What Twigs We held by --
Oh the View
When Life's swift River striven through
We pause before a further plunge
To take Momentum --
As the Fringe

Upon a former Garment shows
The Garment cast,
Our Props disclose
So scant, so eminently small
Of Might to help, so pitiful
To sink, if We had labored, fond
The diligence were not more blind

How scant, by everlasting Light
The Discs that satisfied Our Sight --
How dimmer than a Saturn's Bar
The Things esteemed, for Things that are!

We miss a Kinsman more
When warranted to see
Than when withheld of Oceans
From possibility

A Furlong than a League
Inflicts a pricklier pain,
Till We, who smiled at Pyrenees --
Of Parishes, complain.

Ended, ere it begun --
The Title was scarcely told
When the Preface perished from Consciousness
The Story, unrevealed --

Had it been mine, to print!
Had it been yours, to read!
That it was not Our privilege
The interdict of God --

Myself can read the Telegrams
A Letter chief to me
The Stock's advance and Retrograde
And what the Markets say

The Weather -- how the Rains
In Counties have begun.
'Tis News as null as nothing,
But sweeter so -- than none.

I am afraid to own a Body --
I am afraid to own a Soul --
Profound -- precarious Property --
Possession, not optional --

Double Estate -- entailed at pleasure
Upon an unsuspecting Heir --
Duke in a moment of Deathlessness
And God, for a Frontier.

The Well upon the Brook
Were foolish to depend --
Let Brooks -- renew of Brooks --
But Wells -- of failless Ground!

It was not Saint -- it was too large --
Nor Snow -- it was too small --
It only held itself aloof
Like something spiritual --

Because 'twas Riches I could own,
Myself had earned it -- Me,
I knew the Dollars by their names --
It feels like Poverty

An Earldom out of sight to hold,
An Income in the Air,
Possession -- has a sweeter chink
Unto a Miser's Ear --

Themself are all I have --
Myself a freckled -- be --
I thought you'd choose a Velvet Cheek
Or one of Ivory --
Would you -- instead of Me?

To Whom the Mornings stand for Nights,
What must the Midnights -- be!

These Strangers, in a foreign World,
Protection asked of me --
Befriend them, lest Yourself in Heaven
Be found a Refugee --

Dew -- is the Freshet in the Grass --
'Tis many a tiny Mill
Turns unperceived beneath our feet
And Artisan lies still --

We spy the Forests and the Hills
The Tents to Nature's Show
Mistake the Outside for the in
And mention what we saw.

Could Commentators on the Sign
Of Nature's Caravan
Obtain "Admission" as a Child
Some Wednesday Afternoon.

Of the Heart that goes in, and closes the Door
Shall the Playfellow Heart complain
Though the Ring is unwhole, and the Company broke
Can never be fitted again?

My Cocoon tightens -- Colors tease --
I'm feeling for the Air --
A dim capacity for Wings
Demeans the Dress I wear --

A power of Butterfly must be --
The Aptitude to fly
Meadows of Majesty implies
And easy Sweeps of Sky --

So I must baffle at the Hint
And cipher at the Sign
And make much blunder, if at least
I take the clue divine --