Go not too near a House of Rose --
The depredation of a Breeze --
Or inundation of a Dew
Alarms its walls away --

Nor try to tie the Butterfly,
Nor climb the Bars of Ecstasy,
In insecurity to lie
Is Joy's insuring quality.

Not that he goes -- we love him more
Who led us while he stayed.
Beyond earth's trafficking frontier,
For what he moved, he made.

Than Heaven more remote,
For Heaven is the root,
But these the flitted seed.
More flown indeed
Than ones that never were,
Or those that hide, and are.

What madness, by their side,
A vision to provide
Of future days
They cannot praise.

My soul, to find them, come,
They cannot call, they're dumb,
Nor prove, nor woo,
But that they have abode
Is absolute as God,
And instant, too.

A Dew sufficed itself --
And satisfied a Leaf
And felt "how vast a destiny" --
"How trivial is Life!"

The Sun went out to work --
The Day went out to play
And not again that Dew be seen
By Physiognomy

Whether by Day Abducted
Or emptied by the Sun
Into the Sea in passing
Eternally unknown

Attested to this Day
That awful Tragedy
By Transport's instability
And Doom's celerity.

Behold this little Bane --
The Boon of all alive --
As common as it is unknown
The name of it is Love --

To lack of it is Woe --
To own of it is Wound --
Not elsewhere -- if in Paradise
Its Tantamount be found --

How ruthless are the gentle --
How cruel are the kind --
God broke his contract to his Lamb
To qualify the Wind --

The healed Heart shows its shallow scar
With confidential moan --
Not mended by Mortality
Are Fabrics truly torn --
To go its convalescent way
So shameless is to see
More genuine were Perfidy
Than such Fidelity.

These Fevered Days -- to take them to the Forest
Where Waters cool around the mosses crawl --
And shade is all that devastates the stillness
Seems it sometimes this would be all --

To mend each tattered Faith
There is a needle fair
Though no appearance indicate --
'Tis threaded in the Air --

And though it do not wear
As if it never Tore
'Tis very comfortable indeed
And spacious as before --

A chilly Peace infests the Grass
The Sun respectful lies --
Not any Trance of industry
These shadows scrutinize --

Whose Allies go no more astray
For service or for Glee --
But all mankind deliver here
From whatsoever sea --

A little Snow was here and there
Disseminated in her Hair --
Since she and I had met and played
Decade had gathered to Decade --

But Time had added not obtained
Impregnable the Rose
For summer too indelible
Too obdurate for Snows --

Death is the supple Suitor
That wins at last --
It is a stealthy Wooing
Conducted first
By pallid innuendoes
And dim approach
But brave at last with Bugles
And a bisected Coach
It bears away in triumph
To Troth unknown
And Kindred as responsive
As Porcelain.

His Mind like Fabrics of the East
Displayed to the despair
Of everyone but here and there
An humble Purchaser --
For though his price was not of Gold --
More arduous there is --
That one should comprehend the worth
Was all the price there was --

How good his Lava Bed,
To this laborious Boy --
Who must be up to call the World
And dress the sleepy Day --

How soft a Caterpillar steps --
I fond one on my Hand
From such a velvet world it comes
Such plushes at command
Its soundless travels just arrest
My slow -- terrestrial eye
Intent upon its own career
What use has it for me --

I thought the Train would never come --
How slow the whistle sang --
I don't believe a peevish Bird
So whimpered for the Spring --
I taught my Heart a hundred times
Precisely what to say --
Provoking Lover, when you came
Its Treatise flew away
To hide my strategy too late
To wiser be too soon --
For miseries so halcyon
The happiness atone --