Conjecturing a Climate Of unsuspended Suns - Adds poignancy to Winter - The freezing Fancy turns To a fictitious Summer To palliate a Cold - Not obviated of Degree - Nor eased - of Latitude.
I measure every Grief I meet With narrow, probing, Eyes - I wonder if It weighs like Mine - Or has an Easier size - I wonder if They bore it long - Or did it just begin - I could not tell the Date of Mine - It feels so old a pain -
I wonder if it hurts to live - And if They have to try - And whether - could They choose between - It would not be - to die -
I note that Some - gone patient long - At length, renew their smile - An imitation of a Light That has so little Oil -
I wonder if when Years have piled - Some Thousands - on the Harm - That hurt them Early - such a lapse Could give them any Balm -
Or would they go on aching still Through Centuries of Nerve - Enlightened to a larger Pain - In Contrast with the Love -
The Grieved - are many - I am told - There is the various Cause - Death - is but one - and comes but once - And only nails the eyes -
There's Grief of Want - and Grief of Cold - A sort they call "Despair" - There's Banishment from native Eyes - In sight of Native Air -
And though I may not guess the kind - Correctly - yet to me A piercing Comfort it affords In passing Calvary -
To note the fashions - of the Cross - And how they're mostly worn - Still fascinated to presume That Some - are like My Own.
He was my host - he was my guest, I never to this day If I invited him could tell, Or he invited me. So infinite our intercourse So intimate, indeed, Analysis as capsule seemed To keeper of the seed.
Had I known that the first was the last I should have kept it longer. Had I known that the last was the first I should have mixed it stronger. Cup, it was your fault, Lip was not the liar. No, lip it was your's, Bliss was most to blame.
Drowning is not so pitiful As the attempt to rise. Three times, 'tis said, a sinking man Comes up to face the skies, And then declines forever To that abhorred abode, Where hope and he part company - For he is grasped by God. The Maker's cordial visage, However good to see, Is shunned, we must admit it, Like an adversity.
Did life's penurious length Italicize it's sweetness, The men that daily live Would stand so deep in joy That it would clog the cogs Of that revolving reason Whose esoteric belt Protects our sanity.
Death is like the insect Menacing the tree, Competent to kill it, But decoyed may be. Bait it with the balsam Seek it with the saw, Baffle, if it cost you Everything you are.
Then, if it have burrowed Out of reach of skill - Wring the tree and leave it. 'Tis the vermin's will.
Consulting summer's clock, But half the hours remain. I ascertain it with a shock - I shall not look again. The second half of joy Is shorter than the first. The truth I do not dare to know I muffle with a jest.
A Pit - but Heaven over it - And Heaven beside, and Heaven abroad; And yet a Pit - With Heaven over it. To stir would be to slip - To look would be to drop - To dream - to sap the Prop That holds my chances up. Ah! Pit! With Heaven over it!
The depth is all my thought - I dare not ask my feet - 'Twould start us where we sit So straight you'd scarce suspect It was a Pit - with fathoms under it It's Circuit just the same Whose Doom to whom 'Twould start them - We - could tremble - But since we got a Bomb - And held it in our Bosom - Nay - Hold it - it is calm.