XXIV.

This was in the white of the year,

   That was in the green,

Drifts were as difficult then to think

   As daisies now to be seen.

Looking back is best that is left,

   Or if it be before,

Retrospection is prospect's half,

   Sometimes almost more.

XXV.

Sweet hours have perished here;

   This is a mighty room;

Within its precincts hopes have played, —

   Now shadows in the tomb.

XXVI.

Me! Come! My dazzled face

In such a shining place!

Me! Hear! My foreign ear

The sounds of welcome near!

The saints shall meet

Our bashful feet.

My holiday shall be

That they remember me;

My paradise, the fame

That they pronounce my name.

XXVII.

INVISIBLE.

From us she wandered now a year,

   Her tarrying unknown;

If wilderness prevent her feet,

   Or that ethereal zone

No eye hath seen and lived,

   We ignorant must be.

We only know what time of year

   We took the mystery.

XXVIII.

I wish I knew that woman's name,

   So, when she comes this way,

To hold my life, and hold my ears,

   For fear I hear her say

She's 'sorry I am dead,' again,

   Just when the grave and I

Have sobbed ourselves almost to sleep, —

   Our only lullaby.

XXIX.

TRYING TO FORGET.

Bereaved of all, I went abroad,

   No less bereaved to be

Upon a new peninsula, —

   The grave preceded me,

Obtained my lodgings ere myself,

   And when I sought my bed,

The grave it was, reposed upon

   The pillow for my head.

I waked, to find it first awake,

   I rose, — it followed me;

I tried to drop it in the crowd,

   To lose it in the sea,

In cups of artificial drowse

   To sleep its shape away, —

The grave was finished, but the spade

   Remained in memory.

XXX.

I felt a funeral in my brain,

   And mourners, to and fro,

Kept treading, treading, till it seemed

   That sense was breaking through.

And when they all were seated,

   A service like a drum

Kept beating, beating, till I thought

   My mind was going numb.

And then I heard them lift a box,

   And creak across my soul

With those same boots of lead, again.

   Then space began to toll

As all the heavens were a bell,

   And Being but an ear,

And I and silence some strange race,

   Wrecked, solitary, here.

XXXI.

I meant to find her when I came;

   Death had the same design;

But the success was his, it seems,

   And the discomfit mine.

I meant to tell her how I longed

   For just this single time;

But Death had told her so the first,

   And she had hearkened him.

To wander now is my abode;

   To rest, — to rest would be

A privilege of hurricane

   To memory and me.

XXXII.

WAITING.

I sing to use the waiting,

   My bonnet but to tie,

And shut the door unto my house;

   No more to do have I,

Till, his best step approaching,

   We journey to the day,

And tell each other how we sang

   To keep the dark away.

XXXIII.

A sickness of this world it most occasions

   When best men die;

A wishfulness their far condition

   To occupy.

A chief indifference, as foreign

   A world must be

Themselves forsake contented,

   For Deity.

XXXIV.

Superfluous were the sun

   When excellence is dead;

He were superfluous every day,

   For every day is said

That syllable whose faith

   Just saves it from despair,

And whose 'I'll meet you' hesitates

   If love inquire, 'Where?'

Upon his dateless fame

   Our periods may lie,

As stars that drop anonymous

   From an abundant sky.

XXXV.

So proud she was to die

   It made us all ashamed

That what we cherished, so unknown

   To her desire seemed.

So satisfied to go

   Where none of us should be,

Immediately, that anguish stooped

   Almost to jealousy.

XXXVI.

FAREWELL.

Tie the strings to my life, my Lord,

   Then I am ready to go!

Just a look at the horses —

   Rapid! That will do!

Put me in on the firmest side,

   So I shall never fall;

For we must ride to the Judgment,

   And it's partly down hill.

But never I mind the bridges,

   And never I mind the sea;

Held fast in everlasting race

   By my own choice and thee.

Good-by to the life I used to live,

   And the world I used to know;

And kiss the hills for me, just once;

   Now I am ready to go!

XXXVII.

The dying need but little, dear, —

   A glass of water's all,

A flower's unobtrusive face

   To punctuate the wall,

A fan, perhaps, a friend's regret,

   And certainly that one

No color in the rainbow

   Perceives when you are gone.

XXXVIII.

DEAD.

There's something quieter than sleep

   Within this inner room!

It wears a sprig upon its breast,

   And will not tell its name.

Some touch it and some kiss it,

   Some chafe its idle hand;

It has a simple gravity

   I do not understand!

While simple-hearted neighbors

   Chat of the 'early dead,'

We, prone to periphrasis,

   Remark that birds have fled!

XXXIX.

The soul should always stand ajar,

   That if the heaven inquire,

He will not be obliged to wait,

   Or shy of troubling her.

Depart, before the host has slid

   The bolt upon the door,

To seek for the accomplished guest, —

   Her visitor no more.

XL.

Three weeks passed since I had seen her, —

   Some disease had vexed;

'T was with text and village singing

   I beheld her next,

And a company — our pleasure

   To discourse alone;

Gracious now to me as any,

   Gracious unto none.

Borne, without dissent of either,

   To the parish night;

Of the separated people

   Which are out of sight?