“Faith” is a fine invention
For Gentlemen who see!
But Microscopes are prudent
In an Emergency!
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!
Beauty crowds me till I die (1687)
Beauty crowds me till I die
Beauty mercy have on me
But if I expire today
Let it be in sight of thee –
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