A Sloop of Amber slips away
Upon an Ether Sea,
And wrecks in Peace a Purple Tar,
The Son of Ecstasy --

A World made penniless by that departure
Of minor fabrics begs
But sustenance is of the spirit
The Gods but Dregs

Apparently with no surprise
To any happy Flower
The Frost beheads it at its play --
In accidental power --
The blonde Assassin passes on --
The Sun proceeds unmoved
To measure off another Day
For an Approving God.

Back from the cordial Grave I drag thee
He shall not take thy Hand
Nor put his spacious arm around thee
That none can understand

No Life can pompless pass away --
The lowliest career
To the same Pageant wends its way
As that exalted here --

How cordial is the mystery!
The hospitable Pall
A "this way" beckons spaciously --
A Miracle for all!

The pedigree of Honey
Does not concern the Bee,
Nor lineage of Ecstasy
Delay the Butterfly
On spangle journeys to the peak
Of some perceiveless thing --
The right of way to Tripoli
A more essential thing.

--

The Pedigree of Honey
Does not concern the Bee --
A Clover, any time, to him,
Is Aristocracy --

A Drunkard cannot meet a Cork
Without a Revery --
And so encountering a Fly
This January Day
Jamaicas of Remembrance stir
That send me reeling in --
The moderate drinker of Delight
Does not deserve the spring --
Of juleps, part are the Jug
And more are in the joy --
Your connoisseur in Liquours
Consults the Bumble Bee --

Arrows enamored of his Heart --
Forgot to rankle there
And Venoms he mistook for Balms
disdained to rankle there --

As from the earth the light Balloon
Asks nothing but release --
Ascension that for which it was,
Its soaring Residence.
The spirit looks upon the Dust
That fastened it so long
With indignation,
As a Bird
Defrauded of its song.

Oh Future! thou secreted peace
Or subterranean woe --
Is there no wandering route of grace
That leads away from thee --
No circuit sage of all the course
Descried by cunning Men
To balk thee of thy sacred Prey --
Advancing to thy Den --

So give me back to Death --
The Death I never feared
Except that it deprived of thee --
And now, by Life deprived,
In my own Grave I breathe
And estimate its size --
Its size is all that Hell can guess --
And all that Heaven was --

Still own thee -- still thou art
What surgeons call alive --
Though slipping -- slipping I perceive
To thy reportless Grave --

Which question shall I clutch --
What answer wrest from thee
Before thou dost exude away
In the recallless sea?

Talk not to me of Summer Trees
The foliage of the mind
A Tabernacle is for Birds
Of no corporeal kind
And winds do go that way at noon
To their Ethereal Homes
Whose Bugles call the least of us
To undepicted Realms

The Jay his Castanet has struck
Put on your muff for Winter
The Tippet that ignores his voice
Is impudent to nature

Of Swarthy Days he is the close
His Lotus is a chestnut
The Cricket drops a sable line
No more from yours at present

The Sun in reigning to the West
Makes not as much of sound
As Cart of man in road below
Adroitly turning round
That Whiffletree of Amethyst

Is it too late to touch you, Dear?
We this moment knew --
Love Marine and Love terrene --
Love celestial too --

Go thy great way!
The Stars thou meetst
Are even as Thyself --
For what are Stars but Asterisks
To point a human Life?

A Letter is a joy of Earth --
It is denied the Gods --