Adrift! A little boat adrift! And night is coming down! Will no one guide a little boat Unto the nearest town? So sailors say, on yesterday, Just as the dusk was brown, One little boat gave up its strife, And gurgled down and down. But angels say, on yesterday, Just as the dawn was red, […]

I heard a fly buzz when I died; The stillness round my form Was like the stillness in the air Between the heaves of storm. The eyes beside had wrung them dry, And breaths were gathering sure For that last onset, when the king Be witnessed in his power. I willed my keepsakes, signed away […]

Before the ice is in the pools, Before the skaters go, Or any cheek at nightfall Is tarnished by the snow, Before the fields have finished, Before the Christmas tree, Wonder upon wonder Will arrive to me! What we touch the hems of On a summer’s day; What is only walking Just a bridge away; […]

If I may have it when it’s dead I will contented be; If just as soon as breath is out It shall belong to me, Until they lock it in the grave, ‘T is bliss I cannot weigh, For though they lock thee in the grave, Myself can hold the key. Think of it, lover! […]

If tolling bell I ask the cause. ‘A soul has gone to God,’ I’m answered in a lonesome tone; Is heaven then so sad? That bells should joyful ring to tell A soul had gone to heaven, Would seem to me the proper way A good news should be given.

I wonder if the sepulchre Is not a lonesome way, When men and boys, and larks and June Go down the fields to hay!

Far from love the Heavenly Father Leads the chosen child; Oftener through realm of briar Than the meadow mild, Oftener by the claw of dragon Than the hand of friend, Guides the little one predestined To the native land.

A toad can die of light! Death is the common right Of toads and men, — Of earl and midge The privilege. Why swagger then? The gnat’s supremacy Is large as thine.

All overgrown by cunning moss, All interspersed with weed, The little cage of ‘Currer Bell,’ In quiet Haworth laid. This bird, observing others, When frosts too sharp became, Retire to other latitudes, Quietly did the same, But differed in returning; Since Yorkshire hills are green, Yet not in all the nests I meet Can nightingale […]

We thirst at first, — ‘t is Nature’s act; And later, when we die, A little water supplicate Of fingers going by. It intimates the finer want, Whose adequate supply Is that great water in the west Termed immortality.

A clock stopped — not the mantel’s; Geneva’s farthest skill Can’t put the puppet bowing That just now dangled still. An awe came on the trinket! The figures hunched with pain, Then quivered out of decimals Into degreeless noon. It will not stir for doctors, This pendulum of snow; The shopman importunes it, While cool, […]

Water is taught by thirst; Land, by the oceans passed; Transport, by throe; Peace, by its battles told; Love, by memorial mould; Birds, by the snow.

It struck me every day The lightning was as new As if the cloud that instant slit And let the fire through. It burned me in the night, It blistered in my dream; It sickened fresh upon my sight With every morning’s beam. I thought that storm was brief, — The maddest, quickest by; But […]

We never know we go, — when we are going We jest and shut the door; Fate following behind us bolts it, And we accost no more.

On this wondrous sea, Sailing silently, Ho! pilot, ho! Knowest thou the shore Where no breakers roar, Where the storm is o’er? In the silent west Many sails at rest, Their anchors fast; Thither I pilot thee, — Land, ho! Eternity! Ashore at last!

‘T was just this time last year I died. I know I heard the corn, When I was carried by the farms, — It had the tassels on. I thought how yellow it would look When Richard went to mill; And then I wanted to get out, But something held my will. I thought just […]

A long, long sleep, a famous sleep That makes no show for dawn By stretch of limb or stir of lid, — An independent one. Was ever idleness like this? Within a hut of stone To bask the centuries away Nor once look up for noon?

I never lost as much but twice, And that was in the sod; Twice have I stood a beggar Before the door of God! Angels, twice descending, Reimbursed my store. Burglar, banker, father, I am poor once more!

I shall know why, when time is over, And I have ceased to wonder why; Christ will explain each separate anguish In the fair schoolroom of the sky. He will tell me what Peter promised, And I, for wonder at his woe, I shall forget the drop of anguish That scalds me now, that scalds […]

Sleep is supposed to be, By souls of sanity, The shutting of the eye. Sleep is the station grand Down which on either hand The hosts of witness stand! Morn is supposed to be, By people of degree, The breaking of the day. Morning has not occurred! That shall aurora be East of eternity; One […]