Journey 2 Being

WE never know we go,—when we are going

We jest and shut the door;

Fate following behind us bolts it,

And we accost no more.

THERE’S been a death in the opposite house

As lately as to-day.

I know it by the numb look

Such houses have alway.

The neighbors rustle in and out,

The doctor drives away.

A window opens like a pod,

Abrupt, mechanically;

Somebody flings a mattress out,—

The children hurry by;

They wonder if It died on that,—

I used to when a boy.

The minister goes stiffly in

As if the house were his,

And he owned all the mourners now,

And little boys besides;

And then the milliner, and the man

Of the appalling trade,

To take the measure of the house.

There ’ll be that dark parade

Of tassels and of coaches soon;

It’s easy as a sign,—

The intuition of the news

In just a country town.

ADRIFT! A little boat adrift!

And night is coming down!

Will no one guide a little boat

Unto the nearest town?

So sailors say, on yesterday,

Just as the dusk was brown,

One little boat gave up its strife,

And gurgled down and down.

But angels say, on yesterday,

Just as the dawn was red,

One little boat o’erspent with gales

Retrimmed its masts, redecked its sails

Exultant, onward sped!

I heard a fly buzz when I died;

The stillness round my form

Was like the stillness in the air

Between the heaves of storm.

The eyes beside had wrung them dry,

And breaths were gathering sure

For that last onset, when the king

Be witnessed in his power.

I willed my keepsakes, signed away

What portion of me I

Could make assignable,—and then

There interposed a fly,

With blue, uncertain, stumbling buzz,

Between the light and me;

And then the windows failed, and then

I could not see to see.

BEFORE the ice is in the pools,

Before the skaters go,

Or any cheek at nightfall

Is tarnished by the snow,

Before the fields have finished,

Before the Christmas tree,

Wonder upon wonder

Will arrive to me!

What we touch the hems of

On a summer’s day;

What is only walking

Just a bridge away;

That which sings so, speaks so,

When there’s no one here,—

Will the frock I wept in

Answer me to wear?

IF I may have it when it ’s dead

I will contented be;

If just as soon as breath is out

It shall belong to me,

Until they lock it in the grave,

’T is bliss I cannot weigh,

For though they lock thee in the grave,

Myself can hold the key.

Think of it, lover! I and thee

Permitted face to face to be;

After a life, a death we ’ll say,—

For death was that, and this is thee.

IF tolling bell I ask the cause.

“A soul has gone to God,”

I ’m answered in a lonesome tone;

Is heaven then so sad?

That bells should joyful ring to tell

A soul had gone to heaven,

Would seem to me the proper way

A good news should be given.

I WONDER if the sepulchre

Is not a lonesome way,

When men and boys, and larks and June

Go down the fields to hay!

I BREATHED enough to learn the trick,

And now, removed from air,

I simulate the breath so well,

That one, to be quite sure

The lungs are stirless, must descend

Among the cunning cells,

And touch the pantomime himself.

How cool the bellows feels!

THREE weeks passed since I had seen her,—

Some disease had vexed;

’T was with text and village singing

I beheld her next,

And a company—our pleasure

To discourse alone;

Gracious now to me as any,

Gracious unto none.

Borne, without dissent of either,

To the parish night;

Of the separated people

Which are out of sight?