PS 1541 .P64 \9lA- ■I ■lE ^■^ ^ A^^ ^'--.< .-^^ xf>°< '^A V*' ^^^ 1 ^ • V C- o ^ , % ^^ ■K^^ .> <>?. .y>. o * D S ^ ^\%^ "oo^ ^N^^ o5 -U •^o^ ^^\ " X %: >^ >^ '/ A>- _ %^ .:^ - .: ^/ ^ v^ THE SINGLE HOUND THE SINGLE HOUND POEMS OF A LIFETIME BY EMILY DICKINSON WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY HER NIECE MARTHA DICKINSON BIANCHI N ON-REFER T aoWVAD ' QIS BOSTON LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY 1915 6^' Copyright, 1914, By Martha Dickinson Biancht. All rights reserved '^0 hAjJ^^UjL^ 'WaJr tM>^^ S. J. Pabkhill & Co., Boston, U.S.A. THE EDITOR'S PREFACE. THE romantic friendship of my Aunt Emily Dickinson and her ''Sister Sue" extended from girlhood until death. The first poem, dated, was sent in 1848, and probably the last word Aunt Emily ever wrote was her reply to a message from my Mother, "My answer is an unmitigated Yes, Sue." During the last year of my Mother's Hfe she read and re-read these poems, and innumerable letters, with in- creasing indecision as to the final disposition of her treasury. It eventually devolved upon me to choose between burning them or giving them to the lovers of my Aunt's pecuHar genius. My hesitation was finally influenced by a note written in their early twenties, which I quote. Dear Sue: I hke your praise because I know it knows. If I could make you and Austin proud some day a long way off, 'twould give me taller feet. Emily. VI PREFACE. This is my inspiration for a volume, offered as a memorial to the love of these ''Dear, dead Women." Also, it seemed but fitting to reveal a phase of Aunt Emily known only to us who dwelt with her behind the hedge; the fascinating, wilful woman, hghtning and fragrance in one. I am told she is taught in colleges as a rare strange being; a weird recluse, eating her heart out in morbid and unhappy longing, or a victim of unsatisfied passion; I have heard her called "an epigrammatic Walt Whitman" by a noted lecturer, and only recently a distinguished foreign critic pronounced her ''the greatest mystic America has produced — second only to Ralph Waldo Emerson." But to her niece and nephews she was of fairy hneage, akin to the frost on the nursery pane in Winter or the humming bird of Midsum- mer; the realization of our vivid fancy, the con- federate in every contraband desire, the very Spirit of the "Never, Never Land." She adored us, her three Child-Lovers, talked to us as if we were grown up and our opinions PREFACE. VU of importance, our secrets portentous, though always keeping herself our playmate with such art that she remains in my memory as a httle girl herself. Once, when my brother Ned, as a child, stood looking up at the evening star, he said wistfully, ''I want to go up there. Aunt Emily." ''All right," she cried, ''Go get your horse and buggy and we'll go tonight!" Often quoting afterward his grave rebuke of her levity — "Aunt Emily, — you can't go up there in a horse and buggy!" When we were happy she added her crumb, when we were ill all she had was ours, were we grieved, her indignation was hot against whoever or whatever had wounded us. I thought of her as the avenging angel then, her eyes smoul- dered so gloriously at our wrongs. One other charm was unique to her; her way of flitting, Hke a shadow upon the hillside, a motion known to no other mortal. In the midst of one of our Eden-hours, she would fly at the sound of an intruder and was not — only the tick of the old clock left for our companioning. I was usually left with her while both famihes went to church VUl PREFACE. on Sabbath mornings and well remember being escorted by her down to the cool hoarding cellar"^ past the wine closet to a mysterious cupboard of her own, where she dealt me such lawless cake and other goodies, that even a child of four knew it for excess, sure to be followed by disaster later in the day. There was an unreal abandon about it all such as thrills the prodigal- ity of dreaming. As we grew older her wit was our unconscious standard of others, her pitiless directness of thought our revelation, while her sweetness was hke nothing but that of her own favorite jas- mine flowers. Indeed she resembled the Cape Jasmine more than any mortal being. They two were the whitest Sisters, or flowers, Nature ever bore. Once let us get to her,— past what Mr. Henry James calls ''an archaic Irish servant," past our other faithful but prejudiced Aunt Lavinia, who gave us a plain cookey and advised us to ''run home," — once within the forbidden pre- cincts of the ''front part" of the old mansion, we had found our South- West passage and were PREFACE. ix transported, obstinate, oblivious. To water her plants with her tiny watering pot, to help her ice a loaf of plum cake for her Father's supper, to watch her check off the rich dark cara- mels she unfailingly kept on hand for us, to share her wickedness in skirmishing to avoid out- siders, or to connive in her intrigue to out- wit the cat of perpetual unpopularity in her esteem, — what other joys could drag us from these? She put more excitement into the event of a dead fly than her neighbors got from a journey by stage-coach to Boston. If art is '' exaggeration apropos,^^ as Merimee claims, she was an in- comparable artist at hfe. There was nothing forbidden us by her, in spite of which Hcense we were as shy of troub- ling her, as gentle in our play with her, as if she had been Hans Andersen's Httle Snow Maiden and might melt before our eyes if misunder- stood. Fascination was her element. It was my brother Ned, borne home against his will, screaming ''I want a rich! I will see my Aunt X PREFACE. Emily! I will have a rich!" who provided that dear Villain with a synonym for her own terms with Life. ''A rich" was the desire of her heart, *'a rich" was her instinctive claim, and she would not compromise. The poems here included were v/ritten on any chance shp of paper, sometimes the old plaid Quadrille, sometimes a gilt-edged sheet with a Paris mark, often a random scrap of commercial note from her Father's law ofhce. Each of these is folded over, addressed merely ''Sue," and sent by the first available hand. For though they lived side by side with only a wide green lawn between, days and even weeks slipped by sometimes without their actual meeting. My Mother was blessedly busy in her home and Aunt Emily's light across the snow in the Winter gloaming, or burning late when she remained up all night, to protect her plants from chill, was often a mute greeting between them supple- mented only by their written messages. There must have been a lure for the almost cloistered soul in the warmth of her only brother Austin's youthful home, and the radiant atmosphere of PREFACE. XI my Mother with her three children growing up about her. ^'Only Woman in the World," '' Avalanche of Sun," "Sister of Ophir," she calls her. In these earher days Aunt Emily often came over, most frequently in the evening, and always when Mr. Bowles, Mrs. Anthon of London, or some such cherished guest, was here. She played brilHantly upon the piano, and travestied the descriptive pieces popular at that period with as much skill as wit. One improvisation which she called the Devil was, by tradition, unparalleled. She had no idea of the passing of time when at the height of these froUcs and not until my revered Grandfather appeared