Real Riches
It is little I could care for pearls
Who own the ample sea;
Or brooches, when the Emperor
With rubies pelteth me;
Or gold, who am the Prince of Mines;
Or diamonds, when I see
A diadem to fit a dome
Continual crowning me.
* * *
I felt a cleaving in my Mind –
As if my Brain had split –
I tried to match it – Seam by Seam –
But could not make them fit.
* * *
The thought behind, I strove to join
Unto the thought before –
But Sequence ravelled out of Sound –
Like Balls – upon a Floor.
* * *
Because I could not stop for Death
He kindly stopped for me
The Carriage held but just Ourselves
And Immortality.
We slowly drove he knew no haste
And I had put away
My labor and my leisure too,
For his Civility.
We passed the School, where Children strove
At Recess in the Ring
We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain
We passed the Setting Sun
Or rather He passed Us
The Dews drew quivering and chill
For only Gossamer, my Gown
My Tippet only Tulle
We paused before a House that seemed
A Swelling of the Ground
The Roof was scarcely visible
The Cornice in the Ground
Since then it is Centuries and yet
Feels shorter than the Day
I first surmised the Horses Heads
Were toward Eternity
* * *
Why do they shut me out of Heaven?
Did I sing too loud?
But I can sing a little “Minor,”
Timid as a Bird!
Wouldn’t the angels try me
Just once more
Just see if I troubled them
But don’t shut the door,!
Oh, if I were the Gentlemen
In the “White Robes”
And they were the little Hand that knocked
Could I forbid?
***
Father, I bring thee not myself,–
That were the little load;
I bring thee the imperial heart
I had not strength to hold.
The heart I cherished in my own
Till mine too heavy grew,
Yet strangest, heavier since it went,
Is it too large for you?
***
We outgrow love, like other things
And put it in the drawer,
Till it an antique fashion shows
Like costumes grandsires wore.
Superiority to Fate
Superiority to fate
Is difficult to learn.
‘T is not conferred by any,
But possible to earn
A pittance at a time,
Until, to her surprise,
The soul with strict economy
Subsists till Paradise.
Parting
My life closed twice before its close;
It yet remains to see
If Immortality unveil
A third event to me,
So huge, so hopeless to conceive,
As these that twice befell.
Parting is all we know of heaven,
And all we need of hell.
Aspiration
We never know how high we are
Till we are called to rise;
And then, if we are true to plan,
Our statures touch the skies.
The heroism we recite
Would be a daily thing,
Did not ourselves the cubits warp
For fear to be a king.
A Portrait
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.
***
I have a king who does not speak;
So, wondering, thro’ the hours meek
I trudge the day away,–
Half glad when it is night and sleep,
If, haply, thro’ a dream to peep
In parlors shut by day.
And if I do, when morning comes,
It is as if a hundred drums
Did round my pillow roll,
And shouts fill all my childish sky,
And bells keep saying ‘victory’
From steeples in my soul!
And if I don’t, the little Bird
Within the Orchard is not heard,
And I omit to pray,
‘Father, thy will be done’ to-day,
For my will goes the other way,
And it were perjury!
***
To make a prarie it takes a clover and one bee
One clover, and a bee
And revery
The revery alone will do
If bees are few
