(133)

YOU cannot put a fire out;

   A thing that can ignite

Can go, itself, without a fan

   Upon the slowest night.

You cannot fold a flood

   And put it in a drawer,—

Because the winds would find it out,

   And tell your cedar floor.

(132)

IT might be easier

   To fail with land in sight,

Than gain my blue peninsula

   To perish of delight.

(131)

WHO never wanted,—maddest joy

   Remains to him unknown;

The banquet of abstemiousness

   Surpasses that of wine.

Within its hope, though yet ungrasped

   Desire’s perfect goal,

No nearer, lest reality

   Should disenthrall thy soul.

(130)

WHAT soft, cherubic creatures

   These gentlewomen are!

One would as soon assault a plush

   Or violate a star.

Such dimity convictions,

   A horror so refined

Of freckled human nature,

   Of Deity ashamed,—

It’s such a common glory,

   A fisherman’s degree!

Redemption, brittle lady,

   Be so, ashamed of thee.

(129)

TO help our bleaker parts

   Salubrious hours are given,

Which if they do not fit for earth

   Drill silently for heaven.

(128)

THE past is such a curious creature,

   To look her in the face

A transport may reward us,

   Or a disgrace.

Unarmed if any meet her,

   I charge him, fly!

Her rusty ammunition

   Might yet reply!

(127)

THE bone that has no marrow;

   What ultimate for that?

It is not fit for table,

   For beggar, or for cat.

A bone has obligations,

   A being has the same;

A marrowless assembly

   Is culpabler than shame.

But how shall finished creatures

   A function fresh obtain?—

Old Nicodemus’ phantom

   Confronting us again!

(126)

THE brain is wider than the sky,

   For, put them side by side,

The one the other will include

   With ease, and you beside.

The brain is deeper than the sea,

   For, hold them, blue to blue,

The one the other will absorb,

   As sponges, buckets do.

The brain is just the weight of God,

   For, lift them, pound for pound,

And they will differ, if they do,

   As syllable from sound.

(125)

TO hang our head ostensibly,

   And subsequent to find

That such was not the posture

   Of our immortal mind,

Affords the sly presumption

   That, in so dense a fuzz,

You, too, take cobweb attitudes

   Upon a plane of gauze!

(124)

REMEMBRANCE has a rear and front,—

     ’T is something like a house;

It has a garret also

     For refuse and the mouse,

Besides, the deepest cellar

     That ever mason hewed;

Look to it, by its fathoms

     Ourselves be not pursued.