A Spider sewed at Night
Without a Light
Upon an Arc of White.

If Ruff it was of Dame
Or Shroud of Gnome
Himself himself inform.

Of Immortality
His Strategy
Was Physiognomy.

Her sovereign People
Nature knows as well
And is as fond of signifying
As if fallible --

The Day grew small, surrounded tight
By early, stooping Night --
The Afternoon in Evening deep
Its Yellow shortness dropt --
The Winds went out their martial ways
The Leaves obtained excuse --
November hung his Granite Hat
Upon a nail of Plush --

The Face we choose to miss --
Be it but for a Day
As absent as a Hundred Years,
When it has rode away.

The Props assist the House
Until the House is built
And then the Props withdraw
And adequate, erect,
The House support itself
And cease to recollect
The Auger and the Carpenter --
Just such a retrospect
Hath the perfected Life --
A past of Plank and Nail
And slowness -- then the Scaffolds drop
Affirming it a Soul.

The Work of Her that went,
The Toil of Fellows done --
In Ovens green our Mother bakes,
By Fires of the Sun.

Ourselves we do inter with sweet derision.
The channel of the dust who once achieves
Invalidates the balm of that religion
That doubts as fervently as it believes.

In thy long Paradise of Light
No moment will there be
When I shall long for Earthly Play
And mortal Company --

When Etna basks and purrs
Naples is more afraid
Than when she show her Garnet Tooth --
Security is loud --

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
Of the Elder Dead

Winds of Summer Fields
Recollect the way --
Instinct picking up the Key
Dropped by memory --

After the Sun comes out
How it alters the World --
Waggons like messengers hurry about
Yesterday is old --

All men meet as if
Each foreclosed a news --
Fresh as a Cargo from Batize
Nature's qualities --

I noticed People disappeared
When but a little child --
Supposed they visited remote
Or settled Regions wild --
But did because they died
A Fact withheld the little child --

How many schemes may die
In one short Afternoon
Entirely unknown
To those they most concern --
The man that was not lost
Because by accident
He varied by a Ribbon's width
From his accustomed route --
The Love that would not try
Because beside the Door
It must be competitions
Some unsuspecting Horse was tied
Surveying his Despair

Soul, take thy risk.
With Death to be
Were better than be not
With thee

Tell as a Marksman -- were forgotten
Tell -- this Day endures
Ruddy as that coeval Apple
The Tradition bears --

Fresh as Mankind that humble story
Though a statelier Tale
Grown in the Repetition hoary
Scarcely would prevail --

Tell had a son -- The ones that knew it
Need not linger here --
Those who did not to Human Nature
Will subscribe a Tear --

Tell would not bare his Head
In Presence
Of the Ducal Hat --
Threatened for that with Death -- by Gessler --
Tyranny bethought

Make of his only Boy a Target
That surpasses Death --
Stolid to Love's supreme entreaty
Not forsook of Faith --

Mercy of the Almighty begging --
Tell his Arrow sent --
God it is said replies in Person
When the cry is meant --

Through what transports of Patience
I reached the stolid Bliss
To breathe my Blank without thee
Attest me this and this --
By that bleak exultation
I won as near as this
Thy privilege of dying
Abbreviate me this --