(123)

OUR lives are Swiss,—

So still, so cool,

   Till, some odd afternoon,

The Alps neglect their curtains,

   And we look farther on.

Italy stands the other side,

While, like a guard between,

   The solemn Alps,

The siren Alps,

   Forever intervene!

(122)

LIFE, and Death, and Giants

Such as these, are still.

Minor apparatus, hopper of the mill,

Beetle at the candle,

   Or a fife’s small fame,

Maintain by accident

   That they proclaim.

(121)

I WORKED for chaff, and earning wheat

   Was haughty and betrayed.

What right had fields to arbitrate

   In matters ratified?

I tasted wheat,—and hated chaff,

   And thanked the ample friend;

Wisdom is more becoming viewed

   At distance than at hand.

(120)

I HAD a daily bliss

   I half indifferent viewed,

Till sudden I perceived it stir,—

   It grew as I pursued,

Till when, around a crag,

   It wasted from my sight,

Enlarged beyond my utmost scope,

   I learned its sweetness right.

(119)

TO lose one’s faith surpasses

The loss of an estate,

Because estates can be

Replenished,—faith cannot.

Inherited with life,

Belief but once can be;

Annihilate a single clause,

And Being ’s beggary.

(118)

IT dropped so low in my regard

I heard it hit the ground,

And go to pieces on the stones

At bottom of my mind;

Yet blamed the fate that fractured, less

Than I reviled myself

For entertaining plated wares

Upon my silver shelf.

(117)

I HAVE a king who does not speak;

So, wondering, thro’ the hours meek

   I trudge the day away,—

Half glad when it is night and sleep,

If, haply, thro’ a dream to peep

   In parlors shut by day.

And if I do, when morning comes,

It is as if a hundred drums

   Did round my pillow roll,

And shouts fill all my childish sky,

And bells keep saying “victory”

   From steeples in my soul!

And if I don’t, the little Bird

Within the Orchard is not heard,

   And I omit to pray,

“Father, thy will be done” to-day,

For my will goes the other way,

   And it were perjury!

(116)

I MEASURE every grief I meet

With analytic eyes;

I wonder if it weighs like mine,

Or has an easier size.

I wonder if they bore it long,

Or did it just begin?

I could not tell the date of mine,

It feels so old a pain.

I wonder if it hurts to live,

And if they have to try,

And whether, could they choose between,

They would not rather die.

I wonder if when years have piled—

Some thousands—on the cause

Of early hurt, if such a lapse

Could give them any pause;

Or would they go on aching still

Through centuries above,

Enlightened to a larger pain

By contrast with the love.

The grieved are many, I am told;

The reason deeper lies,—

Death is but one and comes but once,

And only nails the eyes.

There’s grief of want, and grief of cold,—

A sort they call “despair”;

There ’s banishment from native eyes,

In sight of native air.

And though I may not guess the kind

Correctly, yet to me

A piercing comfort it affords

In passing Calvary,

To note the fashions of the cross,

Of those that stand alone,

Still fascinated to presume

That some are like my own.

(115)

FINITE to fail, but infinite to venture.

   For the one ship that struts the shore

Many’s the gallant, overwhelmed creature

   Nodding in navies nevermore.

(114)

FATE slew him, but he did not drop;

   She felled—he did not fall—

Impaled him on her fiercest stakes—

   He neutralized them all.

She stung him, sapped his firm advance,

   But, when her worst was done,

And he, unmoved, regarded her,

   Acknowledged him a man.