This quiet Dust was Gentleman and Ladies
And Lads and Girls --
Was laughter and ability and Sighing
And Frocks and Curls.

This Passive Place a Summer's nimble mansion
Where Bloom and Bees
Exists an Oriental Circuit
Then cease, like these --

One Day is there of the Series
Termed Thanksgiving Day.
Celebrated part at Table
Part in Memory.

Neither Patriarch nor Pussy
I dissect the Play
Seems it to my Hooded thinking
Reflex Holiday.

Had there been no sharp Subtraction
From the early Sum --
Not an Acre or a Caption
Where was once a Room --

Not a Mention, whose small Pebble
Wrinkled any Sea,
Unto Such, were such Assembly
'Twere Thanksgiving Day.

The Luxury to apprehend
The Luxury 'twould be
To look at Thee a single time
An Epicure of Me

In whatsoever Presence makes
Till for a further Food
I scarcely recollect to starve
So first am I supplied --

The Luxury to meditate
The Luxury it was
To banguet on thy Countenance
A Sumptuousness bestows

On plainer Days, whose Table far
As Certainty can see
Is laden with a single Crumb
The Consciousness of Thee.

A Death blow is a Life blow to Some
Who till they died, did not alive become --
Who had they lived, had died but when
They died, Vitality begun.

Given in Marriage unto Thee
Oh thou Celestial Host --
Bride of the Father and the Son
Bride of the Holy Ghost.

Other Betrothal shall dissolve --
Wedlock of Will, decay --
Only the Keeper of this Ring
Conquer Mortality --

I could not drink it, Sweet,
Till You had tasted first,
Though cooler than the Water was
The Thoughtfullness of Thirst.

All I may, if small,
Do it not display
Larger for the Totalness --
'Tis Economy

To bestow a World
And withhold a Star --
Utmost, is Munificence --
Less, tho' larger, poor.

All Circumstances are the Frame
In which His Face is set --
All Latitudes exist for His
Sufficient Continent --

The Light His Action, and the Dark
The Leisure of His Will --
In Him Existence serve or set
A Force illegible.

Away from Home are some and I --
An Emigrant to be
In a Metropolis of Homes
Is easy, possibly --

The Habit of a Foreign Sky
We -- difficult -- acquire
As Children, who remain in Face
The more their Feet retire.

This Consciousness that is aware
Of Neighbors and the Sun
Will be the one aware of Death
And that itself alone

Is traversing the interval
Experience between
And most profound experiment
Appointed unto Men --

How adequate unto itself
Its properties shall be
Itself unto itself and none
Shall make discovery.

Adventure most unto itself
The Soul condemned to be --
Attended by a single Hound
Its own identity.

Not that We did, shall be the test
When Act and Will are done
But what Our Lord infers We would
Had We diviner been --