Out of the water call
my luminous breath,
into the bird, intending serpent, red,
who shakes himself, white,
out of that forest body, black.
Red gourd head spirit of the bush,
your breath is speech;
your speech is ordinary, pure.
I take you from the blue
glass of my sacred windows,
I ring you cold upon my father’ s weights.
Two evils, monstrous either one apart,
Possessed me, and were long and loath at going:
A cry of Absence, Absence, in the heart,
And in the wood the furious winter blowing.
Think not, when fire was bright upon my bricks,
And past the tight boards hardly a wind could enter,
I glowed like them, the simple burning sticks,
Far from my cause, my proper heat and center.
Winter is fallen early
On the house of Stare;
Birds in reverberating flocks
Haunt its ancestral box;
Bright are the plenteous berries
In clusters in the air.
See this house, how dark it is
Beneath its vast-boughed trees!
Not one trembling leaflet cries
To that Watcher in the skies —
‘Remove, remove thy searching gaze,
Innocent of heaven’ s ways,
Brood not, Moon, so wildly bright,
On secrets hidden from sight.’
Dark frost was in the air without,
The dusk was still with cold and gloom,
When less than even a shadow came
And stood within the room.
But of the three around the fire,
None turned a questioning head to look,
Still read a clear voice, on and on,
Still stooped they o’ er their book.
I walk’ d the other day, to spend my hour,
Into a field,
Where I sometimes had seen the soil to yield
A gallant flow’ r;
But winter now had ruffled all the bow’ r
And curious store
I knew there heretofore.
BODY
Farewell! I go to sleep; but when
The day-star springs, I’ ll wake again.
SOUL
Go, sleep in peace; and when thou liest
Unnumber’ d in thy dust, when all this frame
Is but one dram, and what thou now descriest
In sev’ ral parts shall want a name,
Then may his peace be with thee, and each dust
Writ in his book, who ne’ er betray’ d man’ s trust!
O joys! infinite sweetness! with what flow’ rs
And shoots of glory my soul breaks and buds!
All the long hours
Of night, and rest,
Through the still shrouds
Of sleep, and clouds,
This dew fell on my breast;
Oh, how it bloods
And spirits all my earth! Hark! In what rings
And hymning circulations the quick world
Whatever ’ tis, whose beauty here below
Attracts thee thus and makes thee stream and flow,
And wind and curl, and wink and smile,
Shifting thy gate and guile;
Though thy close commerce nought at all imbars
My present search, for eagles eye not stars,
And still the lesser by the best
And highest good is blest;
With what deep murmurs through time’ s silent stealth
Doth thy transparent, cool, and wat’ ry wealth
Here flowing fall,
And chide, and call,
As if his liquid, loose retinue stay’ d
Ling’ ring, and were of this steep place afraid;
The common pass
Where, clear as glass,
All must descend
Not to an end,
But quicken’ d by this deep and rocky grave,
