text
stringlengths 0
44
|
|---|
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?" |
EXCLUSION. |
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. |
THE SECRET. |