(53)

GOD gave a loaf to every bird,

But just a crumb to me;

I dare not eat it, though I starve, —

My poignant luxury

To own it, touch it, prove the feat

That made the pellet mine, —

Too happy in my sparrow chance

For ampler coveting.

It might be famine all around,

I could not miss an ear,

Such plenty smiles upon my board,

My garner shows so fair.

I wonder how the rich may feel, —

An Indiaman — an Earl?

I deem that I with but a crumb

Am sovereign of them all.

(52)

VICTORY comes late,

And is held low to freezing lips

Too rapt with frost

To take it.

How sweet it would have tasted,

Just a drop!

Was God so economical?

His table ‘s spread too high for us

Unless we dine on tip-toe.

Crumbs fit such little mouths,

Cherries suit robins;

The eagle’s golden breakfast

Strangles them.

God keeps his oath to sparrows,

Who of little love

Know how to starve!

(51)

IT tossed and tossed, —

A little brig I knew, —

O’ertook by blast,

It spun and spun,

And groped delirious, for morn.

It slipped and slipped,

As one that drunken stepped;

Its white foot tripped,

Then dropped from sight.

Ah, brig, good-night

To crew and you;

The ocean’s heart too smooth, too blue,

To break for you.

(50)

I SHOULD have been too glad, I see,

Too lifted for the scant degree

Of life’s penurious round;

My little circuit would have shamed

This new circumference, have blamed

The homelier time behind.

I should have been too saved, I see,

Too rescued; fear too dim to me

That I could spell the prayer

I knew so perfect yesterday, —

That scalding one, “Sabachthani,”

Recited fluent here.

Earth would have been too much, I see,

And heaven not enough for me;

I should have had the joy

Without the fear to justify, —

The palm without the Calvary;

So, Saviour, crucify.

Defeat whets victory, they say;

The reefs in old Gethsemane

Endear the shore beyond.

‘T is beggars banquets best define;

‘T is thirsting vitalizes wine, —

Faith faints to understand.

(49)

A POOR torn heart, a tattered heart,

That sat it down to rest,

Nor noticed that the ebbing day

Flowed silver to the west,

Nor noticed night did soft descend

Nor constellation burn,

Intent upon the vision

Of latitudes unknown.

The angels, happening that way,

This dusty heart espied;

Tenderly took it up from toil

And carried it to God.

There, — sandals for the barefoot;

There, — gathered from the gales,

Do the blue havens by the hand

Lead the wandering sails.

(48)

THOUGH I get home how late, how late!

So I get home, ‘t will compensate.

Better will be the ecstasy

That they have done expecting me,

When, night descending, dumb and dark,

They hear my unexpected knock.

Transporting must the moment be,

Brewed from decades of agony!

To think just how the fire will burn,

Just how long-cheated eyes will turn

To wonder what myself will say,

And what itself will say to me,

Beguiles the centuries of way!

(47)

IS Heaven a physician?

They say that He can heal;

But medicine posthumous

Is unavailable.

Is Heaven an exchequer?

They speak of what we owe;

But that negotiation

I’m not a party to.

(46)

A THOUGHT went up my mind to-day

That I have had before,

But did not finish, — some way back,

I could not fix the year,

Nor where it went, nor why it came

The second time to me,

Nor definitely what it was,

Have I the art to say.

But somewhere in my soul, I know

I ‘ve met the thing before;

It just reminded me — ‘t was all —

And came my way no more.

(45)

DELIGHT becomes pictorial

When viewed through pain, —

More fair, because impossible

That any gain.

The mountain at a given distance

In amber lies;

Approached, the amber flits a little, —

And that’s the skies!

(44)

THE show is not the show,

But they that go.

Menagerie to me

My neighbor be.

Fair play —

Both went to see.