J 910

Experience is the Angled Road
Preferred against the Mind
By — Paradox — the Mind itself —
Presuming it to lead

Quite Opposite — How Complicate
The Discipline of Man —
Compelling Him to Choose Himself
His Preappointed Pain —

J 973

'Twas awkward, but it fitted me —
An Ancient fashioned Heart —
Its only lore — its Steadfastness —
In Change — unerudite —

It only moved as do the Suns —
For merit of Return —
Or Birds — confirmed perpetual
By Alternating Zone —

I only have it not Tonight
In its established place —
For technicality of Death —
Omitted in the Lease —

J 974

The Soul's distinct connection
With immortality
Is best disclosed by Danger
Or quick Calamity —

As Lightning on a Landscape
Exhibits Sheets of Place —
Not yet suspected — but for Flash —
And Click — and Suddenness.

J 911

Too little way the House must lie
From every Human Heart
That holds in undisputed Lease
A white inhabitant —

Too narrow is the Right between —
Too imminent the chance —
Each Consciousness must emigrate
And lose its neighbor once —

J 859

A doubt if it be Us
Assists the staggering Mind
In an extremer Anguish
Until it footing find.

An Unreality is lent,
A merciful Mirage
That makes the living possible
While it suspends the lives.

J 860

Absence disembodies — so does Death
Hiding individuals from the Earth
Superposition helps, as well as love —
Tenderness decreases as we prove —

J 861

Split the Lark — and you'll find the Music —
Bulb after Bulb, in Silver rolled —
Scantilly 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!
Now, do you doubt that your Bird was true?

J 862

Light is sufficient to itself —
If Others want to see
It can be had on Window Panes
Some Hours in the Day.

But not for Compensation —
It holds as large a Glow
To Squirrel in the Himmaleh
Precisely, as to you.

J 863

That Distance was between Us
That is not of Mile or Main —
The Will it is that situates —
Equator — never can —

J 833

Perhaps you think me stooping
I'm not ashamed of that
Christ — stooped until He touched the Grave —
Do those at Sacrament

Commemorative Dishonor
Or love annealed of love
Until it bend as low as Death
Redignified, above?

J 934

That is solemn we have ended
Be it but a Play
Or a Glee among the Garret
Or a Holiday

Or a leaving Home, or later,
Parting with a World
We have understood for better
Still to be explained.

J 868

They ask but our Delight —
The Darlings of the Soil
And grant us all their Countenance
For a penurious smile.

J 869

Because the Bee may blameless hum
For Thee a Bee do I become
List even unto Me.

Because the Flowers unafraid
May lift a look on thine, a Maid
Alway a Flower would be.

Nor Robins, Robins need not hide
When Thou upon their Crypts intrude
So Wings bestow on Me
Or Petals, or a Dower of Buzz
That Bee to ride, or Flower of Furze
I that way worship Thee.

J 870

Finding is the first Act
The second, loss,
Third, Expedition for
The "Golden Fleece"

Fourth, no Discovery —
Fifth, no Crew —
Finally, no Golden Fleece —
Jason — sham — too.

J 817

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 Ring
Conquer Mortality —

J 951

As Frost is best conceived
By force of its Result —
Affliction is inferred
By subsequent effect —

If when the sun reveal,
The Garden keep the Gash —
If as the Days resume
The wilted countenance

Cannot correct the crease
Or counteract the stain —
Presumption is Vitality
Was somewhere put in twain.

J 891

To my quick ear the Leaves — conferred —
The Bushes — they were Bells —
I could not find a Privacy
From Nature's sentinels —

In Cave if I presumed to hide
The Walls — begun to tell —
Creation seemed a mighty Crack —
To make me visible —

J 952

A Man may make a Remark —
In itself — a quiet thing
That may furnish the Fuse unto a Spark
In dormant nature — lain —

Let us deport — with skill —
Let us discourse — with care —
Powder exists in Charcoal —
Before it exists in Fire.

J 953

A Door just opened on a street —
I — lost — was passing by —
An instant's Width of Warmth disclosed —
And Wealth — and Company.

The Door as instant shut — And I —
I — lost — was passing by —
Lost doubly — but by contrast — most —
Informing — misery —

J 956

What shall I do when the Summer troubles —
What, when the Rose is ripe —
What when the Eggs fly off in Music
From the Maple Keep?

What shall I do when the Skies a'chirrup
Drop a Tune on me —
When the Bee hangs all Noon in the Buttercup
What will become of me?

Oh, when the Squirrel fills His Pockets
And the Berries stare
How can I bear their jocund Faces
Thou from Here, so far?

'Twouldn't afflict a Robin —
All His Goods have Wings —
I — do not fly, so wherefore
My Perennial Things?

J 893

Drab Habitation of Whom?
Tabernacle or Tomb —
Or Dome of Worm —
Or Porch of Gnome —
Or some Elf's Catacomb?

J 957

As One does Sickness over
In convalescent Mind,
His scrutiny of Chances
By blessed Health obscured —

As One rewalks a Precipice
And whittles at the Twig
That held Him from Perdition
Sown sidewise in the Crag

A Custom of the Soul
Far after suffering
Identity to question
For evidence't has been —

J 958

We met as Sparks — Diverging Flints
Sent various — scattered ways —
We parted as the Central Flint
Were cloven with an Adze —
Subsisting on the Light We bore
Before We felt the Dark —
A Flint unto this Day — perhaps —
But for that single Spark.