with his lantern, would the revel break off. Him she adored, feared, made fun of, and obeyed. "If Father is asleep on the sofa the house is full, though it were empty otherwise!" was one of her famihar exclamations. It could never be said of her, as she said of a prosaic friend, "He has the facts but not the phos- phorescence of learning!" One evening when Dr. and Mrs. Holland had arrived unexpectedly to pass the night, having driven over from North- XU PREFACE. hampton in the Autumn dusk, my Grand- mother, anxious for their every comfort, offered one solicitous suggestion after another, until Aunt Emily, always exasperated by repetition, cried — ^'0 Mrs. Holland, don't you want to hear me say the Lord's prayer? Shouldn't you Hke me to repeat the Declaration of Inde- pendence? Shan't I recite the Ten Command- ments?" It was in this mood that she once put four superfluous kittens on the fire-shovel and softly dropped them into the first convenient jar the cellar offered, her family being in church — her chosen time for iniquity. This especial jar happened to be full of pickle brine. The sequel was very awful; occurring when the austere Judge Otis P. Lord of Salem was visiting my Grandfather, and as in all such emergencies of detection she fled to her own room and turned the key; holding reproach at bay until she chose to come out and ignore it. In her innocent love of mystery and intrigue Aunt Emily reminds one of Stevenson. She would have played at ''lantern bearers" with him, and given the PREFACE. xui stealthy countersign under her breath, as no other hving urchin! She was "eternally preoccupied with death" as any of Pater's giant Florentines, but though the supernatural had the supreme hold on her imagination and conjecture, every lesser mystery was a panic and an ecstasy. If she could contrive to outwit domestic vigilance and smuggle a box of fresh-laid eggs to my Mother, on the sly, it savored to her of piracy and brig- andage. She was averse to surveillance of every description and took pains to elude it in these little traffics of her heart as in the enig- mas of her Being. *' Give me hberty or give me death — but if you can, give me liberty!" was her frequent cry. She had a keen scent for the meanings hid beneath the goodly outside of diplomacy and watched for developments in home and foreign policies with surprising acumen. The Winter she was at Willard's, dur- ing her Father's Congressional career, she is said to have astonished his political friends by her insight and created quite a sensation by her wit, though the only story I recall now was XIV PREFACE. of her saying to a prim old Chief Justice of the Supremest sort, when the plum pudding on fire was offered — "Oh Sir, may one eat of hell fire with impunity, here?" Physically timid at the least approach to a crisis in the day's event, her mind dared earth and heaven. That apocrypha and apocalypse met in her, explains her tendency so often mis- taken for blasphemy by the superficial analyst. The advance and retreat of her thought, her transition from arch to demure, from elfin to angehc, from soaring to drowning, her in- escapable sense of tragedy, her inimitable perception of comedy, her breathless reverence and unabashed invasion upon the intimate affairs of Deity and hearsay of the Bible, made her a comrade to mettle inspiration and dazzle rivalry. Unhke the dullard, brilHancy was no effort for her. She revelled in the wings of her mind, — I had almost said the fins too, — so universal was her identification with every form of fife and element of being. She usually liked men better than women because they were more stimulating. I can see her yet, stand- PREFACE. XV ing in the spacious upper hall a Summer after- noon, finger on lip, and hear her say, as the feminine callers took their departure — ''Listen! Hear them kiss, the traitors!" To most women she was a provoking puzzle. To her, in turn, most women were a form of triviality to be escaped when feasible. But stupidity had no sex with her and I equally well remember her spying down upon a stranger sent to call upon her by a mutual friend, and dismissing him unreceived after one glance from her window, remarking — "His face is as handsome and as meaningless as the full moon." At another time she called me to peep at a new Professor recently come to the college, saying — ''Look dear, he is pretty as a cloth Pink!" her mouth curHng in deri- sion as she uttered it and one hand motioning as if to throw the flower away. She had a dra- matic way of throwing up her hands at the climax of a story or to punctuate one of her own flashes. It was entirely spontaneous, her spirit seemed merely playing through her body as the Aurora borealis through darkness. And since XVI PREFACE. there is no portrait of Aunt Emily, may I be pardoned if I try to give an idea of her external Kkeness? It has been often told that she wore white exclusively. She has said herself, in one of her letters to an inquisitive friend who had never seen her and importuned for a hint of her outward self, — that her eyes were the color of the sherry left in the glass by him to whom she wrote. Her hair was of that same warm bronze-chestnut hue that Titian immor- taUzed, and she wore it parted on her brow and low in her neck, but always half covered by a velvet snood of the same tint; such as the Venetian painters loved to add as a final grace to the portraits of their beloved and beautiful women. Her cheek was like the petal of the jasmine, a velvety white never touched by a hint of color. Her red lips parted over very regular Httle teeth like the squirrels' and it was the rather long upper hp that gave to the mouth its asceticism, and betrayed the monastic tendency in her, of which she was probably quite unaware. If this combines nature and art and mys- PREFACE. xvu ticism in one, too bewilderingly to reproduce any definite impression, it is the fault of that face, — as animate in my memory as it is still in my dreams. In spite of an innate austerity of the senses, my Aunt had lovers, like Browning's roses — "all the way" — to the end; men of varied pro- fession and attainment who wrote to her and came to see her, and whose letters she burned with a chivalry not all of them requited in kind. "Sister Sue" was her confidante and ally, from whose lips we heard many a hot or quaint tale when time had made them no perfidy. One of these in which we most deHghted was of how Aunt Emily as a young lady, having been decorously driven to a funeral in Hadley, in the family barouche lined with cream-colored broadcloth, ran from the grave with a dashing cousin from Worcester, via a skittish blacJ: horse and worldly buggy, capping her infamy by returning through Sunderland and being in her room with the door locked when the family got home. Nothing would be more dehcious to me than xviii PREFACE. to repeat by name the list of those whom she bewitched. It included college boys, tutors, law students, the brothers of her girl friends, — sev- eral times their affianced bridegrooms even; and then the maturer friendships, — literary, Platonic, Plutonic; passages varying in inten- sity, and at least one passionate attachment whose tragedy was due to the integrity of the Lovers, who scrupled to take their bhss at another's cost. She was not daily-bread. She was star-dust. Her solitude made her and was part of her. Taken from her distant sky she must have become a creature as different as fallen meteor from pulsing star. One may ask of the Sphinx, if Hfe would not have been dearer to her, lived as other women lived it? To have been, in essence, more as other women were? Or if, in so doing and so being, she would have missed that inordinate compulsion, that inquisitive comprehension that made her Emily Dick- inson? It is to ask again the old riddle of genius against every-day happiness. Had hfe or love been able to dissuade her from that ''eter- PREFACE. XIX nal preoccupation with death" which thralled her — if she could have chosen — you urge, still unconvinced? But I feel that she could and did, and that nothing could have compensated her for the forfeit of that "single hound," her "own Identity." Martha Dickinson Bianchi. CONTENTS. Page Preface v Dedicatory Poem, One Sister have I in our house . i I. I. Adventure most unto itself 3 II. The Soul that hath a Guest 4 III. Except the smaller size, no Lives are round . . 