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.