of their
good,
Your mass of homes nor poor nor rich, in visions rise
— (even your excellent poverties,)
Your
self-distilling, never-ceasing virtues, self-denials, graces,
Your endless base of deep integrities within,
timid but
certain,
Your blessings steadily bestow'd, sure as the light, and still,
(Plunging to these as a
determin'd diver down the deep
hidden waters,)
These, these to-day I brood upon — all else refusing,
these will I con,
To-day to these give audience.
1873 1897
SUPPLEMENT HOURS
SANE, random, negligent hours,
Sane, easy, culminating hours,
After the flush, the Indian summer, of
my life,
Away from Books — away from Art —
the lesson learn'd, pass'd o'er,
Soothing, bathing, merging
all — the sane, magnetic,
Now for the day and night themselves — the open air,
Now for the fields, the
seasons, insects, trees — the
rain and snow,
Where wild bees flitting hum,
Or August mulleins grow, or
winter's snowflakes fall,
Or stars in the skies roll round —
The silent sun and stars.
1897 1897
OF MANY A SMUTCH'D DEED REMINISCENT
FULL of wickedness, I — of many a smutch'd deed
reminiscent — of worse deeds capable,
Yet I look
composedly upon nature, drink day and night the
joys of life, and await death with perfect equanimity.
Because
of my tender and boundless love for him I love and
because of his boundless love for me.
1897 1897
TO BE AT ALL
TO be at all — what is better than that?
I think if there were nothing more developed, the clam
in its callous
shell in the sand were august enough.
I am not in any callous shell;
I am cased with supple conductors,
all over,
They take every object by the hand, and lead it within me;
They are thousands, each one with
his entry to himself;
They are always watching with their little eyes, from my head
to my feet;
One no
more than a point lets in and out of me such bliss and
magnitude,
I think I could lift the girder of the
house away if it lay
between me and whatever I wanted.
1855 1897
DEATH'S VALLEY
Shadow of Death,
NAY, do not dream, designer dark,
Thou hast portray'd or hit thy theme entire;
I, hoverer of late by this
dark valley, by its confines,
having glimpses of it,
Here enter lists with thee, claiming my right to make a
symbol too.
For I have seen many wounded soldiers die,
After dread suffering — have seen their lives
pass off with
smiles;
And I have watch'd the death-hours of the old; and
seen the infant die;
The rich with all his nurses
and his doctors;
And then the poor, in meagreness and poverty;
And I myself for long, O Death, have
breath'd my
every breath
Amid the nearness and the silent thought of thee.
And out of these and thee,
I
make a scene, a song (not fear of thee,
Nor gloom's ravines, nor bleak, nor dark —
for I do not fear
thee,
Nor celebrate the struggle, or contortion, or hard-tied knot),
Of the broad blessed light and perfect
air, with meadows,
rippling tides, and trees and flowers and grass,
And the low hum of living breeze —
and in the
midst God's beautiful eternal right hand,
Thee, holiest minister of Heaven — thee, envoy,
usherer, guide at last of all,
Rich, florid, loosener of the stricture-knot call'd life,
Sweet, peaceful, welcome
Death.
1892 1897