5 IV. Fame is a fickle food 6 V. The right to perish might be thought .... 7 VI. Peril as a possession 8 VII. When Etna basks and purrs 9 VIII. Reverse cannot befall that fine Prosperity . . 10 IX. To be alive is power 11 X. Witchcraft has not a pedigree 12 XL Exhilaration is the Breeze 13 XII. No romance sold unto 14 XIII. If what we could were what we would .... 15 XIV. Perception of an Object costs 16 XV. No other can reduce 17 XVI. The blunder is to estimate 18 XVII. My Wheel is in the dark 19 XVIII. There is another Loneliness 20 XIX. So gay a flower bereaved the mind 21 XX. Glory is that bright tragic thing 22 xxu XXI. XXII. XXIII. XXIV. XXV. XXVI. XXVII. XXMII. XXIX. XXX. XXXI. XXXII. XXXIII. XXXW. XXXV. XXXVI. XXXVII. XXXVIII. XXXIX. XL. XLI. XLII. XLIII. XLIV. XLV. XLVI. CONTENTS. Page The missing All prevented me 23 His mind, of man a secret makes .... 24 The suburbs of a secret 25 The difference between despair 26 There is a solitude of space . 27 The props assist the house 28 The gleam of an heroic act 29 Of Death the sharpest function 30 DowTi Time's quaint stream 31 I bet with every Wind that blew ;^2 The Future never spoke 33 Two lengths has every day 34 The Soul's superior instants 35 II. Nature is what we see 36 Ah Teneriffe! Retreating ^lountain! ... 37 She died at play 38 "Morning" means "Milking" to the Farmer 39 A little madness in the Spring 40 I can't tell you, but you feel it 41 Some Days retired from the rest 43 Like ]Men and Women shadows walk ... 44 The butterfly obtains 45 Beauty crowds me till I die 46 We spy the Forests and the Hills 47 I never told the buried gold 48 The largest fire ever known 50 CONTENTS. ' xxiii Page XL VII. Bloom upon the Mountain, stated 51 XL VIII. March is the month of expectation 53 XLIX. The Duties of the Wind are few 54 L. The Winds drew off like hungry dogs .... 55 LI. I think that the root of the Wind is Water . 56 LII. So, from the mould 57 LIII. The long sigh of the Frog 58 LIV. A cap of lead across the sky 59 LV. I send two Sunsets 60 LVI. Of this is Day composed 61 LVn. The Hills erect their purple heads 62 LVIII. Lightly stepped a yeUow star 63 LIX. The Moon upon her fluent route 64 LX. Like some old fashioned miracle 65 LXI. Glowing is her Bonnet 66 LXII. Forever cherished be the tree 67 LXIII. The Ones that disappeared are back .... 68 LXIV. Those final Creatures, — who they are ... 69 LXV. Summer begins to have the look 70 LXVI. A prompt, executive Bird is the Jay .... 71 LXVII. Like brooms of steel 72 LXVIII. These are the days that Reindeer love ... 73 LXIX. Follow wise Orion 74 LXX. In Winter, in my room 75 III. LXXI. Not any sunny tone 77 LXXII. For Death, — or rather 78 XXIV LXXIII. LXXIV. LXXV. LXXVI. LXXVII. LXXVIII. LXXIX. LXXX. LXXXI. LXXXII. LXXXIII. LXXXIV. LXXXV. LXXXVI. LXXXVII. LXXXVIII. LXXIX. XC. XCI. CONTENTS. Page Dropped into the Ether Acre! 79 This quiet Dust was Gentlemen and Ladies 80 'Twas comfort in her dying room .... 81 Too cold is this 82 I watched her face to see which way ... 83 Today or this noon 84 I see thee better in the dark 85 Low at my problem bending . . If pain for peace prepares . . . I fit for them Not one by Heaven defrauded stay The feet of people walking home We should not mind so small a flower To the staunch Dust we safe commit thee Her "Last Poems" Immured in Heaven ! What a Cell ! I 'm thinking of that other mom . The overtakelessness of those . . The Look of Thee, what is it like 86 87 88 89 90 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 IV. XCIL The Devil, had he fidcHty 99 XCIII. Papa above! Regard a Mouse .... 100 XCIV. Not when we know loi XCV. Elijah's wagon knew no thill 103 XCVL " Remember me " implored the Thief . . 103 XCVIL To this apartment deep 104 XCVIIL " Sown in dishonor? " 105 CONTENTS. XXV Page XCIX. Who is it seeks my pillow nights? io6 C. His Cheek is his Biographer 107 CI. "Heavenly Father," take to thee 108 CII. The sweets of Pillage can be known .... 109 CHI. A little over Jordan no CIV. Dust is the only secret in CV. Ambition cannot find him 112 CVI. Eden is that old fashioned House 113 CVII. Candor, my tepid Friend 114 CVIIL Speech is a symptom of affection 115 CIX. Who were " the Father and the Son " ... 116 V. ex. That Love is all there is 118 CXI. The luxury to apprehend 119 CXIL The Sea said "Come" to the Brook . ... 120 CXIII. All I may, if small 121 CXIV. Love reckons by itself alone 122 CXV. The inundation of the Spring 123 CXVI. No Autumn's intercepting chill 124 CXVIL Volcanoes be in Sicily 125 CXVIII. Distance is not the realm of Fox 126 CXIX. The treason of an accent 127 CXX. How destitute is he 128 CXXI. Crisis is sweet and, set the Heart 129 CXXII. To tell the beauty would decrease 130 CXXIII. To love thee, year by year 131 CXXIV. I showed her heights she never saw .... 132 XXVI CONTENTS. Page CXXV. On my volcano grows the grass .... 133 CXXVI. If I could tell how glad I was 134 CXXVII. Her Grace is aU she has 135 CXXVIII. No matter where the Saints abide . . . 136 CXXIX. To see her is a picture 137 CXXX. So set its sun in thee 138 CXXXI, Had this one day not been 139 CXXXII. That she forgot me was the least ... 140 CXXXIII. The incidents of Love 141 CXXXIV. Just so, Jesus raps — He does not weary 142 CXXXV. Safe Despair it is that raves 143 CXXXVI. The Face we choose to miss 144 CXXXVII. Of so divine a loss 145 CXXXVni. The healed Heart shows its shallow scar 146 CXXXIX. To pile like Thunder to its close .... 147 CXL. The Stars are old, that stood for me . . 148 CXLI. All circumstances are the frame .... 