187 How many times these low feet staggered Only the soldered mouth can tell Try—can you stir the awful rivet Try—can you lift the hasps of steel! Stroke the cool forehead—hot so often Lift—if you care—the listless hair Handle the adamantine fingers Never a thimble—more—shall wear Buzz the dull flies—on the chamber window Brave—shines the sun...Learn More

45 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! I would not weep if I were they How rude in one to sob! Might scare the quiet fairy Back to her native wood! While...Learn More

He fumbles at your spirit As players at the keys Before they drop full music on He stuns you by degrees Prepares your brittle substance For the ethereal blow By fainter hammers, further heard Then nearer, then so slow Your breath has time to straighten Your brain to bubble cool Deals one imperial thunderbolt That scalps your naked soul...Learn More

I like to see it lap the miles And lick the valleys up And stop to feed itself at tanks And then, prodigious, step Around a pile of mountains And, supercilious, peer In shanties by the sides of roads And then a quarry pare To fit its sides, and crawl between Complaining all the while In horrid, hooting stanza Then chase itself down the hill And...Learn More

687 I'll send the feather from my Hat! Who knows—but at the sight of that My Sovereign will relent? As trinket—worn by faded Child Confronting eyes long—comforted Blisters the Adamant!...Learn More

God permit industrious angels Afternoons to play I met one, — forgot my school-mates All, for him, straightaway God calls home the angels promptly At the setting sun I missed mine. How dreary marbles After playing the Crown!...Learn More

439 Undue Significance a starving man attaches To Food Far off—He sighs—and therefore—Hopeless And therefore—Good Partaken—it relieves—indeed But proves us That Spices fly In the Receipt—It was the Distance Was Savory...Learn More

199 I'm "wife"—I've finished that That other state I'm Czar—I'm "Woman" now It's safer so How odd the Girl's life looks Behind this soft Eclipse I think that Earth feels so To folks in Heaven—now This being comfort—then That other kind—was pain But why compare? I'm "Wife"! Stop there!...Learn More

195 For this — accepted Breath Through it — compete with Death The fellow cannot touch this Crown By it — my title take Ah, what a royal sake To my necessity — stooped down! No Wilderness — can be Where this attendeth me No Desert Noon No fear of frost to come Haunt the perennial bloom But Certain June! Get Gabriel — to tell — the royal...Learn More

778 This that would greet—an hour ago Is quaintest Distance—now Had it a Guest from Paradise Nor glow, would it, nor bow Had it a notice from the Noon Nor beam would it nor warm Match me the Silver Reticence Match me the Solid Calm...Learn More

761 From Blank to Blank A Threadless Way I pushed Mechanic feet To stop — or perish — or advance Alike indifferent If end I gained It ends beyond Indefinite disclosed I shut my eyes — and groped as well 'Twas lighter — to be Blind...Learn More

716 The Day undressed—Herself Her Garter—was of Gold Her Petticoat—of Purple plain Her Dimities—as old Exactly—as the World And yet the newest Star Enrolled upon the Hemisphere Be wrinkled—much as Her Too near to God—to pray Too near to Heaven—to fear The Lady of the Occident Retired without a care Her Candle so expire The flickering be seen On...Learn More