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The smallest housewife in the grass, |
Yet take her from the lawn, |
And somebody has lost the face |
That made existence home! |
XXXI. |
Death is a dialogue between |
The spirit and the dust. |
"Dissolve," says Death. The Spirit, "Sir, |
I have another trust." |
Death doubts it, argues from the ground. |
The Spirit turns away, |
Just laying off, for evidence, |
An overcoat of clay. |
XXXII. |
It was too late for man, |
But early yet for God; |
Creation impotent to help, |
But prayer remained our side. |
How excellent the heaven, |
When earth cannot be had; |
How hospitable, then, the face |
Of our old neighbor, God! |
XXXIII. |
ALONG THE POTOMAC. |
When I was small, a woman died. |
To-day her only boy |
Went up from the Potomac, |
His face all victory, |
To look at her; how slowly |
The seasons must have turned |
Till bullets clipt an angle, |
And he passed quickly round! |
If pride shall be in Paradise |
I never can decide; |
Of their imperial conduct, |
No person testified. |
But proud in apparition, |
That woman and her boy |
Pass back and forth before my brain, |
As ever in the sky. |
XXXIV. |
The daisy follows soft the sun, |
And when his golden walk is done, |
Sits shyly at his feet. |
He, waking, finds the flower near. |
"Wherefore, marauder, art thou here?" |
"Because, sir, love is sweet!" |
We are the flower, Thou the sun! |
Forgive us, if as days decline, |
We nearer steal to Thee, -- |
Enamoured of the parting west, |
The peace, the flight, the amethyst, |
Night's possibility! |
XXXV. |
EMANCIPATION. |
No rack can torture me, |
My soul's at liberty |
Behind this mortal bone |
There knits a bolder one |
You cannot prick with saw, |