149 CXLII. I did not reach thee 150 TO SUE. /^NE Sister have I in our house, And one a hedge away There^s only one recorded But both belong to me. One came the way that I came, And wore my last yearns gown, ' The other, as a bird her nest, Builded our hearts among. She did not sing as we did. It was a different tune, Herself to her a music — As Bumble-bee of June. Today is far from childhood, But up and down the hills I held her hand the tighter. Which shortened all the miles. TO SUE. And still her hum the years among Deceives the Butterfly, Still in her eye the Violets lie Mouldered this many May. I spilt the dew hut took the morn, I chose this single Star From out the wide night's numbers, Sue — J or evermore! — Emilie. THE SINGLE HOUND. ADVENTURE most unto itself The Soul condemned to be; Attended by a Single Hound — Its own Identity. THE SINGLE HOUND. II. THE Soul that hath a Guest, Doth seldom go abroad, Diviner Crowd at home Obliterate the need, And courtesy forbid A Host's departure, when Upon Himself be visiting The Emperor of Men! THE SINGLE HOUND. III. EXCEPT the smaller size, no Lives are round, These hurry to a sphere, and show, and end. The larger, slower grow, and later hang — The Summers of Hesperides are long. THE SINGLE HOUND. IV. FAME is a fickle food Upon a shifting plate, Whose table once a Guest, but not The second time, is set. Whose crumbs the crows inspect, And with ironic caw Flap past it to the Farmer's corn; Men eat of it and die. THE SINGLE HOUND. THE right to perish might be thought An undisputed right, Attempt it, and the Universe upon the opposite Will concentrate its officers — You cannot even die, But Nature and Mankind must pause To pay you scrutiny. THE SINGLE HOUND. VI. PERIL as a possession Tis good to bear, Danger disintegrates satiety; There's Basis there Begets an awe, That searches Human Nature's creases As clean as Fire. THE SINGLE HOUND. VIL WHEN Etna basks and purrs, Naples is more afraid Than when she shows her Garnet Tooth; Security is loud. lO THE SINGLE HOUND. VIII. REVERSE cannot befall that fine Prosperity Whose sources are interior. As soon Adversity A diamond overtake, In far Bolivian ground; Misfortune hath no implement Could mar it, if it found. THE SINGLE HOUND. II IX. To be alive is power, Existence in itself, Without a further function, Omnipotence enough. To be alive and Will — 'Tis able as a God! The Further of ourselves be what Such being Finitude? 12 THE SINGLE HOUND. X. TI/^ITCHCRAFT has not a pedigree, ^ ^ 'Tis early as our breath, And mourners meet it going out The moment of our death. THE SINGLE HOUND. 13 XI. PXHILARATION is the Breeze -L' That lifts us from the ground, And leaves us in another place Whose statement is not found; Returns us not, but after time We soberly descend, A little newer for the term Upon enchanted ground. 14 THE SINGLE HOUND. XII. No romance sold unto, Could so enthrall a man As the perusal of His individual one. 'Tis fiction's, to dilute To plausibility Our novel, when 'tis small enough To credit, — 'tis n't true! THE SINGLE HOUND. 1$ XIII. IF what we could were what we would — Criterion be small; It is the Ultimate of talk The impotence to tell. l6 THE SINGLE HOUND. XIV. PERCEPTION of an Object costs Precise the Object's loss. Perception in itself a gain Replying to its price; The Object Absolute is nought, Perception sets ft fair, And then upbraids a Perfectness That situates so far. THE SINGLE HOUND. 17 XV. No other can reduce Our mortal consequence, Like the remembering it be nought A period from hence. But contemplation for Cotemporaneous nought Our single competition; Jehovah's estimate. l8 THE SINGLE HOUND. XVI. THE blunder is to estimate, — "Eternity is Then;' We say, as of a station. Meanwhile he is so near, He joins me in my ramble, Divides abode with me, No friend have I that so persists As this Eternity. THE SINGLE HOUND, 19 XVII. MY Wheel is in the dark, — I cannot see a spoke, Yet know its dripping feet Go round and round. My foot is on the tide — An unfrequented road. Yet have all roads A ''clearing" at the end. Some have resigned the Loom, Some in the busy tomb Find quaint employ, Some with new, stately feet Pass royal through the gate. Flinging the problem back at you and I. 20 THE SINGLE HOUND. XVIII. THERE is another Loneliness That many die without, Not want or friend occasions it, Or circumstances or lot. But nature sometimes, sometimes thought, And whoso it befall Is richer than could be divulged By mortal numeral. THE SINGLE HOUND. 21 XIX. So gay a flower bereaved the mind As if it were a woe, Is Beauty an afiiiction, then? Tradition ought to know. 22 THE SINGLE HOUND. XX. GLORY is that bright tragic thing, That for an instant Means Dominion, Warms some poor name That never felt the sun, Gently replacing In oblivion. THE SINGLE HOUND. 23 XXI. 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. 24 THE SINGLE HOUND. XXII. HIS mind, of man a secret makes, I meet him with a start, He carries a circumference In which I have no part, Or even if I deem I do — He otherwise may know. Impregnable to inquest, However neighborly. THE SINGLE HOUND, 25 XXIII. THE suburbs of a secret A strategist should keep, Better than on a dream intrude To scrutinize the sleep. 26 THE SINGLE HOUND. XXIV. THE difference between despair And fear, is like the one Between the instant of a wreck, And when the wreck has been. The mind is smooth, — no motion - Contented as the eye Upon the forehead of a Bust, That knows it cannot see. THE SINGLE HOUND. 27 XXV. THERE is a solitude of space, A solitude of sea, A solitude of death, but these Society shall be. Compared with that profounder site, That polar privacy, A Soul admitted to Itself: Finite Infinity. 28 THE SINGLE HOUND. XXVI. THE props assist the house Until the house is built, And then the props withdraw — And adequate, erect, The house supports itself; Ceasing to recollect The auger and the carpenter. Just such a retrospect Hath the perfected life, A past of plank and nail. And slowness, — then the scaffolds drop Affirming it a soul. THE SINGLE HOUND. 29 XXVII. THE gleam of an heroic act, Such strange illumination — The Possible's slow fuse is Ht By the Imagination! 30 THE SINGLE HOUND, XXVIII. OF Death the sharpest function, That, just as we discern, The Excellence defies us; Securest gathered then The fruit perverse to plucking, But leaning to the sight With the ecstatic limit Of unobtained DeHght. THE SINGLE HOUND. 31 XXIX. DOWN Time's quaint stream Without an oar, We are enforced to sail, Our Port — a secret — Our Perchance — a gale. What Skipper would Incur the risk, What Buccaneer would ride, Without a surety from the wind Or schedule of the tide? 32 THE SINGLE HOUND. XXX. I BET with every Wind that blew, till Nature in chagrin Employed a Fact to visit me and scuttle my Balloon! THE SINGLE HOUND. 33 XXXI. THE Future never spoke, Nor will he, like the Dumb, Reveal by sign or syllable Of his profound To-come. But when the news be ripe, Presents it in the Act — ForestalHng preparation Escape or substitute. Indifferent to him The Dower as the Doom, His ofhce but to execute Fate's Telegram to him. 34 THE SINGLE HOUND. XXXII. Two lengths has every day, Its absolute extent — And area superior By hope or heaven lent. Eternity will be Velocity, or pause, At fundamental signals From fundamental laws. To die, is not to go — On doom's consummate chart No territory new is staked, Remain thou as thou art. THE SINGLE HOUND. 35 XXXIII. THE Soul's superior instants Occur to Her alone, When friend and earth's occasion Have infinite withdrawn. Or she, Herself, ascended To too remote a height, For lower recognition Than Her Omnipotent. This mortal aboHtion Is seldom, but as fair As Apparition — subject To autocratic air. Eternity's disclosure To favorites, a few, Of the Colossal substance Of immortality. 36 THE SINGLE HOUND. XXXIV. NATURE is what we see, The Hill, the Afternoon — Squirrel, Eclipse, the Bumble-bee, Nay — Nature is Heaven. Nature is what we hear, The Bobohnk, the Sea — Thunder, the Cricket — Nay, — Nature is Harmony. Nature is what we know But have no art to say, So impotent our wisdom is To Her simpHcity. TEE SINGLE HOUND. 