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.
Go, smiling souls, your new-built cages break,
In heaven you’ ll learn to sing, ere here to speak,
Nor let the milky fonts that bathe your thirst
Be your delay;
The place that calls you hence is, at the worst,
Milk all the way.
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
I
1
Pearl, the precious prize of a king,
Chastely set in cherished gold,
In all the East none equalling,
No peer to her could I behold.
So round, so rare, a radiant thing,
So smooth she was, so small of mold,
Wherever I judged gems glimmering
I set her apart, her price untold.
Alas, I lost her in earth’ s green fold;
Through grass to the ground, I searched in vain.
I languish alone; my heart grows cold
For my precious pearl without a stain.
2
My father has a pair of shoes
So beautiful to see.
I want to wear my father's shoes.
They are too big for me.
My baby brother has a pair
As cunning as can be.
My feet won't go into that pair.
They are too small for me.
There's only one thing that I can do
Till I get small or grown.
If I want to have some fitting shoes
I'll have to wear my own.
