Since, Lord, to thee
A narrow way and little gate
Is all the passage, on my infancy
Thou didst lay hold, and antedate
My faith in me.
O let me still
Write thee great God, and me a child:
Let me be soft and supple to thy will,
Small to my self, to others mild,
Behither ill.
Although by stealth
My flesh get on, yet let her sister
My soul bid nothing, but preserve her wealth:
The growth of flesh is but a blister;
Childhood is health.
Prayer the Churches banquet, Angels age,
Gods breath in man returning to his birth,
The soul in paraphrase, heart in pilgramage,
The Christian plummet sounding heav'n and earth;
Engine against th'Almightie, sinners towre,
Reversed thunder, Christ-side-piercing spear,
The six-daies world-transposing in an houre,
A kinde of tune, which all things heare and fear;
Softnesse, and peace, and joy, and love, and blisse,
Exalted Manna, gladnesse of the best,
Heaven in ordinarie, man well drest,
The milkie way, the bird of Paradise,
Church-bels beyond the starres heard, the souls bloud,
The land of spices; something understood.
A Death blow is a Life blow to Some
Who till they died, did not alive become --
Who had they lived, had died but when
They died, Vitality begun.
I thought that nature was enough
Till Human nature came
But that the other did absorb
As Parallax a Flame --
Of Human nature just aware
There added the Divine
Brief struggle for capacity
The power to contain
Is always as the contents
But give a Giant room
And you will lodge a Giant
And not a smaller man
We pray -- to Heaven --
We prate -- of Heaven --
Relate -- when Neighbors die --
At what o'clock to heaven -- they fled --
Who saw them -- Wherefore fly?
Is Heaven a Place -- a Sky -- a Tree?
Location's narrow way is for Ourselves --
Unto the Dead
There's no Geography --
But State -- Endowal -- Focus --
Where -- Omnipresence -- fly?
The fascinating chill that music leaves
Is Earth's corroboration
Of Ecstasy's impediment --
'Tis Rapture's germination
In timid and tumultuous soil
A fine -- estranging creature --
To something upper wooing us
But not to our Creator --
Do People moulder equally,
They bury, in the Grave?
I do believe a Species
As positively live
As I, who testify it
Deny that I -- am dead --
And fill my Lungs, for Witness --
From Tanks -- above my Head --
I say to you, said Jesus --
That there be standing here --
A Sort, that shall not taste of Death --
If Jesus was sincere --
I need no further Argue --
That statement of the Lord
Is not a controvertible --
He told me, Death was dead --
The inundation of the Spring
Enlarges every soul --
It sweeps the tenement away
But leaves the Water whole --
In which the soul at first estranged --
Seeks faintly for its shore
But acclimated -- pines no more
For that Peninsula --
Than Heaven more remote,
For Heaven is the root,
But these the flitted seed.
More flown indeed
Than ones that never were,
Or those that hide, and are.
What madness, by their side,
A vision to provide
Of future days
They cannot praise.
My soul, to find them, come,
They cannot call, they're dumb,
Nor prove, nor woo,
But that they have abode
Is absolute as God,
And instant, too.
The first Day that I was a Life
I recollect it -- How still --
That last Day that I was a Life
I recollect it -- as well --
'Twas stiller -- though the first
Was still --
"Twas empty -- but the first
Was full --
This -- was my finallest Occasion --
But then
My tenderer Experiment
Toward Men --
"Which choose I"?
That -- I cannot say --
"Which choose They"?
Question Memory!
Did Our Best Moment last --
'Twould supersede the Heaven --
A few -- and they by Risk -- procure --
So this Sort -- are not given --
Except as stimulants -- in
Cases of Despair --
Or Stupor -- The Reserve --
These Heavenly Moments are --
A Grant of the Divine --
That Certain as it Comes --
Withdraws -- and leaves the dazzled Soul
In her unfurnished Rooms
Nature -- sometimes sears a Sapling --
Sometimes -- scalps a Tree --
Her Green People recollect it
When they do not die --
Fainter Leaves -- to Further Seasons --
Dumbly testify --
We -- who have the Souls --
Die oftener -- Not so vitally --