37 A XXXV. H, Tenerifife! Retreating Mountain! Purples of Ages pause for you, Sunset reviews her Sapphire Regiment, Day drops you her red Adieu ! Still, clad in your mail of ices, Thigh of granite and thew of steel — Heedless, ahke, of pomp or parting, Ah, Teneriffe! I'm kneeling still. 38 THE SINGLE HOUND. XXXVI. SHE died at play, Gambolled away Her lease of spotted hours, Then sank as gaily as a Turk Upon a couch of flowers. Her ghost strolled softly o'er the hill Yesterday and today. Her vestments as the silver fleece, Her countenance as spray. I THE SINGLE HOUND. 39 XXXVII. ''1\/rORNING" means ^'Milking" to the ^^ ^ Farmer, Dawn to the Apennines — Dice to the Maid. *' Morning" means just Chance to the Lover — Just Revelation to the Beloved. Epicures date a breakfast by it! Heroes a battle, The Miller a flood. Faint-going eyes their lapse From sighing. Faith, the Experiment of our Lord ! 40 THE SINGLE HOUND. XXXVIII. A LITTLE madness in the Spring Is wholesome even for the King, But God be with the Clown, Who ponders this tremendous scene — This whole experiment of green, As if it were his own! THE SINGLE HOUND. 41 XXXIX. I CAN'T tell you, but you feel it — Nor can you tell me, Saints with vanished slate and pencil Solve our April day. Sweeter than a vanished FroHc From a vanished Green! Swifter than the hoofs of Horsemen Round a ledge of Dream ! Modest, let us walk among it, With our ''faces veiled,'^ As they say poHte Archangels Do, in meeting God. Not for me to prate about it, Not for you to say To some fashionable Lady — "Charming April Day!" 42 THE SINGLE HOUND. Rather Heaven's ''Peter Parley," By which, Children — slow — To sublimer recitations Are prepared to go ! THE SINGLE HOUND. 43 I I XL. SOME Days retired from the rest In soft distinction lie, The Day that a companion came — Or was obHged to die. 44 THE SINGLE HOUND. XLI. LIKE Men and Women shadows walk Upon the hills today, With here and there a mighty bow, Or trailing courtesy To Neighbors, doubtless, of their own; Not quickened to perceive Minuter landscape, as Ourselves And Boroughs where we Hve. THE SINGLE HOUND. 45 XLII. THE butterfly obtains But little sympathy, Though favorably mentioned In Entomology. Because he travels freely And wears a proper coat, The circumspect are certain That he is dissolute. Had he the homely scutcheon of modest Industry, 'Twere fitter certifying for Immortality. 46 THE SINGLE HOUND, XLIII. "DEAUTY crowds me till I die, -■-' Beauty, mercy have on me! But if I expire today, Let it be in sight of thee. THE SINGLE HOUND. 47 XLIV. WE spy the Forests and the Hills, The tents to Nature's Show, Mistake the outside for the in And mention what we saw. Could Commentators on the sign Of Nature's Caravan Obtain "admission," as a child, Some Wednesday afternoon? 48 THE SINGLE HOUND. XLV. T NEVER told the buried gold -■■ Upon the hill that lies, I saw the sun, his plunder done, Crouch low to guard his prize. He stood as near, as stood you here, A pace had been between — Did but a snake bisect the brake, My life had forfeit been. That was a wondrous booty, I hope 'twas honest gained — Those were the finest ingots That ever kissed the spade. Whether to keep the secret — Whether to reveal — Whether, while I ponder Kidd may sudden sail — THE SINGLE HOUND. 49 Could a Shrewd advise me We might e'en divide — Should a Shrewd betray me — "Atropos" decide! 50 THE SIXGLE HOUND. XLVI. THE largest fire ever known Occurs each afternoon, Discovered is without surprise, Proceeds without concern: Consumes, and no report to men, An Occidental town, Rebuilt another morning To be again burned down. THE SINGLE HOUND. 51 XLVII. BLOOM upon the Mountain, stated, Blameless of a name. Efflorescence of a Sunset — Reproduced, the same. Seed, had I, my purple sowing Should endow the Day, Not a tropic of the twilight Show itself away. Who for tiUing, to the Mountain Come, and disappear — Whose be Her renown, or fading, Witness, is not here. While I state — the solemn petals Far as North and East, Far as South and West expanding, Culminate in rest. 52 THE SIXGLE HOUND. And the Mountain to the Evening Fit His countenance, Indicating by no muscle The Experience. TEE SINGLE HOUND. 53 XLVIII. MARCH is the month of expectation, The things we do not know, The Persons of prognostication Are coming now. We try to sham becoming firmness, But pompous joy Betrays us, as his first betrothal Betrays a boy. 54 THE SINGLE HOUND. XLIX. THE Duties of the Wind are few To cast the Ships at sea, Establish March, The Floods escort, And usher Liberty. THE SINGLE HOUND. 55 L. THE Winds drew off Like hungry dogs Defeated of a bone. Through fissures in Volcanic cloud The yellow lightning shown. The trees held up Their mangled Hmbs Like animals in pain, When Nature falls Upon herself, Beware an Austrian! 56 THE SINGLE HOUND. LI. I THINK that the root of the Wind is Water, It would not sound so deep Were it a firmamental product, Airs no Oceans keep — Mediterranean intonations, To a Current's ear There is a maritime conviction In the atmosphere. THE SINGLE HOUND. 57 LII. SO, from the" mould, Scarlet and gold Many a Bulb will rise, Hidden away cunningly From sagacious eyes. So, from cocoon Many a Worm Leap so Highland gay, Peasants like me — Peasants like thee, Gaze perplexedly. 58 THE SINGLE HOUND. LIII. THE long sigh of the Frog Upon a Summer's day, Enacts intoxication Upon the revery. But his receding swell Substantiates a peace, That makes the ear inordinate For corporal release. THE SINGLE HOUND. 59 LIV. A CAP of lead across the sky Was tight and surly drawn, We could not find the mighty Face, The Figure was withdrawn. A chill came up as from a shaft, Our noon became a well, A Thunder storm combines the charms Of Winter and of Hell. 6o THE SINGLE HOUND. LV. I SEND two Sunsets — Day and I in competition ran, I finished two, and several stars, While He was making one. His own is ampler — But, as I was saying to a friend, Mine is the more convenient To carry in the hand. [Sent with brilliant flowers.] THE SINGLE HOUND. 6i LVI. OF this is Day composed — A morning and a noon, A Revelry unspeakable And then a gay Unknown; Whose Pomps allure and spurn And dower and deprive, And penury for glory Remedilessly leave. 62 THE SINGLE HOUND. LVII. THE Hills erect their purple heads, The Rivers lean to see — Yet Man has not, of all the throng, A curiosity. THE SINGLE HOUND. 63 LVIII. LIGHTLY stepped a yellow star To its lofty place, Loosed the Moon her silver hat From her lustral face. All of evening softly Ht As an astral hall — ''Father," I observed to Heaven, "You are punctual." 64 THE SINGLE HOUND. LIX. THE Moon upon her fluent route Defiant of a road, The stars Etruscan argument, Substantiate a God. If Aims impel these Astral Ones, The Ones allowed to know, Know that which makes them as forgot As Dawn forgets them now. ^ THE SINGLE HOUND. 