A precious mouldering pleasure 'tis
A precious mouldering pleasure ’tis 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
Where I have lost, I softer tread
Where I have lost, I softer tread I sow sweet flower from garden bed I pause above that vanished head And mourn. Whom I have lost, I pious guard From accent harsh, or ruthless
In falling Timbers buried
In falling Timbers buried There breathed a Man Outside the spades were plying The Lungs within Could He know they sought Him Could They know He breathed Horrid Sand Partition Neither could be heard
The lonesome for they know not What
The lonesome for they know not What The Eastern Exiles be Who strayed beyond the Amber line Some madder Holiday And ever since the purple Moat They strive to climb in vain As Birds
Nature affects to be sedate
Nature affects to be sedate Upon occasion, grand But let our observation shut Her practices extend To Necromancy and the Trades Remote to understand Behold our spacious Citizen Unto a Juggler turned
The first Day that I was a Life
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
The Himmaleh was known to stoop
The Himmaleh was known to stoop Unto the Daisy low Transported with Compassion That such a Doll should grow Where Tent by Tent Her Universe Hung out its Flags of Snow
Left in immortal Youth
Left in immortal Youth On that low Plain That hath nor Retrospection Nor Again Ransomed from years Sequestered from Decay Canceled like Dawn In comprehensive Day
I'd rather recollect a setting
I’d rather recollect a setting Than own a rising sun Though one is beautiful forgetting And true the other one. Because in going is a Drama Staying cannot confer To die divinely once a
A transport one cannot contain
A transport one cannot contain May yet a transport be Though God forbid it lift the lid Unto its Ecstasy! A Diagram of Rapture! A sixpence at a Show With Holy Ghosts in Cages!
Still own thee still thou art
Still own thee still thou art What surgeons call alive Though slipping slipping I perceive To thy reportless Grave Which question shall I clutch What answer wrest from thee Before thou dost exude away
Although I put away his life
Although I put away his life An Ornament too grand For Forehead low as mine, to wear, This might have been the Hand That sowed the flower, he preferred Or smoothed a homely pain,
The Ditch is dear to the Drunken man
The Ditch is dear to the Drunken man For is it not his Bed His Advocate his Edifice? How safe his fallen Head In her disheveled Sanctity Above him is the sky Oblivion bending
If any sink, assure that this, now standing
If any sink, assure that this, now standing Failed like Themselves and conscious that it rose Grew by the Fact, and not the Understanding How Weakness passed or Force arose Tell that the Worst,
I cried at Pity not at Pain
I cried at Pity not at Pain I heard a Woman say “Poor Child” and something in her voice Convicted me of me So long I fainted, to myself It seemed the common way,