Success is counted sweetest (112)

Success is counted sweetest,
By those who ne’er succeed.
To comprehend a nectar
Requires sorest need.

Not one of all the purpose Host
Who took the Flag today
Can tell the definition
So clear of Victory

As he defeated – dying – 
On whose forbidden ear
The distant strains of triumph
Burst agonized and clear!

Apparently with no surprise (1668)

Apparently with no surprise
To any happy Flower
The Frost beheads it at it’s play –
In accidental power – 
The blonde Assassin passes on –
The Sun proceeds unmoved
To measure off another Day
For an Approving God – 

A Route of Evanescence (1489)

A Route of Evanescence,
With a revolving Wheel – 
A Resonance of Emerald
A Rush of Cochineal – 

And every Blossom on the Bush
Adjusts it’s tumbled Head – 
The Mail from Tunis – probably,
An easy Morning’s Ride – 

A little Madness in the Spring (1356)

A little Madness in the Spring
Is wholesome even for the King,
But God be with the Clown – 
Who ponders this tremendous scene – 
This whole Experiment of Green – 
As if it were his own!

A narrow Fellow in the Grass (1096)

A narrow Fellow in the Grass
Occasionally rides – 
You may have met him? Did you not
His notice instant is – 

The Grass divides as with a Comb – 
A spotted Shaft is seen,
And then it closes at your Feet
And opens further on – 

He likes a Boggy Acre – 
A Floor too cool for Corn – 
But when a Boy and Barefoot
I more than once at Noon 

Have passed I thought a Whip Lash
Unbraiding in the Sun
When stooping to secure it
It wrinkled And was gone – 

Several of Nature’s People
I know and they know me
I feel for them a transport
Of Cordiality

But never met this Fellow
Attended or alone
Without a tighter Breathing
And Zero at the Bone. 

Further in Summer than the Birds (895)

Further in Summer than the Birds – 
Pathetic from the Grass – 
A minor Nation celebrates
It’s unobtrusive Mass.

No Ordinance be seen –
So gradual the Grace
A gentle Custom it becomes –
Enlarging Loneliness –

Antiquest felt at Noon –
When August burning low
Arise this spectral Canticle
Repose to typify –

Remit as yet no Grace – 
No furrow on the Glow,
But a Druidic Difference
Enhances Nature now – 

The Angle of a Landscape (578)

The Angle of a Landscape – 
That every time I wake – 
Between my Curtain and the Wall
Opon an ample Crack – 

Like a Venetian – waiting – 
Accosts my open eye – 
Is just a Bough of Apples – 
Held slanting, in the Sky – 

The Pattern of a Chimney – 
The Forehead of a Hill – 
Sometimes – a Vane’s Forefinger – 
But that’s – Occasional – 

The Seasons – shift – my Picture –
Opon my Emerald Bough,
I wake – to find no – Emeralds – 
Then – Diamonds – which the Snow

From Polar Caskets – fetched me –
The Chimney – and the Hill – 
And just the Steeple’s finger – 
These – never stir at all – 

A Bird, came down the Walk (359)

A Bird, came down the Walk –
He did not know I saw – 
He bit an Angle Worm in halves
And ate the fellow, raw,

And then, he drank a Dew
From a convenient Grass – 
And then hopped sidewise to the Wall
To let a Beetle pass –

He glanced with rapid eyes,
That hurried all abroad – 
They looked like frightened Beads, I thought,
He stirred his Velvet Head. –

Like one in danger, Cautious,
I offered him a Crumb,
And he unrolled his feathers,
And rowed him softer Home –

Than Oars divide the Ocean,
Too silver for a seam,
Or Butterflies, off Banks of Noon,
Leap, plashless as they swim