Because my Brook is fluent
I know 'tis dry --
Because my Brook is silent
It is the Sea --

And startled at its rising
I try to flee
To where the Strong assure me
Is "no more Sea" --

So I pull my Stockings off
Wading in the Water
For the Disobedience' Sake
Boy that lived for "or'ter"

Went to Heaven perhaps at Death
And perhaps he didn't
Moses wasn't fairly used --
Ananias wasn't --

The Frost was never seen --
If met, too rapid passed,
Or in too unsubstantial Team --
The Flowers notice first

A Stranger hovering round
A Symptom of alarm
In Villages remotely set
But search effaces him

Till some retrieveless Night
Our Vigilance at waste
The Garden gets the only shot
That never could be traced.

Unproved is much we know --
Unknown the worst we fear --
Of Strangers is the Earth the Inn
Of Secrets is the Air --

To analyze perhaps
A Philip would prefer
But Labor vaster than myself
I find it to infer.

The Past is such a curious Creature
To look her in the Face
A Transport may receipt us
Or a Disgrace --

Unarmed if any meet her
I charge him fly
Her faded Ammunition
Might yet reply.

Whatever it is -- she has tried it --
Awful Father of Love --
Is not Ours the chastising --
Do not chastise the Dove --

Not for Ourselves, petition --
Nothing is left to pray --
When a subject is finished --
Words are handed away --

Only lest she be lonely
In thy beautiful House
Give her for her Transgression
License to think of us --

Immortal is an ample word
When what we need is by
But when it leaves us for a time
'Tis a necessity.

Of Heaven above the firmest proof
We fundamental know
Except for its marauding Hand
It had been Heaven below.

The Show is not the Show
But they that go --
Menagerie to me
My Neighbor be --
Fair Play --
Both went to see --

He preached upon "Breadth" till it argued him narrow --
The Broad are too broad to define
And of "Truth" until it proclaimed him a Liar --
The Truth never flaunted a Sign --

Simplicity fled from his counterfeit presence
As Gold the Pyrites would shun --
What confusion would cover the innocent Jesus
To meet so enabled a Man!

Our own possessions -- though our own --
'Tis well to hoard anew --
Remembering the Dimensions
Of Possibility.

To disappear enhances --
The Man that runs away
Is tinctured for an instant
With Immortality

But yesterday a Vagrant --
Today in Memory lain
With superstitious value
We tamper with "Again"

But "Never" far as Honor
Withdraws the Worthless thing
And impotent to cherish
We hasten to adorn --

Of Death the sternest function
That just as we discern
The Excellence defies us --
Securest gathered then

The Fruit perverse to plucking,
But leaning to the Sight
With the ecstatic limit
Of unobtained Delight --

The Sea said "Come" to the Brook --
The Brook said "Let me grow" --
The Sea said "Then you will be a Sea --
I want a Brook -- Come now"!

The Sea said "Go" to the Sea --
The Sea said "I am he
You cherished" -- "Learned Waters --
Wisdom is stale -- to Me"

A Sparrow took a Slice of Twig
And thought it very nice
I think, because his empty Plate
Was handed Nature twice --

Invigorated, waded
In all the deepest Sky
Until his little Figure
Was forfeited away --

A word is dead
When it is said,
Some say.

I say it just
Begins to live
That day.