A train went through a burial gate,
A bird broke forth and sang,
And trilled, and quivered, and shook his throat
Till all the churchyard rang;

And then adjusted his little notes,
And bowed and sang again.
Doubtless, he thought it meet of him
To say good-by to men.

Were natural mortal lady
Who had so little time
To pack her trunk and order
The great exchange of clime --

How rapid, how momentous --
What exigencies were --
But nature will be ready
And have an hour to spare.

To make some trifle fairer
That was too fair before --
Enchanting by remaining,
And by departure more.

Fame is a bee.
It has a song --
It has a sting --
Ah, too, it has a wing.

The saddest noise, the sweetest noise,
The maddest noise that grows, --
The birds, they make it in the spring,
At night's delicious close.

Between the March and April line --
That magical frontier
Beyond which summer hesitates,
Almost too heavenly near.

It makes us think of all the dead
That sauntered with us here,
By separation's sorcery
Made cruelly more dear.

It makes us think of what we had,
And what we now deplore.
We almost wish those siren throats
Would go and sing no more.

An ear can break a human heart
As quickly as a spear,
We wish the ear had not a heart
So dangerously near.

That Love is all there is,
Is all we know of Love;
It is enough, the freight should be
Proportioned to the groove.

Those final Creatures, -- who they are --
That, faithful to the close,
Administer her ecstasy,
But just the Summer knows.

Sweet hours have perished here;
This is a mighty room;
Within its precincts hopes have played, --
Now shadows in the tomb.

Lad of Athens, faithful be
To Thyself,
And Mystery --
All the rest is Perjury --

The longest day that God appoints
Will finish with the sun.
Anguish can travel to its stake,
And then it must return.

Experiment escorts us last --
His pungent company
Will not allow an Axiom
An Opportunity

How fleet -- how indiscreet an one --
How always wrong is Love --
The joyful little Deity
We are not scourged to serve --

Let me not thirst with this Hock at my Lip,
Nor beg, with Domains in my Pocket --

The Summer that we did not prize,
Her treasures were so easy
Instructs us by departing now
And recognition lazy --

Bestirs itself -- puts on its Coat,
And scans with fatal promptness
For Trains that moment out of sight,
Unconscious of his smartness.

Too happy Time dissolves itself
And leaves no remnant by --
'Tis Anguish not a Feather hath
Or too much weight to fly --

The earth has many keys,
Where melody is not
Is the unknown peninsula.
Beauty is nature's fact.

But witness for her land,
And witness for her sea,
The cricket is her utmost
Of elegy to me.