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X.
ESCAPE

 
I 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!
 

XI.
COMPENSATION

 
For each ecstatic instant
We must an anguish pay
In keen and quivering ratio
To the ecstasy.
 
 
For each beloved hour
Sharp pittances of years,
Bitter contested farthings
And coffers heaped with tears.
 

XII.
THE MARTYRS

 
Through the straight pass of suffering
The martyrs even trod,
Their feet upon temptation,
Their faces upon God.
 
 
A stately, shriven company;
Convulsion playing round,
Harmless as streaks of meteor
Upon a planet's bound.
 
 
Their faith the everlasting troth;
Their expectation fair;
The needle to the north degree
Wades so, through polar air.
 

XIII.
A PRAYER

 
I meant to have but modest needs,
Such as content, and heaven;
Within my income these could lie,
And life and I keep even.
 
 
But since the last included both,
It would suffice my prayer
But just for one to stipulate,
And grace would grant the pair.
 
 
And so, upon this wise I prayed, —
Great Spirit, give to me
A heaven not so large as yours,
But large enough for me.
 
 
A smile suffused Jehovah's face;
The cherubim withdrew;
Grave saints stole out to look at me,
And showed their dimples, too.
 
 
I left the place with all my might, —
My prayer away I threw;
The quiet ages picked it up,
And Judgment twinkled, too,
 
 
That one so honest be extant
As take the tale for true
That "Whatsoever you shall ask,
Itself be given you."
 
 
But I, grown shrewder, scan the skies
With a suspicious air, —
As children, swindled for the first,
All swindlers be, infer.
 

XIV

 
The thought beneath so slight a film
Is more distinctly seen, —
As laces just reveal the surge,
Or mists the Apennine.
 

XV

 
The soul unto itself
Is an imperial friend, —
Or the most agonizing spy
An enemy could send.
 
 
Secure against its own,
No treason it can fear;
Itself its sovereign, of itself
The soul should stand in awe.
 

XVI

 
Surgeons must be very careful
When they take the knife!
Underneath their fine incisions
Stirs the culprit, – Life!
 

XVII.
THE RAILWAY TRAIN

 
I like to see it lap the miles,
And lick the valleys up,
And stop to feed itself at tanks;
And then, prodigious, step
 
 
Around a pile of mountains,
And, supercilious, peer
In shanties by the sides of roads;
And then a quarry pare
 
 
To fit its sides, and crawl between,
Complaining all the while
In horrid, hooting stanza;
Then chase itself down hill
 
 
And neigh like Boanerges;
Then, punctual as a star,
Stop – docile and omnipotent —
At its own stable door.
 

XVIII.
THE SHOW

 
The show is not the show,
But they that go.
Menagerie to me
My neighbor be.
Fair play —
Both went to see.
 

XIX

 
Delight becomes pictorial
When viewed through pain, —
More fair, because impossible
That any gain.
 
 
The mountain at a given distance
In amber lies;
Approached, the amber flits a little, —
And that 's the skies!
 

XX

 
A thought went up my mind to-day
That I have had before,
But did not finish, – some way back,
I could not fix the year,
 
 
Nor where it went, nor why it came
The second time to me,
Nor definitely what it was,
Have I the art to say.
 
 
But somewhere in my soul, I know
I 've met the thing before;
It just reminded me – 't was all —
And came my way no more.
 

XXI

 
Is Heaven a physician?
   They say that He can heal;
But medicine posthumous
   Is unavailable.
 
 
Is Heaven an exchequer?
   They speak of what we owe;
But that negotiation
   I 'm not a party to.
 

XXII.
THE RETURN

 
Though I get home how late, how late!
So I get home, 't will compensate.
Better will be the ecstasy
That they have done expecting me,
When, night descending, dumb and dark,
They hear my unexpected knock.
Transporting must the moment be,
Brewed from decades of agony!
 
 
To think just how the fire will burn,
Just how long-cheated eyes will turn
To wonder what myself will say,
And what itself will say to me,
Beguiles the centuries of way!
 

XXIII

 
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.
 

XXIV.
TOO MUCH

 
I should have been too glad, I see,
Too lifted for the scant degree
   Of life's penurious round;
My little circuit would have shamed
This new circumference, have blamed
   The homelier time behind.
 
 
I should have been too saved, I see,
Too rescued; fear too dim to me
   That I could spell the prayer
I knew so perfect yesterday, —
That scalding one, "Sabachthani,"
   Recited fluent here.
 
 
Earth would have been too much, I see,
And heaven not enough for me;
   I should have had the joy
Without the fear to justify, —
The palm without the Calvary;
   So, Saviour, crucify.
 
 
Defeat whets victory, they say;
The reefs in old Gethsemane
   Endear the shore beyond.
'T is beggars banquets best define;
'T is thirsting vitalizes wine, —
   Faith faints to understand.
 

XXV.
SHIPWRECK

 
It tossed and tossed, —
A little brig I knew, —
O'ertook by blast,
It spun and spun,
And groped delirious, for morn.
 
