LITMIR.BIZ

      If I can stop one heart from breaking,

      I shall not live in vain;

      If I can ease one life the aching,

      Or cool one pain,

      Or help one fainting robin

      Unto his nest again,

      I shall not live in vain.

      Within my reach!

      I could have touched!

      I might have chanced that way!

      Soft sauntered through the village,

      Sauntered as soft away!

      So unsuspected violets

      Within the fields lie low,

      Too late for striving fingers

      That passed, an hour ago.

      A wounded deer leaps highest,

      I've heard the hunter tell;

      'T is but the ecstasy of death,

      And then the brake is still.

      The smitten rock that gushes,

      The trampled steel that springs;

      A cheek is always redder

      Just where the hectic stings!

      Mirth is the mail of anguish,

      In which it cautions arm,

      Lest anybody spy the blood

      And "You're hurt" exclaim!

      The heart asks pleasure first,

      And then, excuse from pain;

      And then, those little anodynes

      That deaden suffering;

      And then, to go to sleep;

      And then, if it should be

      The will of its Inquisitor,

      The liberty to die.

      A precious, mouldering pleasure 't is

      To meet an antique book,

      In just the dress his century wore;

      A privilege, I think,

      His venerable hand to take,

      And warming in our own,

      A passage back, or two, to make

      To times when he was young.

      His quaint opinions to inspect,

      His knowledge to unfold

      On what concerns our mutual mind,

      The literature of old;

      What interested scholars most,

      What competitions ran

      When Plato was a certainty.

      And Sophocles a man;

      When Sappho was a living girl,

      And Beatrice wore

      The gown that Dante deified.

      Facts, centuries before,

      He traverses familiar,

      As one should come to town

      And tell you all your dreams were true;

      He lived where dreams were sown.

      His presence is enchantment,

      You beg him not to go;

      Old volumes shake their vellum heads

      And tantalize, just so.

      Much madness is divinest sense

      To a discerning eye;

      Much sense the starkest madness.

      'T is the majority

      In this, as all, prevails.

      Assent, and you are sane;

      Demur, – you're straightway dangerous,

      And handled with a chain.

      I asked no other thing,

      No other was denied.

      I offered Being for it;

      The mighty merchant smiled.

      Brazil? He twirled a button,

      Without a glance my way:

      "But, madam, is there nothing else

      That we can show to-day?"

      The soul selects her own society,

      Then shuts the door;

      On her divine majority

      Obtrude no more.

      Unmoved, she notes the chariot's pausing

      At her low gate;

      Unmoved, an emperor is kneeling

      Upon her mat.

      I've known her from an ample nation

      Choose one;

      Then close the valves of her attention

      Like stone.

      Some things that fly there be, —

      Birds, hours, the bumble-bee:

      Of these no elegy.

      Some things that stay there be, —

      Grief, hills, eternity:

      Nor this behooveth me.

      There are, that resting, rise.

      Can I expound the skies?

      How still the riddle lies!

      I know some lonely houses off the road

      A robber 'd like the look of, —

      Wooden barred,

      And windows hanging low,

      Inviting to

      A portico,

      Where two could creep:

      One hand the tools,

      The other peep

      To make sure all's asleep.

      Old-fashioned eyes,

      Not easy to surprise!

      How orderly the kitchen 'd look by night,

      With just a clock, —

      But they could gag the tick,

      And mice won't bark;

      And so the walls don't tell,

      None will.

      A pair of spectacles ajar just stir —

      An almanac's aware.

      Was it the mat winked,

      Or a nervous star?

      The moon slides down the stair

      To see who's there.

      There's plunder, – where?

      Tankard, or spoon,

      Earring, or stone,

      A watch, some ancient brooch

      To match the grandmamma,

      Staid

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