J 835

Nature and God — I neither knew
Yet Both so well knew me
They startled, like Executors
Of My identity.

Yet Neither told — that I could learn —
My Secret as secure
As Herschel's private interest
Or Mercury's affair —

J 845

Be Mine the Doom —
Sufficient Fame —
To perish in Her Hand!

J 877

Each Scar I'll keep for Him
Instead I'll say of Gem
In His long Absence worn
A Costlier one

But every Tear I bore
Were He to count them o'er
His own would fall so more
I'll mis sum them.

J 837

How well I knew Her not
Whom not to know has been
A Bounty in prospective, now
Next Door to mine the Pain.

J 942

Snow beneath whose chilly softness
Some that never lay
Make their first Repose this Winter
I admonish Thee

Blanket Wealthier the Neighbor
We so new bestow
Than thine acclimated Creature
Wilt Thou, Austere Snow?

J 818

I could not drink it, Sweet,
Till You had tasted first,
Though cooler than the Water was
The Thoughtfullness of Thirst.

J 878

The Sun is gay or stark
According to our Deed.
If Merry, He is merrier —
If eager for the Dead

Or an expended Day
He helped to make too bright
His mighty pleasure suits Us not
It magnifies Our Freight

J 874

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 Girl
Who cannot thank Them for the Ice
That filled the lisping full.

J 940

On that dear Frame the Years had worn
Yet precious as the House
In which We first experienced Light
The Witnessing, to Us —

Precious! It was conceiveless fair
As Hands the Grave had grimed
Should softly place within our own
Denying that they died.

J 941

The Lady feeds Her little Bird
At rarer intervals —
The little Bird would not dissent
But meekly recognize

The Gulf between the Hand and Her
And crumbless and afar
And fainting, on Her yellow Knee
Fall softly, and adore —

J 832

Soto! Explore thyself!
Therein thyself shalt find
The "Undiscovered Continent" —
No Settler had the Mind.

J 875

I stepped from Plank to Plank
A slow and cautious way
The Stars about my Head I felt
About my Feet the Sea.

I knew not but the next
Would be my final inch —
This gave me that precarious Gait
Some call Experience.

J 879

Each Second is the last
Perhaps, recalls the Man
Just measuring unconsciousness
The Sea and Spar between.

To fail within a Chance —
How terribler a thing
Than perish from the Chance's list
Before the Perishing!

J 880

The Bird must sing to earn the Crumb
What merit have the Tune
No Breakfast if it guaranty

The Rose content may bloom
To gain renown of Lady's Drawer
But if the Lady come
But once a Century, the Rose
Superfluous become —

J 881

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 Shore —
Would'st Thou seek so — just say
That I the Answer may pursue
Unto the lips it eddied through —
So — overtaking Thee —

J 819

All I may, if small,
Do it not display
Larger for the Totalness —
'Tis Economy

To bestow a World
And withhold a Star —
Utmost, is Munificence —
Less, tho' larger, poor.

J 883

The Poets light but Lamps —
Themselves — go out —
The Wicks they stimulate —
If vital Light

Inhere as do the Suns —
Each Age a Lens
Disseminating their
Circumference —

J 884

An Everywhere of Silver
With Ropes of Sand
To keep it from effacing
The Track called Land.

J 885

Our little Kinsmen — after Rain
In plenty may be seen,
A Pink and Pulpy multitude
The tepid Ground upon.

A needless life, it seemed to me
Until a little Bird
As to a Hospitality
Advanced and breakfasted.

As I of He, so God of Me
I pondered, may have judged,
And left the little Angle Worm
With Modesties enlarged.

J 947

Of Tolling Bell I ask the cause?
"A Soul has gone to Heaven"
I'm answered in a lonesome tone —
Is Heaven then a Prison?

That Bells should ring till all should know
A Soul had gone to Heaven
Would seem to me the more the way
A Good News should be given.

J 886

These tested Our Horizon —
Then disappeared
As Birds before achieving
A Latitude.

Our Retrospection of Them
A fixed Delight,
But our Anticipation
A Dice — a Doubt —

J 1540

As imperceptibly as Grief
The Summer lapsed away —
Too imperceptible at last
To seem like Perfidy —
A Quietness distilled
As Twilight long begun,
Or Nature spending with herself
Sequestered Afternoon —
The Dusk drew earlier in —
The Morning foreign shone —
A courteous, yet harrowing Grace,
As Guest, that would be gone —
And thus, without a Wing
Or service of a Keel
Our Summer made her light escape
Into the Beautiful.

J 1050

As willing lid o'er weary eye
The Evening on the Day leans
Till of all our nature's House
Remains but Balcony

J 990

Not all die early, dying young —
Maturity of Fate
Is consummated equally
In Ages, or a Night —

A Hoary Boy, I've known to drop
Whole statured — by the side
Of Junior of Fourscore — 'twas Act
Not Period — that died.