The Blunder is in estimate.
Eternity is there
We say, as of a Station --
Meanwhile he is so near

He joins me in my Ramble --
Divides abode with me --
No Friend have I that so persists
As this Eternity.

The butterfly obtains
But little sympathy
Though favorably mentioned
In Entomology --

Because he travels freely
And wears a proper coat
The circumspect are certain
That he is dissolute --

Had he the homely scutcheon
Of modest Industry
'Twere fitter certifying
For Immortality --

The event was directly behind Him
Yet He did not guess
Fitted itself to Himself like a Robe
Relished His ignorance.
Motioned itself to drill
Loaded and Levelled
And let His Flesh
Centuries from His soul.

The gleam of an heroic Act
Such strange illumination
The Possible's slow fuse is lit
By the Imagination.

The Hills erect their Purple Heads
The Rivers lean to see
Yet Man has not of all the Throng
A Curiosity.

The look of thee, what is it like
Hast thou a hand or Foot
Or Mansion of Identity
And what is thy Pursuit?

Thy fellows are they realms or Themes
Hast thou Delight or Fear
Or Longing -- and is that for us
Or values more severe?

Let change transfuse all other Traits
Enact all other Blame
But deign this least certificate --
That thou shalt be the same.

The ones that disappeared are back
The Phoebe and the Crow
Precisely as in March is heard
The curtness of the Jay --
Be this an Autumn or a Spring
My wisdom loses way
One side of me the nuts are ripe
The other side is May.

The overtakelessness of those
Who have accomplished Death
Majestic is to me beyond
The majesties of Earth.

The soul her "Not at Home"
Inscribes upon the flesh --
And takes her fair aerial gait
Beyond the hope of touch.

The right to perish might be thought
An undisputed right --
Attempt it, and the Universe
Upon the opposite
Will concentrate its officers --
You cannot even die
But nature and mankind must pause
To pay you scrutiny.

The Sun retired to a cloud
A Woman's shawl as big --
And then he sulked in mercury
Upon a scarlet log --
The drops on Nature's forehead stood
Home flew the loaded bees --
The South unrolled a purple fan
And handed to the trees.

The wind drew off
Like hungry dogs
Defeated of a bone --
Through fissures in
Volcanic cloud
The yellow lightning shone --
The trees held up
Their mangled limbs
Like animals in pain --
When Nature falls upon herself
Beware an Austrian.

There is a solitude of space
A solitude of sea
A solitude of death, but these
Society shall be
Compared with that profounder site
That polar privacy
A soul admitted to itself --
Finite infinity.

These are the days that Reindeer love
And pranks the Northern star --
This is the Sun's objective,
And Finland of the Year.

They talk as slow as Legends grow
No mushroom is their mind
But foliage of sterility
Too stolid for the wind --

They laugh as wise as Plots of Wit
Predestined to unfold
The point with bland prevision
Portentously untold.

'Tis easier to pity those when dead
That which pity previous
Would have saved --
A Tragedy enacted
Secures Applause
That Tragedy enacting
Too seldom does.

To do a magnanimous thing
And take oneself by surprise
If oneself is not in the habit of him
Is precisely the finest of Joys --

Not to do a magnanimous thing
Notwithstanding it never be known
Notwithstanding it cost us existence once
Is Rapture herself spurn --