XLII.

I wonder if the sepulchre

   Is not a lonesome way,

When men and boys, and larks and June

   Go down the fields to hay!

XLIII.

JOY IN DEATH.

If tolling bell I ask the cause.

   'A soul has gone to God,'

I'm answered in a lonesome tone;

   Is heaven then so sad?

That bells should joyful ring to tell

   A soul had gone to heaven,

Would seem to me the proper way

   A good news should be given.

XLIV.

If I may have it when it's dead

   I will contented be;

If just as soon as breath is out

   It shall belong to me,

Until they lock it in the grave,

   'T is bliss I cannot weigh,

For though they lock thee in the grave,

   Myself can hold the key.

Think of it, lover! I and thee

   Permitted face to face to be;

After a life, a death we'll say, —

   For death was that, and this is thee.

XLV.

Before the ice is in the pools,

   Before the skaters go,

Or any cheek at nightfall

   Is tarnished by the snow,

Before the fields have finished,

   Before the Christmas tree,

Wonder upon wonder

   Will arrive to me!

What we touch the hems of

   On a summer's day;

What is only walking

   Just a bridge away;

That which sings so, speaks so,

   When there's no one here, —

Will the frock I wept in

   Answer me to wear?

XLVI.

DYING.

I heard a fly buzz when I died;

   The stillness round my form

Was like the stillness in the air

   Between the heaves of storm.

The eyes beside had wrung them dry,

   And breaths were gathering sure

For that last onset, when the king

   Be witnessed in his power.

I willed my keepsakes, signed away

   What portion of me I

Could make assignable, — and then

   There interposed a fly,

With blue, uncertain, stumbling buzz,

   Between the light and me;

And then the windows failed, and then

   I could not see to see.

XLVII.

Adrift! A little boat adrift!

   And night is coming down!

Will no one guide a little boat

   Unto the nearest town?

So sailors say, on yesterday,

   Just as the dusk was brown,

One little boat gave up its strife,

   And gurgled down and down.

But angels say, on yesterday,

   Just as the dawn was red,

One little boat o'erspent with gales

Retrimmed its masts, redecked its sails

   Exultant, onward sped!

XLVIII.

There's been a death in the opposite house

   As lately as to-day.

I know it by the numb look

   Such houses have alway.

The neighbors rustle in and out,

   The doctor drives away.

A window opens like a pod,

   Abrupt, mechanically;

Somebody flings a mattress out, —

   The children hurry by;

They wonder if It died on that, —

   I used to when a boy.

The minister goes stiffly in

   As if the house were his,

And he owned all the mourners now,

   And little boys besides;

And then the milliner, and the man

   Of the appalling trade,

To take the measure of the house.

   There'll be that dark parade

Of tassels and of coaches soon;

   It's easy as a sign, —

The intuition of the news

   In just a country town.

XLIX.

We never know we go, — when we are going

   We jest and shut the door;

Fate following behind us bolts it,

   And we accost no more.

L.

THE SOUL'S STORM.

It struck me every day

   The lightning was as new

As if the cloud that instant slit

   And let the fire through.

It burned me in the night,

   It blistered in my dream;

It sickened fresh upon my sight

   With every morning's beam.

I thought that storm was brief, —

   The maddest, quickest by;

But Nature lost the date of this,

   And left it in the sky.

LI.

Water is taught by thirst;

Land, by the oceans passed;

   Transport, by throe;

Peace, by its battles told;

Love, by memorial mould;

   Birds, by the snow.

LII.

THIRST.

We thirst at first, — 't is Nature's act;

   And later, when we die,

A little water supplicate

   Of fingers going by.

It intimates the finer want,

   Whose adequate supply

Is that great water in the west

   Termed immortality.

LIII.

A clock stopped — not the mantel's;

   Geneva's farthest skill

Can't put the puppet bowing

   That just now dangled still.

An awe came on the trinket!

   The figures hunched with pain,

Then quivered out of decimals

   Into degreeless noon.

It will not stir for doctors,

   This pendulum of snow;

The shopman importunes it,

   While cool, concernless No

Nods from the gilded pointers,

   Nods from the seconds slim,

Decades of arrogance between

   The dial life and him.

LIV.

CHARLOTTE BRONTË'S GRAVE.

All overgrown by cunning moss,

   All interspersed with weed,

The little cage of 'Currer Bell,'

   In quiet Haworth laid.

This bird, observing others,

   When frosts too sharp became,

Retire to other latitudes,

   Quietly did the same,

But differed in returning;

   Since Yorkshire hills are green,

Yet not in all the nests I meet

   Can nightingale be seen.

Gathered from many wanderings,

   Gethsemane can tell

Through what transporting anguish

   She reached the asphodel!

Soft fall the sounds of Eden

   Upon her puzzled ear;

Oh, what an afternoon for heaven,

   When 'Brontë' entered there!

LV.

A toad can die of light!

Death is the common right

   Of toads and men, —

Of earl and midge

The privilege.

   Why swagger then?

The gnat's supremacy

Is large as thine.

LVI.

Far from love the Heavenly Father

   Leads the chosen child;

Oftener through realm of briar

   Than the meadow mild,

Oftener by the claw of dragon

   Than the hand of friend,

Guides the little one predestined

   To the native land.

LVII.

SLEEPING.

A long, long sleep, a famous sleep

   That makes no show for dawn

By stretch of limb or stir of lid, —

   An independent one.