Ode on a Grecian Urn

THOU still unravish'd bride of quietness,
Thou foster-child of silence and slow time,
Sylvan historian, who canst thus express
A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:
What leaf-fring'd legend haunts about thy shape
Of deities or mortals, or of both,
    In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?
What men or gods are these? What maidens loth?
What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?
    What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?

Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;
Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear'd,
Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone:
Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave
Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;
    Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss,
Though winning near the goal yet, do not grieve;
She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,
    For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!

Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed
Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu;
And, happy melodist, unwearied,
For ever piping songs for ever new;
More happy love! more happy, happy love!
For ever warm and still to be enjoy'd,
    For ever panting, and for ever young;
All breathing human passion far above,
That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy'd,
    A burning forehead, and a parching tongue.

Who are these coming to the sacrifice?
To what green altar, O mysterious priest,
Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies,
And all her silken flanks with garlands drest?
What little town by river or sea shore,
Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel,
    Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn?
And, little town, thy streets for evermore
Will silent be; and not a soul to tell
    Why thou art desolate, can e'er return.

O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede
Of marble men and maidens overwrought,
With forest branches and the trodden weed;
Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought
As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral!
When old age shall this generation waste,
    Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe
Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st,
"Beauty is truth, truth beauty,--that is all
    Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."

Ode to a Nightingale

MY heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains
One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:
'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,
But being too happy in thine happiness,--
    That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees
             In some melodious plot
Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,
    Singest of summer in full-throated ease.

O, for a draught of vintage! that hath been
Cool'd a long age in the deep-delved earth,
Tasting of Flora and the country green,
Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth!
O for a beaker full of the warm South,
Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,
    With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,
              And purple-stained mouth;
That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,
    And with thee fade away into the forest dim:

Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget
What thou among the leaves hast never known,
The weariness, the fever, and the fret
Here, where men sit and hear each other groan;
Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs,
Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies;
    Where but to think is to be full of sorrow
             And leaden-eyed despairs,
Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes,
    Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow.

Away! away! for I will fly to thee,
Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards,
But on the viewless wings of Poesy,
Though the dull brain perplexes and retards:
Already with thee! tender is the night,
And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne,
    Cluster'd around by all her starry Fays;
             But here there is no light,
Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown
    Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways.

I cannot see what flowers are at my feet,
Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs,
But, in embalmed darkness, guess each sweet
Wherewith the seasonable month endows
The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild;
White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine;
    Fast fading violets cover'd up in leaves;
              And mid-May's eldest child,
The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine,
     The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves.

Darkling I listen; and, for many a time
I have been half in love with easeful Death,
Call'd him soft names in many a mused rhyme,
To take into the air my quiet breath;
Now more than ever seems it rich to die,
To cease upon the midnight with no pain,
    While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad
               In such an ecstasy!
Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain--
     To thy high requiem become a sod.

Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!
No hungry generations tread thee down;
The voice I hear this passing night was heard
In ancient days by emperor and clown:
Perhaps the self-same song that found a path
Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,
    She stood in tears amid the alien corn;
             The same that oft-times hath
Charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam
    Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.

Forlorn! the very word is like a bell
To toll me back from thee to my sole self!
Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well
As she is fam'd to do, deceiving elf.
Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades
Past the near meadows, over the still stream,
    Up the hill-side; and now 'tis buried deep
             In the next valley-glades:
Was it a vision, or a waking dream?
Fled is that music:--Do I wake or sleep?

La Belle Dame sans Merci

O, WHAT can ail thee, Knight at arms,
Alone and palely loitering;
The sedge is wither'd from the lake,
And no birds sing.

O, what can ail thee, Knight at arms,
So haggard and so woe-begone?
The squirrel's granary is full,
And the harvest's done.

I see a lily on thy brow,
With anguish moist and fever dew;
And on thy cheek a fading rose
Fast withereth too.

I met a Lady in the Meads
Full beautiful, a faery's child;
Her hair was long, her foot was light,
And her eyes were wild.

I made a Garland for her head,
And bracelets too, and fragrant Zone;
She look'd at me as she did love,
And made sweet moan.

I set her on my pacing steed,
And nothing else saw all day long;
For sideways would she lean, and sing
A faery's song.

