,
And could not breathe without a key;
And ’t was like midnight, some,
When everything that ticked has stopped,
And space stares, all around,
Or grisly frosts, first autumn morns,
Repeal the beating ground.
But most like chaos,—stopless, cool,—
Without a chance or spar,
Or even a report of land
To justify despair.
LXXVI
I should not dare to leave my friend,
Because—because if he should die
While I was gone, and I—too late—
Should reach the heart that wanted me;
If I should disappoint the eyes
That hunted, hunted so, to see,
And could not bear to shut until
They “noticed” me—they noticed me;
If I should stab the patient faith
So sure I’d come—so sure I’d come,
It listening, listening, went to sleep
Telling my tardy name,—
My heart would wish it broke before,
Since breaking then, since breaking then,
Were useless as next morning’s sun,
Where midnight frosts had lain!
LXXVII
GREAT streets of silence led away
To neighborhoods of pause;
Here was no notice, no dissent,
No universe, no laws.
By clocks ’t was morning, and for night
The bells at distance called;
But epoch had no basis here,
For period exhaled.
LXXVIII
A throe upon the features
A hurry in the breath,
An ecstasy of parting
Denominated “Death”,—
An anguish at the mention,
Which, when to patience grown,
I’ve known permission given
To rejoin its own.
LXXIX
OF tribulation these are they
Denoted by the white;
The spangled gowns, a lesser rank
Of victors designate.
All these did conquer; but the ones
Who overcame most times
Wear nothing commoner than snow,
No ornament but palms.
Surrender is a sort unknown
On this superior soil;
Defeat, an outgrown anguish,
Remembered as the mile
Our panting ankle barely gained
When night devoured the road;
But we stood whispering in the house,
And all we said was “Saved!”
LXXX
I think just how my shape will rise
When I shall be forgiven,
Till hair and eyes and timid head
Are out of sight, in heaven.
I think just how my lips will weigh
With shapeless, quivering prayer
That you, so late, consider me,
The sparrow of your care.
I mind me that of anguish sent,
Some drifts were moved away
Before my simple bosom broke,—
And why not this, if they?
And so, until delirious borne
I con
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that thing,—“forgiven,”—
Till with long fright and longer trust
I drop my heart, unshriven!
217
LXXXI
AFTER a hundred years
Nobody knows the place,—
Agony, that enacted there,
Motionless as peace.
Weeds triumphant ranged,
Strangers strolled and spelled
At the lone orthography
218
Of the elder dead.
Winds of summer fields
Recollect the way,—
Instinct picking up the key
Dropped by memory.
LXXXII
LAY this laurel on the one
Too intrinsic for renown.
Laurel! veil your deathless tree,—
Him you chasten, that is he!
LXXXIII
THIS world is not conclusion;
A sequel stands beyond,
Invisible, as music,
But positive, as sound.
It beckons and it baffles;
Philosophies don’t know,
And through a riddle, at the last,
Sagacity must go.
To guess it puzzles scholars;
To gain it, men have shown
Contempt of generations,
And crucifixion known.
LXXXIV
WE learn in the retreating
How vast an one
Was recently among us.
A perished sun
Endears in the departure
How doubly more
Than all the golden presence
It was before!
LXXXV
THEY say that “time assuages,”—
Time never did assuage;
An actual suffering strengthens,
As sinews do, with age.
Time is a test of trouble,
But not a remedy.
If such it prove, it prove too
There was no malady.
LXXXVI
WE cover thee, sweet face.
Not that we tire of thee,
But that thyself fatigue of us;
Remember, as thou flee,
We follow thee until
Thou notice us no more,
And then, reluctant, turn away
To con thee o‘er and o’er,
And blame the scanty love
We were content to show,
Augmented, sweet, a hundred fold
If thou would‘st take it now.
LXXXVII
THAT is solemn we have ended,—
Be it but a play,
Or a glee
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among the garrets,
Or a holiday,
Or a leaving home; or later,
Parting with a world
We have understood, for better
Still it be unfurled.
LXXXVIII
THE stimulus, beyond the grave
His countenance to see,
Supports me like imperial drams
Afforded royally.
LXXXIX
GIVEN in marriage unto thee,
Oh, thou celestial host!
Bride of the Father and the Son,
Bride of the Holy Ghost!
Other betrothal shall dissolve,
Wedlock of will decay;
Only the keeper of this seal
Conquers mortality.
XC
THAT such have died enables us
The tranquiller to die;
That such have lived, certificate
For immortality.
