1640

Take all away from me, but leave me Ecstasy,
And I am richer then than all my Fellow Men --
Ill it becometh me to dwell so wealthily
When at my very Door are those possessing more,
In abject poverty --

Betrothed to Righteousness might be
An Ecstasy discreet
But Nature relishes the Pinks
Which she was taught to eat --

"Red Sea," indeed!  Talk not to me
Of purple Pharaoh --
I have a Navy in the West
Would pierce his Columns thro' --
Guileless, yet of such Glory fine
That all along the Line
Is it, or is it not, divine --
The Eye inquires with a sigh
That Earth sh'd be so big --
What Exultation in the Woe --
What Wine in the fatigue!

Extol thee -- could I?  Then I will
By saying nothing new --
But just the truest truth
That thou art heavenly.

Perceiving thee is evidence
That we are of the sky
Partaking thee a guaranty
Of immortality

Some one prepared this mighty show
To which without a Ticket go
The nations and the Days --

Displayed before the simplest Door
That all may witness it and more,
The pomp of summer Days.

The Ditch is dear to the Drunken man
For is it not his Bed --
His Advocate -- his Edifice?
How safe his fallen Head
In her disheveled Sanctity --
Above him is the sky --
Oblivion bending over him
And Honor leagues away.

Why should we hurry -- why indeed?
When every way we fly
We are molested equally
By immortality.
No respite from the inference
That this which is begun,
Though where its labors lie
A bland uncertainty
Besets the sight
This mighty night --

Of Glory not a Beam is left
But her Eternal House --
The Asterisk is for the Dead,
The Living, for the Stars --

The immortality she gave
We borrowed at her Grave --
For just one Plaudit famishing,
The Might of Human love --

A Cap of Lead across the sky
Was tight and surly drawn
We could not find the mighty Face
The Figure was withdrawn --

A Chill came up as from a shaft
Our noon became a well
A Thunder storm combines the charms
Of Winter and of Hell.

A lane of Yellow led the eye
Unto a Purple Wood
Whose soft inhabitants to be
Surpasses solitude
If Bird the silence contradict
Or flower presume to show
In that low summer of the West
Impossible to know --

A Word made Flesh is seldom
And tremblingly partook
Nor then perhaps reported
But have I not mistook
Each one of us has tasted
With ecstasies of stealth
The very food debated
To our specific strength --

A Word that breathes distinctly
Has not the power to die
Cohesive as the Spirit
It may expire if He --
"Made Flesh and dwelt among us"
Could condescension be
Like this consent of Language
This loved Philology.

Advance is Life's condition
The Grave but a Relay
Supposed to be a terminus
That makes it hated so --

The Tunnel is not lighted
Existence with a wall
Is better we consider
Than not exist at all --

As we pass Houses musing slow
If they be occupied
So minds pass minds
If they be occupied

Beauty crowds me till I die
Beauty mercy have on me
But if I expire today
Let it be in sight of thee --

Conferring with myself
My stranger disappeared
Though first upon a berry fat
Miraculously fared
How paltry looked my cares
My practise how absurd
Superfluous my whole career
Beside this travelling Bird

Down Time's quaint stream
Without an oar
We are enforced to sail
Our Port a secret
Our Perchance a Gale
What Skipper would
Incur the Risk
What Buccaneer would ride
Without a surety from the Wind
Or schedule of the Tide --