6$ LX. LIKE some old fashioned miracle When Summertime is done, Seems Summer's recollection And the affairs of June. As infinite tradition As Cinderella's bays, Or little John of Lincoln Green, Or Bluebeard's galleries. Her Bees have a fictitious hum. Her Blossoms, hke a dream, Elate — until we almost weep So plausible they seem. Her Memories hke strains — review When Orchestra is dumb. The Viohn in baize replaced And Ear and Heaven numb. 66 THE SINGLE HOUND. LXI. GLOWING is her Bonnet, Glowing is her Cheek, Glowing is her Kirtle, Yet she cannot speak! Better, as the Daisy From the Summer hill, Vanish unrecorded, Save by tearful Rill, Save by loving Sunrise Looking for her face. Save by feet unnumbered Pausing at the place! THE SINGLE HOUND. 67 LXII. FOREVER cherished be the tree, Whose apple Winter warm, Enticed to breakfast from the sky Two Gabriels yestermorn; They registered in Nature's book As Robin — Sire and Son, But angels have that modest way To screen them from renown. 68 THE SINGLE HOUND. LXIII. THE Ones that disappeared are back, The Phoebe and the Crow, Precisely as in March is heard The curtness of the Jay — Be this an Autumn or a Spring? My wisdom loses way, One side of me the nuts are ripe — The other side is May. THE SINGLE HOUND. 69 LXIV. THOSE final Creatures, — who they are — That, faithful to the close, Administer her ecstasy, But just the Summer knows. 70 THE SINGLE HOUND. LXV. SUINIIMER begins to have the look, Peruser of enchanting Book Reluctantly, but sure, perceives — A gain upon the backward leaves. Autumn begins to be inferred By millinery of the cloud, Or deeper color in the shawl That wraps the everlasting hill. The eye begins its avarice, A meditation chastens speech, Some Dyer of a distant tree Resumes his gaudy industry. Conclusion is the course of all. Almost to be perennial, And then elude stability Recalls to immortality. THE SINGLE HOUND. 71 LXVI. A PROMPT, executive Bird is the Jay, Bold as a Bailiff's hymn, Brittle and brief in quality — Warrant in every line; Sitting a bough like a Brigadier, Confident and straight, Much is the mien Of him in March As a Magistrate. 72 THE SINGLE HOUND. LXVII. LIKE brooms of steel The Snow and Wind Had swept the Winter Street, The House was hooked, The Sun sent out Faint Deputies of heat — Where rode the Bird The Silence tied His ample, plodding Steed, The Apple in the cellar snug Was all the one that played. THE SINGLE HOUND. 73 LXVIII. THESE are the days that Reindeer love And pranks the Northern star, This is the Sun's objective And Finland of the year. 74 THE SINGLE HOUND. LXIX. Tj^OLLOW wise Orion ^ Till you lose your eye, Dazzlingly decamping He is just as high. THE SINGLE HOUND. 75 LXX. IN Winter, in my room, I came upon a worm, Pink, lank, and warm. But as he was a worm And worms presume, Not quite with him at home — Secured him by a string To something neighboring, And went along. A trifle afterward A thing occurred, I'd not beheve it if I heard — But state with creeping blood; A snake, with mottles rare, Surveyed my chamber floor, In feature as the worm before, But ringed with power. The very string 76 THE SINGLE HOUND. With which I tied him, too, When he was mean and new, That string was there. I shrank — ''How fair you are!'* Propitiation's claw — ^'Afraid," he hissed, ''Of me?" "No cordiaHty?" He fathomed me. Then, to a rhythm sHm Secreted in his form, As patterns swim, Projected him. That time I flew. Both eyes his way. Lest he pursue — Nor ever ceased to run, Till, in a distant town. Towns on from mine — I sat me down; This was a dream. THE SINGLE HOUND. 77 LXXI. NOT any sunny tone From any fervent zone Finds entrance there. Better a grave of Balm Toward human nature's home, And Robins near, Than a stupendous Tomb Proclaiming to the gloom How dead we are. 78 THE SINGLE HOUND. LXXII. FOR Death,— or rather For the things 'twill buy, These put away Life's opportunity. The things that Death will buy Are Room, — Escape From Circumstances, And a Name. How gifts of Life With Death's gifts will compare, We know not — For the rates stop Here. THE SINGLE HOUND. 79 LXXIII. DROPPED into the Ether Acre! Wearing the sod gown — Bonnet of Everlasting laces Brooch frozen on ! Horses of blonde — And coach of silver, Baggage a strapped Pearl! Journey of Down And whip of Diamond — Riding to meet the Earl! 8o THE SINGLE HOUND. LXXIV. THIS quiet Dust was Gentlemen and Ladies, And Lads and Girls; Was laughter and ability and sighing, And frocks and curls. This passive place a Summer's nimble mansion, Where Bloom and Bees Fulfilled their Oriental Circuit, Then ceased like these. THE SINGLE HOUND. 8l LXXV. TWAS comfort in her dying room To hear the living clock, A short rehef to have the wind Walk boldly up and knock, Diversion from the dying theme To hear the children play, But wrong, the mere That these could live, — And This of ours must die ! 82 THE SINGLE HOUND. LXXVI. TOO cold is this To warm with sun, Too stiff to bended be, To joint this agate were a feat Outstaring masonry. How went the agile kernel out — Contusion of the husk, Nor rip, nor wrinkle indicate, — But just an Asterisk. THE SINGLE HOUND. 83 LXXVII. I WATCHED her face to see which way She took the awful news, Whether she died before she heard — Or in protracted bruise Remained a few short years with us, Each heavier than the last — A further afternoon to fail, As Flower at fall of Frost. 84 THE SINGLE HOUND. LXXVIIL ^ODAY or this noon -■- She dwelt so close, I almost touched her; Tonight she lies Past neighborhood — And bough and steeple — Now past surmise. THE SINGLE HOUND. 85 LXXIX. I SEE thee better in the dark, I do not need a light. The love of thee a prism be Excelling violet. I see thee better for the years That hunch themselves between, The miner's lamp sufficient be To nulHfy the mine. And in the grave I see thee best — Its Httle panels be A-glow, all ruddy with the light I held so high for thee! What need of day to those whose dark Hath so surpassing sun, It seem it be continually At the meridian? 86 THE SINGLE HOUND. LXXX. LOW at my problem bending, Another problem comes, Larger than mine, serener. Involving statelier sums; I check my busy pencil. My ciphers slip away, Wherefore, my baffled fingers, Time Eternity? THE SINGLE HOUND. 87 LXXXI. TF pain for peace prepares, -*- Lo the "Augustan" years Our feet await! If Springs from Winter rise, Can the Anemone's Be reckoned up? If night stands first, then noon, To gird us for the sun, What gaze — When, from a thousand skies. On our developed eyes Noons blaze! 88 THE SINGLE HOUND. LXXXII. I FIT for them, I seek the dark till I am thorough fit. The labor is a solemn one, With this sufficient sweet — That abstinence as mine produce A purer good for them, If I succeed, — If not, I had The transport of the Aim. THE SINGLE HOUND. 89 LXXXIII. NOT one by Heaven defrauded stay, Although He seem to steal, He restitutes in some sweet way. Secreted in His will. go THE SINGLE HOUND. LXXXIV. THE feet of people walking home In gayer sandals go, The Crocus, till she rises. The Vassal of the Snow — The lips at Hallelujah! Long years of practice bore, Till bye and bye these Bargemen Walked singing on the shore. Pearls are the Diver's farthings Extorted from the Sea, Pinions the Seraph's wagon, Pedestrians once, as we — Night is the morning's canvas, Larceny, legacy, Death but our rapt attention To immortahty. THE SINGLE HOUND. 91 My jSgures fail to tell me How far the village lies, Whose Peasants are the angels, Whose Cantons dot the skies. My Classics veil their faces. My Faith that dark adores, Which from its solemn Abbeys Such resurrection pours! 