A soul admitted to itself -
Finite infinity.
The Astounding subjects are the only ones
we pass unmoved.
To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee,
One clover, and a bee,
And revery.
The revery alone will do,
If bees are few.
For other Services - as Sound -
There hangs a smaller Ear
Outside the Castle - that Contain -
The other - only - Hear -
God is indeed a jealous God -
He cannot bear to see
That we had rather not with Him
But with each other play.
"We thank thee Oh Father" for these strange Minds,
that enamor us against thee.
One need not be a Chamber -
to be Haunted -
One need not be a House -
The Brain has Corridors - surpassing
Material Place -
'Tis many a tiny Mill
Turns unperceived beneath our feet
This is the Hour of Lead -
Remembered, if outlived,
As Freezing persons recollect the Snow -
First - Chill - then Stupor -
then the letting go -
There is not so much Life as talk of Life,
as a general thing.
Had we the first intimation of the Definition of Life,
the calmest of us would be Lunatics!
She dealt her pretty words like Blades -
How glittering they shone -
And every One unbared a Nerve
Or wantoned with a Bone -
As Lightning on a Landscape
Exhibits Sheets of Place -
Not yet suspected - but for Flash -
And Click - and Suddenness.
Witchcraft was hung, in History,
But History and I
Find all the Witchcraft that we need
Around us, every Day -
The Definition of Beauty is
The Definition is none -
A speck of Rapture - first perceived
By feeling it is gone -
I work to drive the awe away,
yet awe impels the work.
To be human is more than to be divine,
for when Christ was divine,
he was uncontented
till he had been human.
I took one Draught of Life -
I'll tell you what I paid -
Precisely an existence -
The market price, they said.
Time is a Test of Trouble -
But not a Remedy -
If such it prove, it prove too
There was no Malady -
Could you tell me how to grow -
or is it unconveyed -
like Melody - or Witchcraft?
Butterflies from San Domingo
Cruising round the purple line -
Have a system of aesthetics -
Far superior to mine.
Slow - Night -
that must be watched away -
As Grains upon a shore -
Too imperceptible to note -
Till it be night - no more -
Funny - to be a Century -
And see the People - going by -
But Bliss, is sold just once.
The Patent lost
None buy it any more -
Noon - is the Hinge of Day -
Evening - the Tissue Door -
Morning - the East compelling the sill
Till all the World is ajar -
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