‘T is whiter than an Indian pipe, ‘T is dimmer than a lace; No stature has it, like a fog, When you approach the place. Not any voice denotes it here, Or intimates it there; A spirit, how doth it accost? What customs hath the air? This limitless hyperbole Each one of us shall be; […]

As far from pity as complaint, As cool to speech as stone, As numb to revelation As if my trade were bone. As far from time as history, As near yourself to-day As children to the rainbow’s scarf, Or sunset’s yellow play To eyelids in the sepulchre. How still the dancer lies, While color’s revelations […]

Not any higher stands the grave For heroes than for men; Not any nearer for the child Than numb three-score and ten. This latest leisure equal lulls The beggar and his queen; Propitiate this democrat By summer’s gracious mien.

I sing to use the waiting, My bonnet but to tie, And shut the door unto my house; No more to do have I, Till, his best step approaching, We journey to the day, And tell each other how we sang To keep the dark away.

I meant to find her when I came; Death had the same design; But the success was his, it seems, And the discomfit mine. I meant to tell her how I longed For just this single time; But Death had told her so the first, And she had hearkened him. To wander now is my […]

I felt a funeral in my brain, And mourners, to and fro, Kept treading, treading, till it seemed That sense was breaking through. And when they all were seated, A service like a drum Kept beating, beating, till I thought My mind was going numb. And then I heard them lift a box, And creak […]

Bereaved of all, I went abroad, No less bereaved to be Upon a new peninsula, — The grave preceded me, Obtained my lodgings ere myself, And when I sought my bed, The grave it was, reposed upon The pillow for my head. I waked, to find it first awake, I rose, — it followed me; […]

I wish I knew that woman’s name, So, when she comes this way, To hold my life, and hold my ears, For fear I hear her say She’s ‘sorry I am dead,’ again, Just when the grave and I Have sobbed ourselves almost to sleep, — Our only lullaby.

From us she wandered now a year, Her tarrying unknown; If wilderness prevent her feet, Or that ethereal zone No eye hath seen and lived, We ignorant must be. We only know what time of year We took the mystery.

Me! Come! My dazzled face In such a shining place! Me! Hear! My foreign ear The sounds of welcome near! The saints shall meet Our bashful feet. My holiday shall be That they remember me; My paradise, the fame That they pronounce my name.

Sweet hours have perished here; This is a mighty room; Within its precincts hopes have played, — Now shadows in the tomb.

I breathed enough to learn the trick, And now, removed from air, I simulate the breath so well, That one, to be quite sure The lungs are stirless, must descend Among the cunning cells, And touch the pantomime himself. How cool the bellows feels!

Three weeks passed since I had seen her, — Some disease had vexed; ‘T was with text and village singing I beheld her next, And a company — our pleasure To discourse alone; Gracious now to me as any, Gracious unto none. Borne, without dissent of either, To the parish night; Of the separated people […]

The soul should always stand ajar, That if the heaven inquire, He will not be obliged to wait, Or shy of troubling her. Depart, before the host has slid The bolt upon the door, To seek for the accomplished guest, — Her visitor no more.

The dying need but little, dear, — A glass of water’s all, A flower’s unobtrusive face To punctuate the wall, A fan, perhaps, a friend’s regret, And certainly that one No color in the rainbow Perceives when you are gone.

So proud she was to die It made us all ashamed That what we cherished, so unknown To her desire seemed. So satisfied to go Where none of us should be, Immediately, that anguish stooped Almost to jealousy.

There’s something quieter than sleep Within this inner room! It wears a sprig upon its breast, And will not tell its name. Some touch it and some kiss it, Some chafe its idle hand; It has a simple gravity I do not understand! While simple-hearted neighbors Chat of the ‘early dead,’ We, prone to periphrasis, […]

Superfluous were the sun When excellence is dead; He were superfluous every day, For every day is said That syllable whose faith Just saves it from despair, And whose ‘I’ll meet you’ hesitates If love inquire, ‘Where?’ Upon his dateless fame Our periods may lie, As stars that drop anonymous From an abundant sky.

A sickness of this world it most occasions When best men die; A wishfulness their far condition To occupy. A chief indifference, as foreign A world must be Themselves forsake contented, For Deity.

There’s been a death in the opposite house As lately as to-day. I know it by the numb look Such houses have alway. The neighbors rustle in and out, The doctor drives away. A window opens like a pod, Abrupt, mechanically; Somebody flings a mattress out, — The children hurry by; They wonder if It […]