She found me roots of relish sweet,
And honey wild, and manna dew;
And sure in language strange she said,
"I love thee true."

She took me to her elfin grot,
And there she wept and sighed full sore,
And there I shut her wild sad eyes
With kisses four.

And there she lulled me asleep,
And there I dream'd, Ah Woe betide,
The latest dream I ever dreamt
On the cold hill side.

I saw pale Kings, and Princes too,
Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;
Who cry'd--"La belle Dame sans merci
Hath thee in thrall!"

I saw their starved lips in the gloam
With horrid warning gaped wide,
And I awoke, and found me here
On the cold hill side.

And this is why I sojourn here,
Alone and palely loitering;
Though the sedge is wither'd from the lake,
And no birds sing.

A Thing of Beauty
from Endymion

A THING of beauty is a joy for ever:
Its lovliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.
Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing
A flowery band to bind us to the earth,
Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth
Of noble natures, of the gloomy days,
Of all the unhealthy and o'er-darkn'd ways
Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all,
Some shape of beauty moves away the pall
From our dark spirits. Such the sun, the moon,
Trees old and young, sprouting a shady boon
For simple sheep; and such are daffodils
With the green world they live in; and clear rills
That for themselves a cooling covert make
'Gainst the hot season; the mid-forest brake,
Rich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose blooms:
And such too is the grandeur of the dooms
We have imagined for the mighty dead;
An endless fountain of immortal drink,
Pouring unto us from the heaven's brink.

Of thy life, Thomas, this compass well mark
[Note: Thomas was Surrey's Son]

OF thy life, Thomas, this compass well mark:
Not aye with full sails the high seas to beat,
Ne by coward dread, in shunning storms dark,
On shallow shores thy keel in peril freat*.          ; [to fret]
Whoso gladly halseth* the golden mean         &n bsp;[to embrace]
Void of dangers advisedly hath his home,
Not with loathsome muck, as a den unclean,
Nor palace-like whereat disdain may glome*.          ; [frown]
The lofty pine the great wind often rives;
With violenter sway fallen turrets steep;
Lightnings assault the high mountains and clives*.        &nbs p; [splits]
A heart well stayed, in overthwarts deep
Hopeth amends; in sweet doth fear the sour.
God that sendeth, withdraweth winter sharp.
Now ill, not aye thus. Once Phoebus to lour
With bow unbent shall cease, and frame to harp
His voice. In straight estate appear thou stout;
And so wisely, when lucky gale of wind
All thy puffed sails shall fill, look well about,
Take in a reef. Haste is waste, proof doth find.

Too dearly had I bought

TOO dearly had I bought my green and youthful years,
If in mine age I could not find when craft for love appears;
And seldom though I come in court among the rest,
Yet can I judge in colors dim as deep as can the best.
Where grief torments the man that suff'reth secret smart,
To break it forth unto some friend it easeth well the heart.
So stands it now with me for my beloved friend:
This case is thine for whom I feel such torment of my mind,
And for thy sake I burn so in my secret breast
That till thou know my whole disease my heart can have no rest.
I see how thine abuse hath wrested so thy wits
That all it yields to thy desire, and follows thee by fits.
Where thou hast loved so long with heart and all thy power,
I see thee fed with feigned words, thy freedom to devour.
I know, though she say nay and would it well withstand,
When in her grace thou held the most, she bare thee but in hand.
I see her pleasant cheer in chiefest of thy suit;
When thou are gone I see him come, that gathers up the fruit.
And eke in thy respect I see the base degree
Of him to whom she gave the heart that promised was to thee.
I see, what would you more? stood never man so sure
On woman's word, but wisdom would mistrust it to endure.

Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey

The Sun Hath Twice

THE sun hath twice brought forth the tender green,
And clad the earth in lively lustiness;
Once have the winds the trees despoiled clean,
And now again begins their cruelness,
Since I have hid under my breast the harm
That never shall recover healthfulness.
The winter's hurt recovers with the warm;
The parched green restored is with shade;
What warmth, alas, may serve for to disarm
The frozen heart that mine in flame hath made?
What cold again is able to restore
My fresh green years that wither thus and fade?
Alas, I see nothing to hurt so sore
But time sometime reduceth a return;
Yet time my harm increaseth more and more,
And seem to have my cure always in scorn.
Strange kind of death in life that I do try,
At hand to melt, far off in flame to burn;
And like as time list to my cure apply,
So doth each place my comfort clean refuse.
Each thing alive, that sees the heaven with eye,
With cloak of night may cover and excuse
Himself from travail of the day's unrest,
Save I, alas, against all others use,
That then stir up the torment of my breast
To curse each star as causer of my fate.
And when the sun hath eke the dark repressed
And brought the day, it doth nothing abate
The travail of my endless smart and pain.
For then, as one that hath the light in hate,
I wish for night, more covertly to plain
And me withdraw from every haunted place,
Lest in my cheer my chance should 'pear too plain;
And with my mind I measure, pace by pace,
To seek that place where I myself had lost,
That day that I was tangled in that lace,
In seeming slack that knitteth ever most;
But never yet the travail of my thought
Of better state could catch a cause to boast.
For if I find that sometime that I have sought
Those stars by whom I trusted of the port,
My sails do fall, and I advance right naught,
As anchored fast; my sprites do all resort
To stand atgaas*, and sink in more and more         &n bsp;[gazing]
The deadly harm which she doth take in sport.
Lo, if I seek, how I do find my sore.
And if I fly, I carry with me still
The venomed shaft which doth his force restore
By haste of flight. And I may plain my fill
Unto myself, unless this careful song
Print in your heart some parcel of my will.
For I, alas, in silence all too long
Of mine old hurt yet feel the wound but green.
Rue on my life, or else your cruel wrong
Shall well appear, and by my death be seen.

Armaan

Brittle Beauty

BRITTLE beauty that nature made so frail,
Whereof the gift is small, and short the season,
Flowering today, tomorrow apt to fail,
Tickle* treasure, abhorred of reason,          ; [fragile]
Dangerous to deal with, vain, of none avail,
Costly in keeping, passed not worth two peason*,        &nbs p; [peas]
Slipper* in sliding as is an eel's tail,         & nbsp;[slippery]
Jewel of jeopardy that peril doth assail,
False and untrue, enticed oft to treason,
Enemy to youth: that most may I bewail.
Ah, bitter sweet: infecting as the poison,
Thou farest as fruit that with the frost is taken:
Today ready ripe, tomorrow all to-shaken*.

The Soote [sweet] Season

THE soote* season that bud and bloom forth brings
With green hath clad the hill and eke the vale,
The nightingale with feathers new she sings,
The turtle to her make* hath told her tale.         & nbsp;[turtledove to her mate]
Summer is come, for every spray now springs,
The hart hath hung his old head on the pale,
The buck in brake his winter coat he flings,
The fishes float with new repaired scale,
The adder all her slough away she slings,
The swift swallow pursueth the flies smale*,          ; [small]
The busy bee her honey now she mings*;          ; [mixes]
Winter is worn, that was the flowers' bale*.           [destroyer]
And thus I see among these pleasant things
Each care decays, and yet my sorrow springs.

Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey

On Sir Thomas Wyatt

WYATT resteth here, that quick could never rest;
Whose heavenly gifts increased by disdain,
And virtue sank the deeper in his breast;
Such profit he of envy could obtain.

A head where wisdom mysteries did frame;
Whose hammers beat still in that lively brain
As on a stithy, where some work of fame
Was daily wrought, to turn to Britain's gain.

A visage stern and mild; where both did grow,
Vice to contemn, in vitrues to rejoice;
Amid great storms, whom grace assured so,
To live upright, and smile at fortune's choice.

A hand that taught what might be said in rhyme;
That reft Chaucer the glory of his wit;
A mark, the which--unperfited, for time--
Some may approach, but never none shall hit.

A tongue that served in foreign realms his king;
Whose courteous talk to virtue did enflame
Each noble heart; a worthy guide to bring
Our English youth, by trevail, unto fame.

An eye whose judgment no affect could blind,
Friends to allure, and foes to reconcile;
Whose piercing look did represent a mind
With virtue fraught, reposed, void of guile.

