We never know how high we are Till we are asked to rise And then if we are true to plan Our statures touch the skies - The Heroism we recite Would be a normal thing Did not ourselves the Cubits warp For fear to be a King.
We like a Hairbreadth 'scape It tingles in the Mind Far after Act or Accident Like paragraphs of Wind If we had ventured less The Gale were not so fine That reaches to our utmost Hair It's Tentacles divine.
There's the Battle of Burgoyne - Over, every Day, By the Time that Man and Beast Put their work away - "Sunset" sounds majestic - But that solemn War Could you comprehend it You would chastened stare.
The Lightning is a yellow Fork From Tables in the sky By inadvertent fingers dropt The awful Cutlery Of mansions never quite disclosed And never quite concealed The Apparatus of the Dark To ignorance revealed.
On the World you colored Morning painted rose - Idle his Vermillion Aimless crept the Glows Over Realms of Orchards I the Day before Conquered with the Robin - Misery - how fair Till your wrinkled Finger Shored the Sun away Midnight's awful Pattern In the Goods of Day.
Nature affects to be sedate Upon occasion, grand But let our observation shut Her practices extend To Necromancy and the Trades Obscure to understand Behold our spacious Citizen Unto a Juggler turned.
As old as Woe - How old is that? Some Eighteen thousand years - As old as Joy How old is that They are of equal years - Together chiefest they are found But seldom side by side - From neither of them thò he try Can Human nature hide.
Alone and in a Circumstance Reluctant to be told A spider on my reticence Assiduously crawled And so much more at Home than I Immediately grew I felt myself a visitor And hurriedly withdrew -
Revisiting my late abode With articles of claim I found it quietly assumed As a Gymnasium Where Tax asleep and Title off The inmates of the Air Perpetual presumption took As each were special Heir - If any strike me on the street I can return the Blow - If any take my property According to the Law The Statute is my Learned friend But what redress can be For an offence nor here nor there So not in Equity - That Larceny of time and mind The marrow of the Day By spider, or forbid it Lord That I should specify -
It troubled me as once I was - For I was once a Child - Concluding how an atom - fell - And yet the Heavens - held - The Heavens weighed the most - by far - Yet Blue - and solid - stood - Without a Bolt - that I could prove - Might Giants - understand?
Life set me larger - problems - Some I shall keep - to solve Till Algebra is easier - Or simpler proved - above -
Then - too - be comprehended - What sorer - puzzled me - Why Heaven did not break away - And tumble - Blue - on me.
There is a pain - so utter - It swallows Being up - Then covers the Abyss with Trance - So Memory can step Around - across - upon it - As One within a Swoon - Goes safely - where an open eye - Would drop Him - Bone by Bone.