I thought that nature was enough
Till Human nature came
But that the other did absorb
As Parallax a Flame --

Of Human nature just aware
There added the Divine
Brief struggle for capacity
The power to contain

Is always as the contents
But give a Giant room
And you will lodge a Giant
And not a smaller man

In this short Life
That only lasts an hour
How much -- how little -- is
Within our power

Lain in Nature -- so suffice us
The enchantless Pod
When we advertise existence
For the missing Seed --

Maddest Heart that God created
Cannot move a sod
Pasted by the simple summer
On the Longed for Dead

Left in immortal Youth
On that low Plain
That hath nor Retrospection
Nor Again --
Ransomed from years --
Sequestered from Decay
Canceled like Dawn
In comprehensive Day --

The most pathetic thing I do
Is play I hear from you --
I make believe until my Heart
Almost believes it too
But when I break it with the news
You knew it was not true
I wish I had not broken it --
Goliah -- so would you --

Until the Desert knows
That Water grows
His Sands suffice
But let him once suspect
That Caspian Fact
Sahara dies

Utmost is relative --
Have not or Have
Adjacent sums
Enough -- the first Abode
On the familiar Road
Galloped in Dreams --

Yesterday is History,
'Tis so far away --
Yesterday is Poetry --
'Tis Philosophy --

Yesterday is mystery --
Where it is Today
While we shrewdly speculate
Flutter both away

The things we thought that we should do
We other things have done
But those peculiar industries
Have never been begun --

The Lands we thought that we should seek
When large enough to run
By Speculation ceded
To Speculation's Son --

The Heaven, in which we hoped to pause
When Discipline was done
Untenable to Logic
But possibly the one --

Of Life to own --
From Life to draw --
But never tough the reservoir --

Two Lengths has every Day --
Its absolute extent
And Area superior
By Hope or Horror lent --

Eternity will be
Velocity or Pause
At Fundamental Signals
From Fundamental Laws.

To die is not to go --
On Doom's consummate Chart
No Territory new is staked --
Remain thou as thou art.

Death's Waylaying not the sharpest
Of the thefts of Time --
There Marauds a sorer Robber,
Silence -- is his name --
No Assault, nor any Menace
Doth betoken him.
But from Life's consummate Cluster --
He supplants the Balm.

Go slow, my soul, to feed thyself
Upon his rare approach --
Go rapid, lest Competing Death
Prevail upon the Coach --
Go timid, should his final eye
Determine thee amiss --
Go boldly -- for thou paid'st his price
Redemption -- for a Kiss --

The Mushroom is the Elf of Plants --
At Evening, it is not --
At Morning, in a Truffled Hut
It stop upon a Spot

As if it tarried always
And yet its whole Career
Is shorter than a Snake's Delay
And fleeter than a Tare --

'Tis Vegetation's Juggler --
The Germ of Alibi --
Doth like a Bubble antedate
And like a Bubble, hie --

I feel as if the Grass was pleased
To have it intermit --
This surreptitious scion
Of Summer's circumspect.

Had Nature any supple Face
Or could she one contemn --
Had Nature an Apostate --
That Mushroom -- it is Him!

Delight's Despair at setting
Is that Delight is less
Than the sufficing Longing
That so impoverish.

Enchantment's Perihelion
Mistaken oft has been
For the Authentic orbit
Of its Anterior Sun.