Journey 2 Being

SHE laid her docile crescent down,

And this mechanic stone

Still states, to dates that have forgot,

The news that she is gone.

So constant to its stolid trust,

The shaft that never knew,

It shames the constancy that fled

Before its emblem flew.

’T IS whiter than an Indian pipe,

’T is dimmer than a lace;

No stature has it, like a fog,

When you approach the place.

Not any voice denotes it here,

Or intimates it there;

A spirit, how doth it accost?

What customs hath the air?

This limitless hyperbole

Each one of us shall be;

’T is drama, if (hypothesis)

It be not tragedy!

AS far from pity as complaint,

As cool to speech as stone,

As numb to revelation

As if my trade were bone.

As far from time as history,

As near yourself to-day

As children to the rainbow’s scarf,

Or sunset’s yellow play

To eyelids in the sepulchre.

How still the dancer lies,

While color’s revelations break,

And blaze the butterflies!

NOT any higher stands the grave

For heroes than for men;

Not any nearer for the child

Than numb three-score and ten.

This latest leisure equal lulls

The beggar and his queen;

Propitiate this democrat

By summer’s gracious mien.

EACH that we lose takes part of us;

A crescent still abides,

Which like the moon, some turbid night,

Is summoned by the tides.

’T is sunrise, little maid, hast thou

No station in the day?

’T was not thy wont to hinder so,—

Retrieve thine industry.

’T is noon, my little maid, alas!

And art thou sleeping yet?

The lily waiting to be wed,

The bee, dost thou forget?

My little maid, ’t is night; alas,

That night should be to thee

Instead of morning! Hadst thou broached

Thy little plan to me,

Dissuade thee if I could not, sweet,

I might have aided thee.

DEATH is like the insect

Menacing the tree,

Competent to kill it,

But decoyed may be.

Bait it with the balsam,

Seek it with the knife,

Baffle, if it cost you

Everything in life.

Then, if it have burrowed

Out of reach of skill,

Ring the tree and leave it,—

’T is the vermin’s will.

HOW dare the robins sing,

When men and women hear

Who since they went to their account

Have settled with the year!—

Paid all that life had earned

In one consummate bill,

And now, what life or death can do

Is immaterial.

Insulting is the sun

To him whose mortal light,

Beguiled of immortality,

Bequeaths him to the night.

In deference to him

Extinct be every hum,

Whose garden wrestles with the dew,

At daybreak overcome!

THE distance that the dead have gone

Does not at first appear;

Their coming back seems possible

For many an ardent year.

And then, that we have followed them

We more than half suspect,

So intimate have we become

With their dear retrospect.

’T IS an honorable thought,

And makes one lift one’s hat,

As one encountered gentlefolk

Upon a daily street,

That we ’ve immortal place,

Though pyramids decay,

And kingdoms, like the orchard,

Flit russetly away.