974
The Soul's distinct connection
With immortality
Is best disclosed by Danger
Or quick Calamity –
As Lightning on a Landscape
Developes Sheets of Place –
Not yet suspected – but for Flash –
And Click – and Suddenness.
978
It bloomed and dropt, a Single Noon –
The Flower – distinct and Red –
I, passing, thought another Noon
Another in it's stead
Will equal glow, and thought no More
But came another Day
To find the Species disappeared –
The Same Locality –
The Sun in place – no other fraud
On Nature's perfect Sum –
Had I but lingered Yesterday –
Was my retrieveless blame –
Much Flowers of this and further Zones
Have perished in my Hands
For seeking it's Resemblance –
But unapproached it stands –
The single Flower of the Earth
That I, in passing by
Unconscious was – Great Nature's Face
Passed infinite by Me –
985
The Missing All – prevented Me
From missing minor Things.
If nothing larger than a World's
Departure from a Hinge
Or Sun's Extinction, be observed
'Twas not so large that I
Could lift my Forehead from my work
For Curiosity.
1031
Fate slew Him, but He did not drop –
She felled – He did not fall –
Impaled Him on Her fiercest stakes –
He neutralized them all –
She stung Him – sapped His firm Advance –
But when Her Worst was done
And He – unmoved regarded Her –
Acknowledged Him a Man –
1046
I've dropped my Brain – My Soul is numb –
The Veins that used to run
Stop palsied – 'tis Paralysis
Done perfecter on stone –
Vitality is Carved and cool –
My nerve in Marble lies –
A Breathing Woman
Yesterday – Endowed with Paradise.
Not dumb - I had a sort that moved –
A Sense that smote and stirred –
Instincts for Dance - a caper part –
An Aptitude for Bird -
Who wrought Carrara in me
And chiselled all my tune
Were it a Witchcraft - were it Death -
I've still a chance to strain
To Being, somewhere - Motion - Breath -
Though Centuries beyond,
And every limit a Decade -
I'll shiver, satisfied.
1048
Reportless Subjects, to the Quick
Continual addressed –
But foreign as the Dialect
Of Danes, unto the rest.
Reportless Measures, to the Ear
Susceptive - stimulus –
But like an Oriental Tale
To others, fabulous –
1053
It was a quiet way –
He asked if I was his –
I made no answer of the Tongue
But answer of the Eyes –
And then he bore me high
Before this mortal noise
With swiftness as of Chariots
And distance, as of Wheels.
The World did drop away
As Counties - from the feet
Of Him that leaneth in Balloon
Upon an Ether Street.
The Gulf behind was not,
The Continents were new –
Eternity it was before
Eternity was due.
No Seasons were to us –
It was not Night nor Noon –
But Sunrise stopped upon the Place
And fastened it in Dawn.
1101
Between the form of Life and Life
The difference is as big
As Liquor at the Lip between
And Liquor in the Jug
The latter – excellent to keep –
But for extatic need
The corkless is superior –
I know for I have tried
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