The Sun and Moon must make their haste --
The Stars express around
For in the Zones of Paradise
The Lord alone is burned --

His Eye, it is the East and West --
The North and South when He
Do concentrate His Countenance
Like Glow Worms, flee away --

Oh Poor and Far --
Oh Hindred Eye
That hunted for the Day --
The Lord a Candle entertains
Entirely for Thee --

As the Starved Maelstrom laps the Navies
As the Vulture teased
Forces the Broods in lonely Valleys
As the Tiger eased

By but a Crumb of Blood, fasts Scarlet
Till he meet a Man
Dainty adorned with Veins and Tissues
And partakes -- his Tongue

Cooled by the Morsel for a moment
Grows a fiercer thing
Till he esteem his Dates and Cocoa
A Nutrition mean

I, of a finer Famine
Deem my Supper dry
For but a Berry of Domingo
And a Torrid Eye.

Ribbons of the Year --
Multitude Brocade --
Worn to Nature's Party once

Then, as flung aside
As a faded Bead
Or a Wrinkled Pearl
Who shall charge the Vanity
Of the Maker's Girl?

They won't frown always -- some sweet Day
When I forget to tease --
They'll recollect how cold I looked
And how I just said "Please."

Then They will hasten to the Door
To call the little Girl
Who cannot thank Them for the Ice
That filled the lisping full.

I stepped from Plank to Plank
A slow and cautious way
The Stars about my Head I felt
About my Feet the Sea.

I knew not but the next
Would be my final inch --
This gave me that precarious Gait
Some call Experience.

It was a Grave, yet bore no Stone
Enclosed 'twas not of Rail
A Consciousness its Acre, and
It held a Human Soul.

Entombed by whom, for what offence
If Home or Foreign born --
Had I the curiosity
'Twere not appeased of men

Till Resurrection, I must guess
Denied the small desire
A Rose upon its Ridge to sow
Or take away a Briar.

Each Scar I'll keep for Him
Instead I'll say of Gem
In His long Absence worn
A Costlier one

But every Tear I bore
Were He to count them o'er
His own would fall so more
I'll mis sum them.

The Sun is gay or stark
According to our Deed.
If Merry, He is merrier --
If eager for the Dead

Or an expended Day
He helped to make too bright
His mighty pleasure suits Us not
It magnifies our Freight

Each Second is the last
Perhaps, recalls the Man
Just measuring unconsciousness
The Sea and Spar between.

To fail within a Chance --
How terribler a thing
Than perish from the Chance's list
Before the Perishing!

The Bird must sing to earn the Crumb
What merit have the Tune
No Breakfast if it guaranty

The Rose content may bloom
To gain renown of Lady's Drawer
But if the Lady come
But once a Century, the Rose
Superfluous become --

I've none to tell me to but Thee
So when Thou failest, nobody.
It was a little tie --
It just held Two, nor those it held
Since Somewhere thy sweet Face has spilled
Beyond my Boundary --

If things were opposite -- and Me
And Me it were -- that ebbed from Thee
On some unanswering Shore --
Would'st Thou seek so -- just say
That I the Answer may pursue
Unto the lips it eddied through --
So -- overtaking Thee --

A Shade upon the mind there passes
As when on Noon
A Cloud the mighty Sun encloses
Remembering

That some there be too numb to notice
Oh God
Why give if Thou must take away
The Loved?

The Poets light but Lamps --
Themselves -- go out --
The Wicks they stimulate --
If vital Light

Inhere as do the Suns --
Each Age a Lens
Disseminating their
Circumference --

As Everywhere of Silver
With Ropes of Sand
To keep it from effacing
The Track called Land.