Sweet is the swamp with it's secrets, Until we meet a snake; 'Tis then we sigh for houses, And our departure take At that enthralling gallop That only childhood knows. A snake is nature's treason, And awe is where it goes.
Some say good night - at night - I say good night by day - Good bye - the Going utter me - Good night, I still reply - For parting, that is night, And presence, simply dawn - Itself, the purple on the hight Denominated morn.
Softened by Time's consummate plush, How sleek the woe appears That threatened childhood's citadel And undermined the years. Bisected now, by bleaker griefs, We envy the despair That devastated childhood's realm, So easy to repair.
Rearrange a "Wife's" Affection! When they dislocate my Brain! Amputate my freckled Bosom! Make me bearded like a man! Blush, my spirit, in thy Fastness - Blush, my unacknowledged clay - Seven years of troth have taught thee More than Wifehood every may!
Love that never leaped it's socket - Trust intrenched in narrow pain - Constancy thro' fire - awarded - Anguish - bare of anodyne!
Burden - borne so far triumphant - None suspect me of the crown, For I wear the "Thorns" till Sunset - Then - my Diadem put on.
Big my Secret but it's bandaged - It will never get away Till the Day it's Weary Keeper Leads it through the Grave to thee.
Proud of my broken heart, since thou didn't break it, Proud of the pain I did not feel till thee, Proud of my night, since thou with moons dost slake it, Not to partake thy passion, my humility.
Thou can't not boast, like Jesus, drunken without companion Was the strong cup of anguish brewed for the Nazarene
Thou can't not pierce tradition with the peerless puncture, See! I usurped thy crucifix to honor mine!
One crown that no one seeks And yet the highest head It's isolation coveted It's stigma deified While Pontius Pilate lives In whatsoever hell That coronation pierces him He recollects it well.
No man saw awe, nor to his house Admitted he a man Though by his awful residence Has human nature been - Not deeming of his dread abode - Till laboring to flee A grasp on comprehension laid Detained vitality.
Returning is a different route The Spirit could not show For breathing is the only work To be enacted now.
"Am not consumed", old Moses wrote, "Yet saw him face to face" - That very physiognomy I am convinced was this.
My life closed twice before it's close; It yet remains to see If Immortality unveil A third event to me, So huge, so hopeless to conceive As these that twice befell. Parting is all we know of heaven, And all we need of hell.
Love can do all but raise the Dead I doubt if even that From such a giant were withheld Were flesh equivalent But love is tired and must sleep, And hungry and must graze And so abets the shining Fleet Till it is out of gaze.