XCI
THEY won’t frown always,—some sweet day
When I forget to tease,
They’ll recollect how cold I looked,
And how I just said “please.”
Then they will hasten to the door
To call the little child,
Who cannot thank them, for the ice
That on her lisping piled.
XCII
’T is an honorable thought,
And makes one lift one’s hat,
As one encountered gentlefolk
Upon a daily street,
That we’ve immortal place,
Though pyramids decay,
And kingdoms, like the orchard,
Flit russetly away.
XCIII
THE distance that the dead have gone
Does not at first appear;
Their coming back seems possible
For many an ardent year.
And then, that we have followed them
We more than half suspect,
So intimate have we become
With their dear retrospect.
XCIV
How dare the robins sing,
When men and women hear
Who since they went to their account
Have settled with the year!—
Paid all that life had earned
In one consummate bill,
And now, what life or death can do
Is immaterial.
Insulting is the sun
To him whose mortal light,
Beguiled of immortality,
Bequeaths him to the night.
In deference to him
Extinct be every hum,
Whose garden wrestles with the dew,
At daybreak overcome!
XCV
DEATH is like the insect
Menacing the tree,
Competent to kill it,
But decoyed
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may be.
Bait it with the balsam,
221
Seek it with the knife,
Baffle, if it cost you
Everything in life.
Then, if it have burrowed
Out of reach of skill,
Ring the tree and leave it,—
’T is the vermin’s will.
XCVI
’T is sunrise, little maid, hast thou
No station in the day?
’T was not thy wont to hinder so,—
Retrieve thine industry.
’T is noon, my little maid, alas!
And art thou sleeping yet?
The lily waiting to be wed,
The bee, dost thou forget?
My little maid, ’t is night; alas,
That night should be to thee
Instead of morning! Hadst thou broached
Thy little plan to me,
Dissuade thee if I could not, sweet,
I might have aided thee.
XCVII
EACH that we lose takes part of us;
A crescent still abides,
Which like the moon, some turbid night,
Is summoned by the tides.
XCVIII
NOT any higher stands the grave
For heroes than for men;
Not any nearer for the child
Than numb three-score and ten.
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This latest leisure equal lulls
The beggar and his queen;
Propitiate this democrat
By summer’s gracious mien.
223
XCIX
As far from pity as complaint,
As cool to speech as stone,
As numb to revelation
As if my trade were bone.
As far from time as history,
As near yourself to-day
As children to the rainbow’s scarf,
Or sunset’s yellow play
To eyelids in the sepulchre.
How still the dancer lies,
While color’s revelations break,
And blaze the butterflies!
C
’T is whiter than an Indian pipe,
’T is dimmer than a lace;
No stature has it, like a fog,
When you approach the place.
Not any voice denotes it here,
Or intimates it there;
A spirit, how doth it accost?
What customs hath the air?
This limitless hyperbole
Each one of us shall be;
’T is drama, if (hypothesis)
It be not tragedy!
CI
SHE laid her docile crescent down,
And this mechanic stone
Still states, to dates that have forgot,
The news that she is gone.
So constant to its stolid trust,
The shaft that never knew,
It shames the constancy that fled
Before its emblem flew.
CII
BLESS God, he went as soldiers,
His musket on his breast;
Grant, God, he charge the bravest
Of all the martial blest.
Please God, might I behold him
In epauletted white,
I should not fear the foe then,
I should not fear the fight.
CIII
IMMORTAL is an ample word
When what we need is by,
But when it leaves us for a time,
’T is a necessity.
Of heaven above the firmest proof
We fundamental know,
Except for its marauding hand,
It had been heaven below.
CIV
WHERE every bird is bold to go,
And bees abashless play,
The foreigner before he knocks
Must thrust the tears away.
CV
THE grave my little cottage is,
Where, keeping house for thee,
I make my parlor orderly,
And lay the marble tea,
For two divided, briefly,
A cycle, it may be,
Till everlasting life unite
In strong society.
CVI
THIS was in the white of the year,
That was in the green,
Drifts were as difficult then to think
As daisies now to be seen.
Looking back is best that is left,
Or if it be before,
Retrospection is prospect’s half,
Sometimes almost more.
CVII
SWEET hours have perished here;
This is a mighty room;
Within its precincts hopes have played,—
Now shadows in the tomb.
CVIII
ME! Come! My dazzled face
In such a shining place!
Me! Hear! My foreign ear
The sounds of welcome near!
The saints shall meet
Our bashful feet.
My holiday shall be
That they remember me;
My paradise, the fame
That they pronounce my name.