I groped for him before I knew
With solemn nameless need
All other bounty sudden chaff
For this foreshadowed Food
Which others taste and spurn and sneer --
Though I within suppose
That consecrated it could be
The only Food that grows

Image of Light, Adieu --
Thanks for the interview --
So long -- so short --
Preceptor of the whole --
Coeval Cardinal --
Impart -- Depart --

Lives he in any other world
My faith cannot reply
Before it was imperative
'Twas all distinct to me --

Of Death I try to think like this --
The Well in which they lay us
Is but the Likeness of the Brook
That menaced not to slay us,
But to invite by that Dismay
Which is the Zest of sweetness
To the same Flower Hesperian,
Decoying but to greet us --

I do remember when a Child
With bolder Playmates straying
To where a Brook that seemed a Sea
Withheld us by its roaring
From just the Purple Flower beyond
Until constrained to clutch it
If Doom itself were the result,
The boldest leaped, and clutched it --

Tried always and Condemned by thee
Permit me this reprieve
That dying I may earn the look
For which I cease to live --

To be forgot by thee
Surpasses Memory
Of other minds
The Heart cannot forget
Unless it contemplate
What it declines
I was regarded then
Raised from oblivion
A single time
To be remembered what --
Worthy to be forgot
Is my renown

No Brigadier throughout the Year
So civic as the Jay --
A Neighbor and a Warrior too
With shrill felicity
Pursuing Winds that censure us
A February Day,
The Brother of the Universe
Was never blown away --
The Snow and he are intimate --
I've often seem them play
When Heaven looked upon us all
With such severity
I felt apology were due
To an insulted sky
Whose pompous frown was Nutriment
To their Temerity --
The Pillow of this daring Head
Is pungent Evergreens --
His Larder -- terse and Militant --
Unknown -- refreshing things --
His Character -- a Tonic --
His future -- a Dispute --
Unfair an Immortality
That leaves this Neighbor out --

Her Losses make our Gains ashamed --
She bore Life's empty Pack
As gallantly as if the East
Were swinging at her Back.
Life's empty Pack is heaviest,
As every Porter knows --
In vain to punish Honey --
It only sweeter grows.

By homely gift and hindered Words
The human heart is told
Of Nothing --
"Nothing" is the force
That renovates the World --

Pass to they Rendezvous of Light,
Pangless except for us --
Who slowly for the Mystery
Which thou hast leaped across!

Some Arrows slay but whom they strike --
But this slew all but him --
Who so appareled his Escape --
Too trackless for a Tomb --

Climbing to reach the costly Hearts
To which he gave the worth,
He broke them, fearing punishment
He ran away from Earth --

The Heart has many Doors --
I can but knock --
For any sweet "Come in"
Impelled to hark --
Not saddened by repulse,
Repast to me
That somewhere, there exists,
Supremacy --

To see her is a Picture --
To hear her is a Tune --
To know her an Intemperance
As innocent as June --
To know her not -- Affliction --
To own her for a Friend
A warmth as near as if the Sun
Were shining in your Hand.

The Clock strikes one that just struck two --
Some schism in the Sum --
A Vagabond for Genesis
Has wrecked the Pendulum --

Forever honored by the Tree
Whose Apple Winterworn
Enticed to Breakfast from the Sky
Two Gabriels Yestermorn.

They registered in Nature's Book
As Robins -- Sire and Son --
But Angels have that modest way
To screen them from Renown.

How slow the Wind --
how slow the sea --
how late their Fathers be!