1213

We like March.
His Shoes are Purple --
He is new and high --
Makes he Mud for Dog and Peddler.
Makes he Forests dry.
Knows the Adder Tongue his coming
And presents her Spot --
Stands the Sun so close and mighty
That our Minds are hot.

News is he of all the others --
Bold it were to die
With the Blue Birds exercising
On his British Sky.

---

We like March -- his shoes are Purple.
He is new and high --
Makes he Mud for Dog and Peddler --
Makes he Forests Dry --
Knows the Adder's Tongue his coming
And begets her spot --
Stands the Sun so close and mighty --
That our Minds are hot.
News is he of all the others --
Bold it were to die
With the Blue Birds buccaneering
On his British sky --

We introduce ourselves
To Planets and to Flowers
But with ourselves
Have etiquettes
Embarrassments
And awes

I bet with every Wind that blew
Till Nature in chagrin
Employed a Fact to visit me
And scuttle my Balloon --

A Deed knocks first at Thought
And then -- it knocks at Will --
That is the manufacturing spot
And Will at Home and well

It then goes out an Act
Or is entombed so still
That only to the ear of God
Its Doom is audible --

Fortitude incarnate
Here is laid away
In the swift Partitions
Of the awful Sea --

Babble of the Happy
Cavil of the Bold
Hoary the Fruition
But the Sea is old

Edifice of Ocean
Thy tumultuous Rooms
Suit me at a venture
Better than the Tombs

Let my first Knowing be of thee
With morning's warming Light --
And my first Fearing, lest Unknowns
Engulf thee in the night --

Now I knew I lost her --
Not that she was gone --
But Remoteness travelled
On her Face and Tongue.

Alien, though adjoining
As a Foreign Race --
Traversed she though pausing
Latitudeless Place.

Elements Unaltered --
Universe the same
But Love's transmigration --
Somehow this had come --

Henceforth to remember
Nature took the Day
I had paid so much for --
His is Penury
Not who toils for Freedom
Or for Family
But the Restitution
Of Idolatry.

Of Nature I shall have enough
When I have entered these
Entitled to a Bumble bee's
Familiarities.

Some we see no more, Tenements of Wonder
Occupy to us though perhaps to them
Simpler are the Days than the Supposition
Leave us to presume

That oblique Belief which we call Conjecture
Grapples with a Theme stubborn as Sublime
Able as the Dust to equip its feature
Adequate as Drums
To enlist the Tomb.

The Riddle we can guess
We speedily despise --
Not anything is stale so long
As Yesterday's surprise --

Who goes to dine must take his Feast
Or find the Banquet mean --
The Table is not laid without
Till it is laid within.

For Pattern is the Mind bestowed
That imitating her
Our most ignoble Services
Exhibit worthier.

Like Trains of Cars on Tracks of Plush
I hear the level Bee --
A Jar across the Flowers goes
Their Velvet Masonry --

Withstands until the sweet Assault
Their Chivalry consumes --
While He, victorious tilts away
To vanquish other Blooms.

Its Hour with itself
The Spirit never shows.
What Terror would enthrall the Street
Could Countenance disclose

The Subterranean Freight
The Cellars of the Soul --
Thank God the loudest Place he made
Is license to be still.

The Popular Heart is a Cannon first --
Subsequent a Drum --
Bells for an Auxiliary
And an Afterward of Rum --

Not a Tomorrow to know its name
Nor a Past to stare --
Ditches for Realms and a Trip to Jail
For a Souvenir --

My Triumph lasted till the Drums
Had left the Dead alone
And then I dropped my Victory
And chastened stole along
To where the finished Faces
Conclusion turned on me
And then I hated Glory
And wished myself were They.

What is to be is best descried
When it has also been --
Could Prospect taste of Retrospect
The tyrannies of Men
Were Tenderer -- diviner
The Transitive toward.
A Bayonet's contrition
Is nothing to the Dead.