Journey 2 Being

40

SUMMER for thee grant I may be

When summer days are flown!

Thy music still when whippoorwill

And oriole are done!

For thee to bloom, I’ll skip the tomb

And sow my blossoms o’er!

Pray gather me, Anemone,

Thy flower forevermore!

39

WHEN roses cease to bloom, dear,

And violets are done,

When bumble-bees in solemn flight

Have passed beyond the sun,

The hand that paused to gather

Upon this summer’s day

Will idle lie, in Auburn,—

Then take my flower, pray!

38

ONE blessing had I, than the rest

So larger to my eyes

That I stopped gauging, satisfied,

For this enchanted size.

It was the limit of my dream,

The focus of my prayer,—

A perfect, paralyzing bliss

Contented as despair.

I knew no more of want or cold,

Phantasms both become,

For this new value in the soul,

Supremest earthly sum.

The heaven below the heaven above

Obscured with ruddier hue.

Life’s latitude leant over-full;

The judgment perished, too.

Why joys so scantily disburse,

Why Paradise defer,

Why floods are served to us in bowls,—

I speculate no more.

37

LOVE is anterior to life,

Posterior to death,

Initial of creation, and

The exponent of breath.

36

My worthiness is all my doubt,

His merit all my fear,

Contrasting which, my qualities

Do lowlier appear;

Lest I should insufficient prove

For his beloved need,

The chiefest apprehension

Within my loving creed.

So I, the undivine abode

Of his elect content,

Conform my soul as ‘t were a church

Unto her sacrament.

35

Proud of my broken heart since thou didst break it,

Proud of the pain I did not feel till thee,

Proud of my night since thou with moons dost slake it,

Not to partake thy passion, my humility.

34

WHAT if I say I shall not wait?

What if I burst the fleshly gate

And pass, escaped, to thee?

What if I file this mortal off,

See where it hurt me,— that ‘s enough,—

And wade in liberty?

They cannot take us any more,—

Dungeons may call, and guns implore;

Unmeaning now, to me,

As laughter was an hour ago,

Or laces, or a travelling show,

Or who died yesterday!

33

I held a jewel in my fingers

And went to sleep.

The day was warm, and winds were prosy;

I said: “‘T will keep.”

I woke and chid my honest fingers,—

The gem was gone;

And now an amethyst remembrance

Is all I own.

32

HE put the belt around my life,—

I heard the buckle snap,

And turned away, imperial,

My lifetime folding up

Deliberate, as a duke would do

A kingdom’s title-deed,—

Henceforth a dedicated sort,

A member of the cloud.

Yet not too far to come at call,

And do the little toils

That make the circuit of the rest,

And deal occasional smiles

To lives that stoop to notice mine

And kindly ask it in,—

Whose invitation, knew you not

For whom I must decline?

31

THE moon is distant from the sea,

And yet with amber hands

She leads him, docile as a boy,

Along appointed sands.

He never misses a degree;

Obedient to her eye,

He comes just so far toward the town,

Just so far goes away.

Oh, Signor, thine the amber hand,

And mine the distant sea,—

Obedient to the least command

Thine eyes impose on me.