To tell the Beauty would decrease
To state the Spell demean --
There is a syllable-less Sea
Of which it is the sign --
My will endeavors for its word
And fails, but entertains
A Rapture as of Legacies --
Of introspective Mines --

To their apartment deep
No ribaldry may creep
Untumbled this abode
By any man but God --

Today or this noon
She dwelt so close
I almost touched her --
Tonight she lies
Past neighborhood
And bough and steeple,
Now past surmise.

'Twas comfort in her Dying Room
To hear the living Clock --
A short relief to have the wind
Walk boldly up and knock --
Diversion from the Dying Theme
To hear the children play --
But wrong the more
That these could live
And this of ours must die.

Unto a broken heart
No other one may go
Without the high prerogative
Itself hath suffered too.

Volcanoes be in Sicily
And South America
I judge from my Geography --
Volcanos nearer here
A Lava step at any time
Am I inclined to climb --
A Crater I may contemplate
Vesuvius at Home.

When we have ceased to care
The Gift is given
For which we gave the Earth
And mortgaged Heaven
But so declined in worth
'Tis ignominy now
To look upon --

Winter under cultivation
Is as arable as Spring.

Witchcraft has not a Pedigree
'Tis early as our Breath
And mourners meet it going out
The moment of our death --

With sweetness unabated
Informed the hour had come
With no remiss of triumph
The autumn started home

Her home to be with Nature
As competition done
By influential kinsmen
Invited to return --

In supplements of Purple
An adequate repast
In heavenly reviewing
Her residue be past --

A curious Cloud surprised the Sky,
'Twas like a sheet with Horns;
The sheet was Blue --
The Antlers Gray --
It almost touched the lawns.

So low it leaned -- then statelier drew --
And trailed like robes away,
A Queen adown a satin aisle
Had not the majesty.

A face devoid of love or grace,
A hateful, hard, successful face,
A face with which a stone
Would feel as thoroughly at ease
As were they old acquaintances --
First time together thrown.

A Pit -- but Heaven over it --
And Heaven beside, and Heaven abroad,
And yet a Pit --
With Heaven over it.

To stir would be to slip --
To look would be to drop --
To dream -- to sap the Prop
That holds my chances up.
Ah!  Pit!  With Heaven over it!

The depth is all my thought --
I dare not ask my feet --
'Twould start us where we sit
So straight you'd scarce suspect
It was a Pit -- with fathoms under it --
Its Circuit just the same.
Seed -- summer -- tomb --
Whose Doom to whom?

As subtle as tomorrow
That never came,
A warrant, a conviction,
Yet but a name.

By a departing light
We see acuter, quite,
Than by a wick that stays.
There's something in the flight
That clarifies the sight
And decks the rays.

Consulting summer's clock,
But half the hours remain.
I ascertain it with a shock --
I shall not look again.
The second half of joy
Is shorter than the first.
The truth I do not dare to know
I muffle with a jest.

Death is like the insect
Menacing the tree,
Competent to kill it,
But decoyed may be.

Bait it with the balsam,
Seek it with the saw,
Baffle, if it cost you
Everything you are.

Then, if it have burrowed
Out of reach of skill --
Wring the tree and leave it,
'Tis the vermin's will.