1466

One of the ones that Midas touched
Who failed to touch us all
Was that confiding Prodigal
The reeling Oriole --

So drunk he disavows it
With badinage divine --
So dazzling we mistake him
For an alighting Mine --

A Pleader -- a Dissembler --
An Epicure -- a Thief --
Betimes an Oratorio --
An Ecstasy in chief --

The Jesuit of Orchards
He cheats as he enchants
Of an entire Attar
For his decamping wants --

The splendor of a Burmah
The Meteor of Birds,
Departing like a Pageant
Of Ballads and of Bards --

I never thought that Jason sought
For any Golden Fleece
But then I am a rural man
With thoughts that make for Peace --

But if there were a Jason,
Tradition bear with me
Behold his lost Aggrandizement
Upon the Apple Tree --

A little overflowing word
That any, hearing, had inferred
For Ardor or for Tears,
Though Generations pass away,
Traditions ripen and decay,
As eloquent appears --

A winged spark doth soar about --
I never met it near
For Lightning it is oft mistook
When nights are hot and sere --

Its twinkling Travels it pursues
Above the Haunts of men --
A speck of Rapture -- first perceived
By feeling it is gone --
Rekindled by some action quaint

If wrecked upon the Shoal of Thought
How is it with the Sea?
The only Vessel that is shunned
Is safe -- Simplicity --

The Sweets of Pillage, can be known
To no one but the Thief --
Compassion for Integrity
Is his divinest Grief --

Their Barricade against the Sky
The martial Trees withdraw
And with a Flag at every turn
Their Armies are no more.

What Russet Halts in Nature's March
They indicate or cause
An inference of Mexico
Effaces the Surmise --

Recurrent to the After Mind
That Massacre of Air --
The Wound that was not Wound nor Scar
But Holidays of War

To see the Summer Sky
Is Poetry, though never in a Book it lie --
True Poems flee --

We talked with each other about each other
Though neither of us spoke --
We were listening to the seconds' Races
And the Hoofs of the Clock --
Pausing in Front of our Palsied Faces
Time compassion took --
Arks of Reprieve he offered to us --
Ararats -- we took --

Estranged from Beauty -- none can be --
For Beauty is Infinity --
And power to be finite ceased
Before Identity was leased.

Fame is the one that does not stay --
Its occupant must die
Or out of sight of estimate
Ascend incessantly --
Or be that most insolvent thing
A Lightning in the Germ --
Electrical the embryo
But we demand the Flame

His voice decrepit was with Joy --
Her words did totter so
How old the News of Love must be
To make Lips elderly
That purled a moment since with Glee --
Is it Delight or Woe --
Or Terror -- that do decorate
This livid interview --

How destitute is he
Whose Gold is firm
Who finds it every time
The small stale Sum --
When Love with but a Pence
Will so display
As is a disrespect
To India.

Look back on Time, with kindly eyes --
He doubtless did his best --
How softly sinks that trembling sun
In Human Nature's West --

The Devil -- had he fidelity
Would be the best friend --
Because he has ability --
But Devils cannot mend --
Perfidy is the virtue
That would but he resign
The Devil -- without question
Were thoroughly divine

The fascinating chill that music leaves
Is Earth's corroboration
Of Ecstasy's impediment --
'Tis Rapture's germination
In timid and tumultuous soil
A fine -- estranging creature --
To something upper wooing us
But not to our Creator --

The way Hope builds his House
It is not with a sill --
Nor Rafter -- has that Edifice
But only Pinnacle --

Abode in as supreme
This superficies
As if it were of Ledges smit
Or mortised with the Laws --

'Tis whiter than an Indian Pipe --
'Tis dimmer than a Lace --
No stature has it, like a Fog
When you approach the place --
Nor any voice imply it here
Or intimate it there
A spirit -- how doth it accost --
What function hat the Air?
This limitless Hyperbole
Each one of us shall be --
'Tis Drama -- if Hypothesis
It be not Tragedy --