A heart where dread yet never so impressed
To hide the thought that might the truth avance;
In neither fortune lift, nor so repressed,
To swell in wealth, nor yield unto mischance.

A valiant corpse, where force and beauty met,
Happy, alas! too happy, but for foes,
Lived, and ran the race that nature set;
Of manhood's shape, where she the mold did lose.

But to the heavens that simple soul is fled;
Which left with such as covet Christ to know
Witness of faith that never shall be dead;
Sent for our health, but not received so.

Thus, for our guilt, this jewel have we lost;
The earth his bones, the heavens possess his ghost.

Translation of Petrarch's Sonnetto in Vita, 95

SET me whereas the sun doth parch the green,
Or where his beams may not dissolve the ice,
In temperate heat, where he is felt and seen;
With proud people, in presence sad and wise,
Set me in base, or yet in high degree;
In the long night, or in the shortest day;
In clear weather, or where mists thickest be;
In lusty youth, or when my hairs be gray;
Set me in earth, in heaven, or yet in hell;
In hill, in dale, or in the foaming flood;
Thrall, or at large,--alive whereso I dwell;
Sick or in health, in ill fame or in good;
Yours I will be, and with that only thought
Comfort myself when that my hap is naught.

Translation of Petrarch's Sonnetto in Vita, 91

LOVE, that doth reign and live within my thought,
And built his seat within my captive breast,
Clad in the arms wherein with me he fought,
Oft in my face he doth his banner rest.
But she that taught me love and suffer pain,
My doubtful hope and eke my hot desire
With shamefast look to shadow and refrain,
Her smiling grace converteth straight to ire.
And coward Love, then to the heart apace
Taketh his flight, where he doth lurk and plain,
His purpose lost, and dare not show his face.
For my lord's guilt thus faultless bide I pain.
Yet from my lord shall not my foot remove:
Sweet is the death that taketh end by love.

My Friend, The Things That Do Attain

MY friend, the things that do attain
The happy life be these, I find:
The riches left, not got with pain;
The fruitful ground; the quiet mind;

The equal friend; no grudge; no strife;
No charge of rule, nor governance;
Without disease, the healthy life;
The household of continuance;

The mean diet, no dainty fare;
Wisdom joined with simpleness;
The night discharged of all care,
Where wine the wit may not oppress:

The faithful wife, without debate;
Such sleeps as may beguile the night;
Content thyself with thine estate,
Neither wish death, nor fear his might.

Life

LIFE, believe, is not a dream,
So dark as sages say;
Oft a little morning rain
Foretells a pleasant day:
Sometimes there are clouds of gloom,
But these are transient all;
If the shower will make the roses bloom,
Oh, why lament its fall?
     Rapidly, merrily,
Life's sunny hours flit by,
     Gratefully, cheerily,
Enjoy them as they fly.

What though death at times steps in,
And calls our Best away?
What though Sorrow seems to win,
O'er hope a heavy sway?
Yet Hope again elastic springs,
Unconquered, though she fell,
Still buoyant are her golden wings,
Still strong to bear us well.
     Manfuly, fearlessly,
The day of trial bear,
     For gloriously, victoriously,
Can courage quell dispair!

Pleasure
(A Short Poem or Else Not Say I)

True pleasure breathes not city air,
Nor in Art's temples dwells,
In palaces and towers where
The voice of Grandeur dwells.

No! Seek it where high Nature holds
Her court 'mid stately groves,
Where she her majesty unfolds,
And in fresh beauty moves;

Where thousand birds of sweetest song,
The wildly rushing storm
And hundred streams which glide along,
Her mighty concert form!

Go where the woods in beauty sleep
Bathed in pale Luna's light,
Or where among their branches sweep
The hollow sounds of night.

Go where the warbling nightingale
In gushes rich doth sing,
Till all the lonely, quiet vale
With melody doth ring.

Go, sit upon a mountain steep,
And view the prospect round;
The hills and vales, the valley's sweep,
The far horizon bound.

Then view the wide sky overhead,
The still, deep vault of blue,
The sun which golden light doth shed,
The clouds of pearly hue.