92 THE SINGLE HOUND. LXXXV. WE should not mind so small a flower, Except it quiet bring Our little garden that we lost Back to the lawn again. So spicy her Carnations red, So drunken reel her Bees, So silver steal a hundred Flutes From out a hundred trees, That whoso sees this httle flower. By faith may clear behold The BoboHnks around the throne. And DandeHons gold. THE SINGLE HOUND. 93 LXXXVI. TO the staunch Dust we safe commit thee; Tongue if it hath, inviolate to thee — Silence denote and Sanctity enforce thee, Passenger of Inl&nity! 94 THE S7XGLE HOUND. LXXXVII. HER ''Last Poems"— Poets ended, Silver perished with her tongue, Not on record bubbled other Flute, or Woman, so divine; Not unto its Summer morning Robin uttered half the tune — Gushed too free for the adoring, From the Anglo-Florentine. Late the praise — 'Tis dull conferring On a Head too high to crown, Diadem or Ducal showing, Be its Grave sufficient sign. Yet if we, no Poet's kinsman. Suffocate with easy woe. What and if ourself a Bridegroom, Put Her down, in Italy? [Written after the death of Mrs. Browning in 1861.] THE SINGLE HOUND. 95 LXXXVIII. IMMURED in Heaven ! What a Cell ! Let every bondage be, Thou Sweetest of the Universe, Like that which ravished thee ! 96 THE SINGLE HOUND. LXXXIX. I'M thinking of that other morn, When Cerements let go, And Creatures clad in Victory Go up in two by two! THE SINGLE HOUND. 97 xc. THE overtakelessness of those Who have accompHshed Death, Majestic is to me beyond The majesties of Earth. The soul her ''not at Home" Inscribes upon the flesh, And takes her fair aerial gait Beyond the hope of touch. 98 THE SINGLE HOUND. XCI. THE Look of Thee, what is it like? Hast thou a hand or foot, Or mansion of Identity, And what is thy Pursuit? Thy fellows, — are they Realms or Themes? Hast thou Dehght or Fear Or Longing, — and is that for us Or values more severe? Let change transfuse all other traits, Enact all other blame. But deign this least certificate — That thou shalt be the same. THE SINGLE HOUND. 99 XCII. THE Devil, had he fidelity, ' Would be the finest friend Because he has ability, But Devils cannot mend. Perfidy is the virtue That would he but resign, — The Devil, so amended, Were durably divine. lOO THE SINGLE HOUND. p XCIII. APA above! Regard a Mouse O 'erpowered by the Cat; Reserve within thy kingdom A ''mansion" for the Rat! Snug in seraphic cupboards To nibble all the day, While unsuspecting cycles Wheel pompously away. THE SINGLE HOUND. lOl XCIV. NOT when we know The Power accosts, The garment of Surprise Was all our timid Mother wore At Home, in Paradise. I02 THE SINGLE HOUND. xcv. ELIJAH'S wagon knew no thill, Was innocent of wheel, EKjah's horses as unique As was his vehicle. Elijah's journey to portray, Expire with him the skill, Who justified Elijah, In feats inscrutable. THE SINGLE HOUND. 103 XCVI. REMEMBER me," implored the Thief Oh magnanimity! ''My Visitor in Paradise I give thee Guaranty." That courtesy will fair remain, When the dehght is dust, With which we cite this mightiest case Of compensated Trust. Of All, we are allowed to hope, But Affidavit stands That this was due, where some, we fear, Are unexpected friends. I04 THE SINGLE HOUND. XCVII. To this apartment deep No ribaldry may creep; Untroubled this abode By any man but God. THE SINGLE HOUND. 105 XCVIII. "QOWN in dishonor?'' »v5 Ah! Indeed! May this dishonor be? If I were half so fine myself, I'd notice nobody! *'Sown in corruption?" By no means! Apostle is askew; Corinthians i. 15, narrates A circumstance or two! io6 THE SINGLE HOUND. XCIX. WHO is it seeks my pillow nights? With plain inspecting face, "Did you, or did you not?" to ask, 'Tis Conscience, childhood's nurse. With martial hand she strokes the hair Upon my wincing head, *'A11 rogues shall have their part in" — What — The Phosphorus of God. THE SINGLE HOUND. 107 c. HIS Cheek is his Biographer — As long as he can blush, Perdition is Opprobrium; Past that, he sins in peace. Thief lo8 THE SINGLE IIOUXD. CI. HEAVENLY Father," take to thee The supreme iniquity, Fashioned by thy candid hand In a moment contraband. Though to trust us seem to us More respectful — "we are dust." We apologize to Thee For Thine own Duplicity. THE SINGLE HOUND. 109 CII. ^X^HE sweets of Pillage can be known -■" To no one but the Thief, Compassion for Integrity Is his divinest Grief. no THE SIX CLE HOUND. cm. A LITTLE over Jordan, As Genesis record, An Angel and a Wrestler Did wrestle long and hard. Till, morning touching mountain, And Jacob waxing strong, The Angel begged peiTnission To breakfast and return. Not so, quoth wily Jacob And girt his loins anew, ''Until thou bless me, stranger!" The which acceded to: Light swung the silver fleeces Peniel hills among, And the astonished Wrestler Found he had worsted God ! THE SINGLE HOUND. iii CIV. DUST is the only secret, Death the only one You cannot find out all about In his native town: Nobody knew his father, Never was a boy, Hadn't any playmates Or early history. Industrious, laconic, Punctual, sedate, Bolder than a Brigand, Swifter than a Fleet, Builds like a bird too, Christ robs the nest — Robin after robin Smuggled to rest! 112 THE SINGLE HOUND. cv. AMBITION cannot find him, Affection doesn't know How many leagues of Nowhere Lie between them now. Yesterday undistinguished — Eminent today. For our mutual honor — Immortality! THE SINGLE HOUND. 113 CVI. EDEN is that old fashioned House We dwell in every day, Without suspecting our abode Until we drive away. How fair, on looking back, the Day We sauntered from the door, Unconscious our returning Discover it no more. 114 THE SINGLE HOUND. CVII. CANDOR, my tepid Friend, Come not to play with me! The Myrrhs and Mochas of the Mind Are its Iniquity. THE SINGLE HOUND. 115 CVIII. SPEECH is a sympton of affection, And Silence one, The perfectest communication Is heard of none — Exists and its endorsement Is had within — Behold! said the Apostle, Yet had not seen. Ii6 THE SINGLE HOUND. CIX. WHO were '^the Father and the Son" We pondered when a child, And what had they to do with us — And when portentous told With inference appalling, By Childhood fortified, We thought, ''at least they are no worse Than they have been described." Who are ''the Father and the Son" — Did we demand today, "The Father and the Son" himself Would doubtless specify, But had they the felicity When we desired to know, We better Friends had been, perhaps, Than time ensue to be. We start, to learn that we beheve But once, entirely — THE SINGLE HOUND. 117 Belief, it does not fit so well When altered frequently. We blush, that Heaven if we achieve, Event ineffable — We shall have shunned, until ashamed To own the Miracle. Ii8 TEE SINGLE HOUND. ex. THAT Love is all there is, Is all we know of Love; It is enough, the freight should be Proportioned to the groove. THE SINGLE HOUND. 119 CXI. THE luxury to apprehend The luxury 'twould be To look at thee a single time, An Epicure of me, In whatsoever Presence, makes, Till, for a further food I scarcely recollect to starve. So first am I supplied. The luxury to meditate The luxury it was To banquet on thy Countenance, A sumptuousness bestows On plainer days. Whose table, far as Certainty can see, Is laden with a single crumb — The consciousness of Thee. I20 THE SINGLE HOUND. CXII. THE Sea said *Xome" to the Brook, The Brook said ''Let me grow!" The Sea said "Then you will be a Sea — I want a brook, Come now!" THE SINGLE HOUND. 