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.
You’ll find it-when you try to die- The Easier to let go- For recollecting such as went- You could not spare-you know.
We never know we go when we are going- We jest and shut the Door- Fate-following-behind us bolts it- And we accost no more-.
The distance that the dead have gone Does not at first appear- Their coming back seems possible For many an ardent year.
That short, potential stir That each can make but once, That bustle so illustrious Tis almost consequence, Is the eclat of death.
Safe Despair it is that raves- Agony is frugal. Puts itself severe away For its own perusal.
I do not know the man so bold He dare in lonely Place That awful stranger Consciousness Deliberately face-.
Beauty crowds me till I die. Beauty, mercy have on me! Yet if I expire to-day Let it be in sight of thee!
I had a terror-since September -I could tell to none-and so I sing, as the Boy does by the Burying Ground-because I am afraid.
No ladder needs the bird but skies To situate its wings, Nor any leaders grim baton Arraigns it as it sings.
He deposes Doom Who hath suffered him.
Take all away from me, but leave me Ecstasy, And I am richer then than all my Fellow Men-.
The Spider as an Artist Has never been employed- Though his surpassing Merit Is freely certified.
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.
How much can come And much can go, And yet abide the world!
Not one of all the purple host Who took the flag to-day Can tell the definition So clear of victory, As he, defeated, dying, On whose forbidden ear The distant strains of triumph Break agonized and clear.
The mountain at a given distance In amber lies; Approached, the amber flits a little, – And that’s the skies!
The Pleading of the Summer – That other Prank – of Snow – That Cushions Mystery with Tulle, For fear the Squirrels – know.
Belshazzar had a letter, – He never had but one; Belshazzar’s correspondence Concluded and begun In that immortal copy The conscience of us all Can read without its glasses On revelation’s wall.
Beauty crowds me till I die.