(15)

I know some lonely houses off the road

A robber ‘d like the look of, —

Wooden barred,

And windows hanging low,

Inviting to

A portico,

Where two could creep:

One hand the tools,

The other peep

To make sure all’s asleep.

Old-fashioned eyes,

Not easy to surprise!

How orderly the kitchen ‘d look by night,

With just a clock, —

But they could gag the tick,

And mice won’t bark;

And so the walls don’t tell,

None will.

A pair of spectacles ajar just stir —

An almanac’s aware.

Was it the mat winked,

Or a nervous star?

The moon slides down the stair

To see who’s there.

There’s plunder, — where?

Tankard, or spoon,

Earring, or stone,

A watch, some ancient brooch

To match the grandmamma,

Staid sleeping there.

Day rattles, too,

Stealth’s slow;

The sun has got as far

As the third sycamore.

Screams chanticleer,

“Who’s there?”

And echoes, trains away,

Sneer — “Where?”

While the old couple, just astir,

Fancy the sunrise left the door ajar!

(14)

SOME things that fly there be, —

Birds, hours, the bumble-bee:

Of these no elegy.

Some things that stay there be, —

Grief, hills, eternity:

Nor this behooveth me.

There are, that resting, rise.

Can I expound the skies?

How still the riddle lies!

(13)

THE soul selects her own society,

Then shuts the door;

On her divine majority

Obtrude no more.

Unmoved, she notes the chariot’s pausing

At her low gate;

Unmoved, an emperor is kneeling

Upon her mat.

I’ve known her from an ample nation

Choose one;

Then close the valves of her attention

Like stone.

(12)

I ASKED no other thing,

No other was denied.

I offered Being for it;

The mighty merchant smiled.

Brazil? He twirled a button,

Without a glance my way:

“But, madam, is there nothing else

That we can show to-day?”

(11)

MUCH madness is divinest sense

To a discerning eye;

Much sense the starkest madness.

‘T is the majority

In this, as all, prevails.

Assent, and you are sane;

Demur, — you’re straightway dangerous,

And handled with a chain.

(10)

A PRECIOUS, mouldering pleasure ‘t is

To meet an antique book,

In just the dress his century wore;

A privilege, I think,

His venerable hand to take,

And warming in our own,

A passage back, or two, to make

To times when he was young.

His quaint opinions to inspect,

His knowledge to unfold

On what concerns our mutual mind,

The literature of old;

What interested scholars most,

What competitions ran

When Plato was a certainty.

And Sophocles a man;

When Sappho was a living girl,

And Beatrice wore

The gown that Dante deified.

Facts, centuries before,

He traverses familiar,

As one should come to town

And tell you all your dreams were true;

He lived where dreams were sown.

His presence is enchantment,

You beg him not to go;

Old volumes shake their vellum heads

And tantalize, just so

(9)

THE heart asks pleasure first,

And then, excuse from pain;

And then, those little anodynes

That deaden suffering;

And then, to go to sleep;

And then, if it should be

The will of its Inquisitor,

The liberty to die.

(8)

A wounded deer leaps highest,

I’ve heard the hunter tell;

‘T is but the ecstasy of death,

And then the brake is still.

The smitten rock that gushes,

The trampled steel that springs;

A cheek is always redder

Just where the hectic stings!

Mirth is the mail of anguish,

In which it cautions arm,

Lest anybody spy the blood

And “You’re hurt” exclaim!

(7)

WITHIN my reach!

I could have touched!

I might have chanced that way!

Soft sauntered through the village,

Sauntered as soft away!

So unsuspected violets

Within the fields lie low,

Too late for striving fingers

That passed, an hour ago.

(6)

IF I can stop one heart from breaking,

I shall not live in vain;

If I can ease one life the aching,

Or cool one pain,

Or help one fainting robin

Unto his nest again,

I shall not live in vain.