Some things that fly there be -
Birds - Hours - the Bumblebee -
Of these no Elegy.
Some things that stay there be -
Grief - Hills - Eternity -
Nor this behooveth me.
There are that resting, rise.
Can I expound the skies?
How still the Riddle lies.
As by the dead we love to sit -
Become so wondrous dear -
As for the lost we grapple
Tho' all the rest are here -
In broken mathematics
We estimate our prize
Vast - in it's fading ratio
To our penurious eyes!
A darting year - a pomp - a tear -
a waking on a morn
to find that what one waked for,
inhales the different dawn.
Whose cheek is this?
What rosy face
Has lost a blush today?
I found her - "pleiad" - in the woods
And bore her safe away -
Robins, in the tradition
Did cover such with leaves,
But which the cheek -
And which the pall
My scrutiny deceives.
We should not mind so small a flower -
Except it quiet bring
Our little garden that we lost
Back to the Lawn again.
So spicy her Carnations nod -
So drunken, reel her Bees -
So silver steal a hundred flutes
From out a hundred trees -
That whose sees this little flower
By faith may clear behold
The Bobolinks around the throne
And Dandelions gold.
Our lives are Swiss -
So still - so Cool -
Till some odd afternoon
The Alps neglect their Curtains
And we look farther on!
Italy stands the other side!
While like a guard between -
The solemn Alps -
The siren Alps
Forever intervene!
Going to Heaven!
I dont know when -
Pray do not ask me how!
Indeed I'm too astonished
To think of answering you!
Going to Heaven!
How dim it sounds!
And yet it will be done
As sure as flocks go home at night
Unto the Shepherd's arm!
Perhaps you're going too!
Who knows?
If you sh'd get there first
Save just a little space for me
Close to the two I lost -
The smallest "Robe" will fit me
And just a bit of "Crown" -
For you know we do not mind our dress
When we are going home -
I'm glad I dont believe it
For it w'd stop my breath -
And I'd like to look a little more
At such a curious Earth!
I am glad they did believe it
Whom I have never found
Since the mighty autumn afternoon
I left them in the ground.
A poor - torn heart - a tattered heart -
That sat it down to rest -
Nor noticed that the ebbing Day
Flowed silver to the west -
Nor noticed Night did soft descend -
Nor Constellation burn -
Intent upon the vision
Of latitudes unknown.
The angels - happening that way
This dusty heart espied -
Tenderly took it up from toil
And carried it to God -
There - sandals for the Barefoot -
There - gathered from the gales -
Do the blue havens by the hand
Lead the wandering Sails.
Never hear the word "Escape"
Without a quicker blood!
A sudden expectation!
A flying attitude!
I never hear of prisons broad
By soldiers battered down -
But I tug, childish, at my bars
Only to fail again!
Exultation is the going
Of an inland soul to sea,
Past the houses - past the headlands,
Into deep Eternity -
Bred as we, among the mountains,
Can the sailor understand
The divine intoxication
Of the first league out from land.