 
It slipped and slipped,
As one that drunken stepped;
Its white foot tripped,
Then dropped from sight.
 
 
Ah, brig, good-night
To crew and you;
The ocean's heart too smooth, too blue,
To break for you.
 

XXVI

 
Victory comes late,
And is held low to freezing lips
Too rapt with frost
To take it.
How sweet it would have tasted,
Just a drop!
Was God so economical?
His table 's spread too high for us
Unless we dine on tip-toe.
Crumbs fit such little mouths,
Cherries suit robins;
The eagle's golden breakfast
Strangles them.
God keeps his oath to sparrows,
Who of little love
Know how to starve!
 

XXVII.
ENOUGH

 
God gave a loaf to every bird,
But just a crumb to me;
I dare not eat it, though I starve, —
My poignant luxury
To own it, touch it, prove the feat
That made the pellet mine, —
Too happy in my sparrow chance
For ampler coveting.
 
 
It might be famine all around,
I could not miss an ear,
Such plenty smiles upon my board,
My garner shows so fair.
I wonder how the rich may feel, —
An Indiaman – an Earl?
I deem that I with but a crumb
Am sovereign of them all.
 

XXVIII

 
Experiment to me
Is every one I meet.
If it contain a kernel?
The figure of a nut
 
 
Presents upon a tree,
Equally plausibly;
But meat within is requisite,
To squirrels and to me.
 

XXIX.
MY COUNTRY'S WARDROBE

 
My country need not change her gown,
Her triple suit as sweet
As when 't was cut at Lexington,
And first pronounced "a fit."
 
 
Great Britain disapproves "the stars;"
Disparagement discreet, —
There 's something in their attitude
That taunts her bayonet.
 

XXX

 
Faith is a fine invention
For gentlemen who see;
But microscopes are prudent
In an emergency!
 

XXXI

 
Except the heaven had come so near,
So seemed to choose my door,
The distance would not haunt me so;
I had not hoped before.
 
 
But just to hear the grace depart
I never thought to see,
Afflicts me with a double loss;
'T is lost, and lost to me.
 

XXXII

 
Portraits are to daily faces
As an evening west
To a fine, pedantic sunshine
In a satin vest.
 

XXXIII.
THE DUEL

 
I took my power in my hand.
And went against the world;
'T was not so much as David had,
But I was twice as bold.
 
 
I aimed my pebble, but myself
Was all the one that fell.
Was it Goliath was too large,
Or only I too small?
 

XXXIV

 
A shady friend for torrid days
Is easier to find
Than one of higher temperature
For frigid hour of mind.
 
 
The vane a little to the east
Scares muslin souls away;
If broadcloth breasts are firmer
Than those of organdy,
 
 
Who is to blame? The weaver?
Ah! the bewildering thread!
The tapestries of paradise
So notelessly are made!
 

XXXV.
THE GOAL

 
Each life converges to some centre
Expressed or still;
Exists in every human nature
A goal,
 
 
Admitted scarcely to itself, it may be,
Too fair
For credibility's temerity
To dare.
 
 
Adored with caution, as a brittle heaven,
To reach
Were hopeless as the rainbow's raiment
To touch,
 
 
Yet persevered toward, surer for the distance;
How high
Unto the saints' slow diligence
The sky!
 
 
Ungained, it may be, by a life's low venture,
But then,
Eternity enables the endeavoring
Again.
 

XXXVI.
SIGHT

 
Before I got my eye put out,
I liked as well to see
As other creatures that have eyes,
And know no other way.
 
 
But were it told to me, to-day,
That I might have the sky
For mine, I tell you that my heart
Would split, for size of me.
 
 
The meadows mine, the mountains mine, —
All forests, stintless stars,
As much of noon as I could take
Between my finite eyes.
 
 
The motions of the dipping birds,
The lightning's jointed road,
For mine to look at when I liked, —
The news would strike me dead!
 
 
So safer, guess, with just my soul
Upon the window-pane
Where other creatures put their eyes,
Incautious of the sun.
 

XXXVII

 
Talk with prudence to a beggar
Of 'Potosi' and the mines!
Reverently to the hungry
Of your viands and your wines!
 
 
Cautious, hint to any captive
You have passed enfranchised feet!
Anecdotes of air in dungeons
Have sometimes proved deadly sweet!
 

XXXVIII.
THE PREACHER

 
He preached upon "breadth" till it argued him narrow, —
The broad are too broad to define;
And of "truth" until it proclaimed him a liar, —
The truth never flaunted a sign.
 
 
Simplicity fled from his counterfeit presence
As gold the pyrites would shun.
What confusion would cover the innocent Jesus
To meet so enabled a man!
 

XXXIX

 
Good night! which put the candle out?
A jealous zephyr, not a doubt.
   Ah! friend, you little knew
How long at that celestial wick
The angels labored diligent;
   Extinguished, now, for you!
 
 
It might have been the lighthouse spark
Some sailor, rowing in the dark,
   Had importuned to see!
It might have been the waning lamp
That lit the drummer from the camp
   To purer reveille!