And as you gaze on this vast scene
Your thoughts will journey far,
Though hundred years should roll between
On Time's swift-passing car.

To ages when the earth was young,
When patriarchs, grey and old,
The praises of their god oft sung,
And oft his mercies told.

You see them with their beards of snow,
Their robes of ample form,
Their lives whose peaceful, gentle flow,
Felt seldom passion's storm.

Then a calm, solemn pleasure steals
Into your inmost mind;
A quiet aura your spirit feels,
A softened stillness kind.

Home

HOW brightly glistening in the sun
The woodland ivy plays!
While yonder beeches from their barks
Reflect his silver rays.

That sun surveys a lovely scene
From softly smiling skies;
And wildly through unnumbered trees
The wind of winter sighs:

Now loud, it thunders o'er my head,
And now in distance dies.
But give me back my barren hills
Where colder breezes rise:

Where scarce the scattered, stunted trees
Can yield an answering swell,
But where a wilderness of heath
Returns the sound as well.

For yonder garden, fair and wide,
With groves of evergreen,
Long winding walks, and borders trim,
And velvet lawns between;

Restore to me that little spot,
With gray walls compassed round,
Where knotted grass neglected lies,
And weeds usurp the ground.

Though all around this mansion high
Invites the foot to roam,
And though the halls are fair within--
Oh, give me back my home!

My soul is awakened

MY soul is awakened, my spirit is soaring,
And carried aloft on the wings of the breeze;
For, above, and around me, the wild wind is roaring,
Arousing to rapture the earth and the seas.

The long withered grass in the sunshine is glancing,
The bare trees are tossing their branches on high;
The dead leaves beneath them are merrily dancing,
The white clouds are scudding across the blue sky.

I wish I could see how the ocean is lashing
The foam of its billows to whirlwinds of spray,
I wish I could see how its proud waves are dashing
And hear the wild roar of their thunder today!

Thorp Green

I SIT, this evening, far away,
From all I used to know,
And nought reminds my soul to-day
Of happy long ago.

Unwelcome cares, unthought-of fears,
Around my room arise;
I seek for suns of former years
But clouds o'ercast my skies.

Yes--Memory, wherefore does thy voice
Bring old times back to view,
As thou wouldst bid me not rejoice
In thoughts and prospects new?

I'll thank thee, Memory, in the hour
When troubled thoughts are mine--
For thou, like suns in April's shower,
On shadowy scenes wilt shine.

I'll thank thee when approaching death
Would quench life's feeble ember,
For thou wouldst even renew my breath
With thy sweet word 'Remember'!

My life had stood [cc]

MY Life had stood--a Loaded Gun--
In Corners--till a Day
The Owner passed--identified--
And carried Me away--

And now We roam in Sovereign Woods--
And now We hunt the Doe--
And every time I speak for Him--
The Mountains straight reply--

And do I smile, such cordial light
Upon the Valley glow--
It is as a Vesuvian face
Had let its pleasure through--

And when at Night--Our good Day done--
I guard My Master's Head--
'Tis better than the Eider-Duck's
Deep Pillow--to have shared--

To foe of His--I'm deadly foe--
None stir the second time--
On whom I lay a Yellow Eye--
Or an emphatic Thumb--

Though I than He--may longer live
He longer must--than I--
For I have but the power to kill,
Without--the power to die--

I started Early (cc)

I STARTED Early--Took my Dog--
And visited the Sea--
The Mermaids in the Basement
Came out to look at me--

And Frigates-- in the Upper Floor
Extended Hempen Hands--
Presuming Me to be a Mouse--
Aground--upon the Sands--

But no Man moved Me--till the Tide
Went past my simple Shoe--
And past my Apron--and my Belt
And past my Bodice-- too--

And made as He would eat me up--
As wholly as A Dew
Upon a Dandelions's Sleeve--
And then-- I started--too--

And He--He followed--close behind--
I felt His Silver Heel
Upon my Ankle--Then my Shoes
Would overflow with Pearl--

Until We met the Solid Town--
No One He seemed to know--
And bowing--with a Mighty look--
At me--The Sea withdrew--

Because I could not stop for Death-- [cc]

BECAUSE I could not stop for Death--
He kindly stopped for me--
The Carriage held but just Ourselves--
And Immortality.

