XXXIV
I have a king who does not speak;
So, wondering, thro' the hours meek
I trudge the day away,
Half glad when it is night and sleep,
If, haply, thro' a dream to peep
In parlors shut by day.
And if I do, when morning comes,
It is as if a hundred drums
Did round my pillow roll,
And shouts fill all my childish sky,
And bells keep saying 'victory'
From steeples in my soul!
And if I don't, the little Bird
Within the Orchard is not heard,
And I omit to pray,
'Father, thy will be done' to-day,
For my will goes the other way,
And it were perjury!
XXXV.
DISENCHANTMENT
It dropped so low in my regard
I heard it hit the ground,
And go to pieces on the stones
At bottom of my mind;
Yet blamed the fate that fractured, less
Than I reviled myself
For entertaining plated wares
Upon my silver shelf.
XXXVI.
LOST FAITH
To lose one's faith surpasses
The loss of an estate,
Because estates can be
Replenished, faith cannot.
Inherited with life,
Belief but once can be;
Annihilate a single clause,
And Being's beggary.
XXXVII.
LOST JOY
I had a daily bliss
I half indifferent viewed,
Till sudden I perceived it stir,
It grew as I pursued,
Till when, around a crag,
It wasted from my sight,
Enlarged beyond my utmost scope,
I learned its sweetness right.
XXXVIII
I worked for chaff, and earning wheat
Was haughty and betrayed.
What right had fields to arbitrate
In matters ratified?
I tasted wheat, and hated chaff,
And thanked the ample friend;
Wisdom is more becoming viewed
At distance than at hand.
XXXIX
Life, and Death, and Giants
Such as these, are still.
Minor apparatus, hopper of the mill,
Beetle at the candle,
Or a fife's small fame,
Maintain by accident
That they proclaim.
XL.
ALPINE GLOW
Our lives are Swiss,
So still, so cool,
Till, some odd afternoon,
The Alps neglect their curtains,
And we look farther on.
Italy stands the other side,
While, like a guard between,
The solemn Alps,
The siren Alps,
Forever intervene!
XLI.
REMEMBRANCE
Remembrance has a rear and front,
'T is something like a house;
It has a garret also
For refuse and the mouse,
Besides, the deepest cellar
That ever mason hewed;
Look to it, by its fathoms
Ourselves be not pursued.
XLII
To hang our head ostensibly,
And subsequent to find
That such was not the posture
Of our immortal mind,
Affords the sly presumption
That, in so dense a fuzz,
You, too, take cobweb attitudes
Upon a plane of gauze!
XLIII.
THE BRAIN
The brain is wider than the sky,
For, put them side by side,
The one the other will include
With ease, and you beside.
The brain is deeper than the sea,
For, hold them, blue to blue,
The one the other will absorb,
As sponges, buckets do.
The brain is just the weight of God,
For, lift them, pound for pound,