XXXIX

BRING me the sunset in a cup,

Reckon the morning’s flagons up,

   And say how many dew;

Tell me how far the morning leaps,

Tell me what time the weaver sleeps

   Who spun the breadths of blue!

 

Write me how many notes there be

In the new robin’s ecstasy

   Among astonished boughs;

How many trips the tortoise makes,

How many cups the bee partakes,—

   The debauchee of dews!

 

Also, who laid the rainbow’s piers,

Also, who leads the docile spheres

   By withes of supple blue?

Whose fingers string the stalactite,

Who counts the wampum of the night,

   To see that none is due?

 

Who built this little Alban house

And shut the windows down so close

   My spirit cannot see?

Who ’ll let me out some gala day,

With implements to fly away,

   Passing pomposity?