We slowly drove--He knew no haste
And I had put away
My labour and my leisure too,
For His Civility--

We passed the School, where Children strove
At Recess--in the Ring--
We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain--
We passed the Setting Sun--

Or rather--He passed Us--
The Dews drew quivering and chill--
For only Gossamer, my Gown--
My Tippet--only Tulle--

We paused before a House that seemed
A Swelling of the Ground--
The Roof was scarcely visible--
The Cornice--in the Ground--

Since then--'tis Centuries--and yet
Feels shorter than the Day
I first surmised the Horses Heads
Were toward Eternity--

I'm Nobody! Who are you? [cc]

I'M Nobody! Who are you?
Are you--Nobody--too?
Then there's a pair of us!
Dont tell! they'd advertise--you know!

How dreary--to be--Somebody!
How public--like a Frog--
To tell your name--the livelong June--
To an admiring Bog!

"Faith" is a fine invention [cc]

"FAITH" is a fine invention
When Gentlemen can see--
But Microsopes are prudent
In an Emergency.

What mystery pervades a well! [cc]

WHAT mystery pervades a well!
The water lives so far--
A neighbor from another world
Residing in a jar

Whose limit none have ever seen,
But just his lid of glass--
Like looking every time you please
In an abyss's face!

The grass does not appear afraid,
I often wonder he
Can stand so close and look so bold
At what is awe to me.

Related somehow they may be,
The sedge stands next the sea--
Where he is floorless
And does no timidity betray

But nature is a stranger yet;
The ones that cite her most
Have never passed her haunted house,
Nor simplified her ghost.

To pity those that know her not
Is helped by the regret
That those that know her, know her less
The nearer her they get.

Emily Dickinson

Nature the gentlest mother is

NATURE the gentlest mother is,
Impatient of no child,
The feeblest of the waywardest.
Her admonition mild

In forest and the hill
By traveller be heard,
Restraining rampant squirrel
Or too impetuous bird.

How fair her conversation
A summer afternoon,
Her household her assembly;
And when the sun go down,

Her voice among the aisles
Incite the timid prayer
Of the minutest cricket,
The most unworthy flower.

When all the children sleep,
She turns as long away
As will suffice tolight her lamps,
Then bending from the sky

With infinite affection
An infiniter care,
Her golden finger on her lip,
Wills silence everywhere.

Emily Dickinson

It sifts from Leaden Sieves [cc]

IT sifts from Leaden Sieves--
It powders all the Wood.
It fills with Alabaster Wool
The Wrinkles of the Road--

It makes an Even Face
Of Mountain and of Plain--
Unbroken Forehead from the East
Unto the East again--

It reaches to the Fence--
It wraps it Rail by Rail
Till it is lost in Fleeces--
It deals Celestial Veil

To Stump and Stack--and Stem--
A Summer's empty Room--
Acres of Joints where Harvests were,
Recordless, but for them--

It Ruffles Wrists of Posts
As Ankles of a Queen--
Then stills its Artisans--like Ghosts,
Denying they have been--

Emily Dickinson

A narrow Fellow in the Grass [cc]

A NARROW Fellow in the Grass
Occaisionally rides--
You may have met Him--did you not
His notice sudden is--

The Grass divides as with a Comb--
A spotted shaft is seen--
And then it closes at your feet
And opens further on--

He likes a Boggy Acre
A Floor too cool for Corn--
Yet when a Boy, and Barefoot--
I more than once at noon
Have passed, I thought, a Whip lash,
Unbraiding in the Sun
When stooping to secure it
It wrinkled, and was gone--

Several of Nature's People
I know, and they know me--
I feel for them a transpoRt
Of cordiality--

But never met this Fellow,
Attended or alone
Without a tighter breathing
And Zero at the Bone.

There is no Frigate like a Book [cc]

THERE is no Frigate like a Book
To take us Lands away
Nor any Coursers like a Page
Of prancing Poetry--
This Traverse may the poorest take
Without oppress of Toll--
How frugal is the Chariot
That bears the Human soul.

Emily Dickinson