121 CXIII. ALL I may, if small, Do it not display Larger for its Totalness? 'Tis economy To bestow a world And withhold a star, Utmost is munificence; Less, though larger, Poor. 122 THE SINGLE HOUND. CXIV. LOVE reckons by itself alone, "As large as I" relate the Sun To one who never felt it blaze, Itself is all the hke it has. THE SINGLE HOUND. 123 cxv. THE inundation of the Spring Submerges every soul, It sweeps the tenement away But leaves the water whole. In which the Soul, at first alarmed, Seeks furtive for its shore, But acclimated, gropes no more For that Peninsular. 124 TEE SINGLE HOUND. CXVI. No Autumn's intercepting chill Appalls this Tropic Breast, But African exuberance And Asiatic rest. THE SINGLE HOUND. 125 CXVII. VOLCANOES be in Sicily And South America, I judge from my geography. Volcanoes nearer here, A lava step, at any time, Am I inclined to climb, A crater I may contemplate, Vesuvius at home. 126 THE si:; CLE HOUND. CXVIII. DISTANCE is not the realm of Fox, Nor by relay as Bird; Abated, Distance is until Thyself, Beloved! THE SINGLE HOUND. 127 CXIX. THE treason of an accent Might vilify the Joy — To breathe, — corrode the rapture Of Sanctity to be. 128 THE SIX CLE HOUND. cxx. How destitute is he Whose Gold is firm, Who finds it every time, The small stale sum — When Love, with but a pence Will so display. As is a disrespect to India! THE SINGLE HOUND. 129 CXXI. CRISIS is sweet and, set the Heart Upon the hither side, Has dowers of prospective Surrendered by the Tried. Inquire of the closing Rose Which Rapture she preferred, And she will tell you, sighing, The transport of the Bud. I30 THE SINGLE HOUND. CXXII. To tell the beauty would decrease, To state the Spell demean, There is a syllableless sea Of which it is the sign. My will endeavours for its word And fails, but entertains A rapture as of legacies — Of introspective mines. THE SINGLE HOUND. 131 CXXIII. To love thee, year by year, May less appear Than sacrifice and cease. However, Dear, Forever might be short I thought, to show. And so I pieced it with a flower now. 132 THE SINGLE HOUND. CXXIV. I SHOWED her heights she never saw — ''Would'st cHmb?" I said, She said' ^ Not so" — ''With me?" I said, ''With me?" I showed her secrets Morning's nest. The rope that Nights were put across — And now, "Would'st have me for a Guest?" She could not find her yes — And then, I brake my Hfe, and Lo! A Hght for her, did solemn glow, The larger, as her face withdrew — And could she, further, "No?" THE SINGLE HOUND. 133 cxxv. ON my volcano grows the grass, A meditative spot, An area for a bird to choose Would be the general thought. How red the fire reeks below, How insecure the sod — Did I disclose, would populate With awe my solitude. 134 THE SINGLE HOUND. CXXVI. IF I could tell how glad I was, I should not be so glad, But when I cannot make the Force Nor mould it into word, I know it is a sign That new Dilemma be From mathematics further off, Than from Eternity. THE SINGLE HOUND. 135 CXXVII. HER Grace is all she has, And that, so vast displays, One Art, to recognize, must be, Another Art to praise. 136 THE SINGLE HOUND. CXXVIII. No matter where the Saints abide, They make their circuit fair; Behold how great a Firmament Accompanies a star ! THE SINGLE HOUND. 137 CXXIX. To see her is a picture, To hear her is a tune, To know her an intemperance As innocent as June; By which to be undone Is dearer than Redemption — Which never to receive, Makes mockery of melody It might have been to live. 138 THE SINGLE HOUND. cxxx. So set its sun in thee, What day is dark to me What distance far, So I the ships may see That touch how seldomly Thy shore? THE SINGLE HOUND. 139 CXXXI. HAD this one day not been, Or could it cease to be - How smitten, how superfluous Were every other day! Lest Love should value less What Loss would value more, Had it the stricken privilege — It cherishes before. I40 THE SINGLE HOUND. CXXXII. THAT she forgot me was the least, I felt it second pain, That I was worthy to forget Was most I thought upon. Faithful, was all that I could boast, But Constancy became, To her, by her innominate, A something Uke a shame. THE SINGLE HOUND. 141 CXXXIII. ^ I ^HE incidents of Love -*- Are more than its Events, Investments best expositor Is the minute per cents. 142 THE SINGLE HOUND. CXXXIV. JUST so, Jesus raps — He does not weary — Last at the knocker and first at the bell, Then on divinest tiptoe standing Might He out-spy the lady's soul. When He retires, chilled and weary — It will be ample time for me; Patient, upon the steps, until then — Heart, I am knocking low at Thee! THE SINGLE HOUND. 143 cxxxv. SAFE Despair it is that raves, Agony is frugal, Puts itself severe away For its own perusal. Garrisoned no Soul can be In the front of Trouble, Love is one, not aggregate, Nor is D3dng double. 144 THE SINGLE HOUND. CXXXVI. THE Face we choose to miss, Be it but for a day — As absent as a hundred years When it has rode away. THE SINGLE HOUND. 145 CXXXVII. OF so divine a loss We enter but the gain, Indemnity for loneliness That such a bliss has been. 146 THE SINGLE HOUND. CXXXVIII. THE healed Heart shows its shallow scar With confidential moan, Not mended by Mortality Are fabrics truly torn. To go its convalescent way So shameless is to see, More genuine were Perfidy Than such FideHty. THE SINGLE HOUND. 147 CXXXIX. To pile like Thunder to its close, Then crumble grand away, While everything created hid — This would be Poetry : Or Love, — the two coeval came — We both and neither prove, Experience either, and consume — For none see God and live. 148 THE SINGLE HOUND. CXL. THE Stars are old, that stood for me The West a little worn, Yet newer glows the only Gold I ever cared to earn — Presuming on that lone result Her infinite disdain, But vanquished her with my defeat, 'Twas Victory was slain. THE SINGLE HOUND. 149 CXLI. ALL circumstances are the frame In which His Face is set, All Latitudes exist for His Sufficient continent. The hght His Action and the dark The Leisure of His Will, In Him Existence serve, or set A force illegible. I50 THE SINGLE HOUND. CXLIL I DID not reach thee, But my feet slip nearer every day; Three Rivers and a Hill to cross, One Desert and a Sea — I shall not count the journey one When I am telHng thee. Two deserts — but the year is cold So that will help the sand — One desert crossed, the second one Will feel as cool as land. Sahara is too Httle price To pay for thy Right hand ! The sea comes last. Step merry, feet! So short have we to go To play together we are prone, But we must labor now, THE SINGLE HOUND. 151 The last shall be the lightest load That we have had to draw. The Sun goes crooked — that is night — Before he makes the bend We must have passed the middle sea, Almost we wish the end Were further off — too great it seems So near the Whole to stand. We step Kke plush, we stand Hke snow — The waters murmur now, Three rivers and the hill are passed, Two deserts and the sea! Now Death usurps my premium And gets the look at Thee. t ?0Q ^^*o^ 'C^ \- ^' V: '"/ -^ A^-^ ^^ "/ C;^ V ^"^„ ^ ■>:^"^. ^% ^^ .0 O J- a' -oo^ - "^ ^' f :-,"'.. ."- ^i \ 8 * <^ o ^^''^ ^^.. c^^ -x^' ^^^. V>^ * 8 1 > cf^' <=,^- ,^^' '^/>- o '^''^.'^o. J- i- « .\