536


The heart asks Pleasure - first -
And then - Excuse from Pain -
And then - those little Anodynes
That deaden suffering -

And then - to go to sleep -
And then - if it should be
The will of its Inquisitor
The privilege to die -

***

543

I fear a Man of frugal Speech -
I fear a Silent Man -
Haranguer - I can overtake -
Or Babbler - entertain -

But He who weigheth - While the Rest -
Expend their furthest pound -
Of this Man - I am wary -
I fear that He is Grand -

***

571

Must be a Woe -
A loss or so -
To bend the eye
Best Beauty's way -

But - once aslant
It notes Delight
As difficult
As Stalactite

A Common Bliss
Were had for less -
The price - is
Even as the Grace -

Our lord - thought no
Extravagance
To pay - a Cross -

***

875

I stepped from Plank to Plank
A slow and cautious way
The Stars about my Head I felt
About my Feet the Sea.

I knew not but the next
Would be my final inch -
This gave me that precarious Gait
Some call Experience.

***

1273

The sacred Closet when you sweep -
Entitled "Memory" -
Select a reverential Broom -
And do it silently.

'Twill be a Labor of surprise -
Besides Identity
Of other Interlocutors
A probability -

August the Dust of that Domain -
Unchallenged - let it lie -
You cannot supersede itself
But it can silence you -

***

1755

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.