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Part I, Section 1:
LIFE.
 
I.1
SUCCESS.
[Published in "A Masque of Poets"
at the request of "H.H.," the author's
fellow-townswoman and friend.]5
Success is counted sweetest
By those who ne'er succeed.
To comprehend a nectar
Requires sorest need.
Not one of all the purple host10
Who took the flag to-day
Can tell the definition,
So clear, of victory,
As he, defeated, dying,
On whose forbidden ear15
The distant strains of triumph
Break, agonized and clear!
II.
Our share of night to bear,
Our share of morning,20
Our blank in bliss to fill,
Our blank in scorning.
Here a star, and there a star,
Some lose their way.
Here a mist, and there a mist,25
Afterwards—day!
III.
ROUGE ET NOIR.
Soul, wilt thou toss again?
By just such a hazard30
Hundreds have lost, indeed,
But tens have won an all.
Angels' breathless ballot
Lingers to record thee;
Imps in eager caucus35
Raffle for my soul.
IV.
ROUGE GAGNE.
'T is so much joy! 'T is so much joy!
If I should fail, what poverty!40
And yet, as poor as I
Have ventured all upon a throw;
Have gained! Yes! Hesitated so
This side the victory!
Life is but life, and death but death!45
Bliss is but bliss, and breath but breath!
And if, indeed, I fail,
At least to know the worst is sweet.
Defeat means nothing but defeat,
No drearier can prevail!50
And if I gain,—oh, gun at sea,
Oh, bells that in the steeples be,
At first repeat it slow!
For heaven is a different thing
Conjectured, and waked sudden in,55
And might o'erwhelm me so!
V.
Glee! The great storm is over!
Four have recovered the land;
Forty gone down together60
Into the boiling sand.
Ring, for the scant salvation!
Toll, for the bonnie souls,—
Neighbor and friend and bridegroom,
Spinning upon the shoals!65
How they will tell the shipwreck
When winter shakes the door,
Till the children ask, "But the forty?
Did they come back no more?"
Then a silence suffuses the story,70
And a softness the teller's eye;
And the children no further question,
And only the waves reply.
VI.
If I can stop one heart from breaking,75
I shall not live in vain;
If I can ease one life the aching,
Or cool one pain,
Or help one fainting robin
Unto his nest again,80
I shall not live in vain.
VII.
ALMOST!
Within my reach!
I could have touched!85
I might have chanced that way!
Soft sauntered through the village,
Sauntered as soft away!
So unsuspected violets
Within the fields lie low,90
Too late for striving fingers
That passed, an hour ago.
VIII.
A wounded deer leaps highest,
I've heard the hunter tell;95
'T is but the ecstasy of death,
And then the brake is still.
The smitten rock that gushes,
The trampled steel that springs;
A cheek is always redder100
Just where the hectic stings!
Mirth is the mail of anguish,
In which it cautions arm,
Lest anybody spy the blood
And "You're hurt" exclaim!105
IX.
The heart asks pleasure first,
And then, excuse from pain;
And then, those little anodynes
That deaden suffering;110
And then, to go to sleep;
And then, if it should be
The will of its Inquisitor,
The liberty to die.
X.115
IN A LIBRARY.
A precious, mouldering pleasure 't is
To meet an antique book,
In just the dress his century wore;
A privilege, I think,120
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,125
His knowledge to unfold
On what concerns our mutual mind,
The literature of old;
What interested scholars most,
What competitions ran130
When Plato was a certainty.
And Sophocles a man;
When Sappho was a living girl,
And Beatrice wore
The gown that Dante deified.135
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.140
His presence is enchantment,
You beg him not to go;
Old volumes shake their vellum heads
And tantalize, just so.
XI.145
Much madness is divinest sense
To a discerning eye;
Much sense the starkest madness.
'T is the majority
In this, as all, prevails.150
Assent, and you are sane;
Demur,—you're straightway dangerous,
And handled with a chain.
XII.
I asked no other thing,155
No other was denied.
I offered Being for it;
The mighty merchant smiled.
Brazil? He twirled a button,
Without a glance my way:160
"But, madam, is there nothing else
That we can show to-day?"
XIII.
EXCLUSION.
The soul selects her own society,165
Then shuts the door;
On her divine majority
Obtrude no more.
Unmoved, she notes the chariot's pausing
At her low gate;170
Unmoved, an emperor is kneeling
Upon her mat.
I've known her from an ample nation
Choose one;
Then close the valves of her attention175
Like stone.
XIV.
THE SECRET.
Some things that fly there be,—
Birds, hours, the bumble-bee:180
Of these no elegy.
Some things that stay there be,—
Grief, hills, eternity:
Nor this behooveth me.
There are, that resting, rise.185
Can I expound the skies?
How still the riddle lies!
XV.
THE LONELY HOUSE.
I know some lonely houses off the road190
A robber 'd like the look of,—
Wooden barred,
And windows hanging low,
Inviting to
A portico,195
Where two could creep:
One hand the tools,
The other peep
To make sure all's asleep.
Old-fashioned eyes,200
Not easy to surprise!
How orderly the kitchen 'd look by night,
With just a clock,—
But they could gag the tick,
And mice won't bark;205
And so the walls don't tell,
None will.
A pair of spectacles ajar just stir—
An almanac's aware.
Was it the mat winked,210
Or a nervous star?
The moon slides down the stair
To see who's there.
There's plunder,—where?
Tankard, or spoon,215
Earring, or stone,
A watch, some ancient brooch
To match the grandmamma,
Staid sleeping there.
Day rattles, too,220
Stealth's slow;
The sun has got as far
As the third sycamore.
Screams chanticleer,
"Who's there?"225
And echoes, trains away,
Sneer—"Where?"
While the old couple, just astir,
Fancy the sunrise left the door ajar!
XVI.230
To fight aloud is very brave,
But gallanter, I know,
Who charge within the bosom,
The cavalry of woe.
Who win, and nations do not see,235
Who fall, and none observe,
Whose dying eyes no country
Regards with patriot love.
We trust, in plumed procession,
For such the angels go,240
Rank after rank, with even feet
And uniforms of snow.
XVII.
DAWN.
When night is almost done,245
And sunrise grows so near
That we can touch the spaces,
It 's time to smooth the hair
And get the dimples ready,
And wonder we could care250
For that old faded midnight
That frightened but an hour.
XVIII.
THE BOOK OF MARTYRS.
Read, sweet, how others strove,255
Till we are stouter;
What they renounced,
Till we are less afraid;
How many times they bore
The faithful witness,260
Till we are helped,
As if a kingdom cared!
Read then of faith
That shone above the fagot;
Clear strains of hymn265
The river could not drown;
Brave names of men
And celestial women,
Passed out of record
Into renown!270
XIX.
THE MYSTERY OF PAIN.
Pain has an element of blank;
It cannot recollect
When it began, or if there were275
A day when it was not.
It has no future but itself,
Its infinite realms contain
Its past, enlightened to perceive
New periods of pain.280
XX.
I taste a liquor never brewed,
From tankards scooped in pearl;
Not all the vats upon the Rhine
Yield such an alcohol!285
Inebriate of air am I,
And debauchee of dew,
Reeling, through endless summer days,
From inns of molten blue.
When landlords turn the drunken bee290
Out of the foxglove's door,
When butterflies renounce their drams,
I shall but drink the more!
Till seraphs swing their snowy hats,
And saints to windows run,295
To see the little tippler
Leaning against the sun!
XXI.
A BOOK.
He ate and drank the precious words,300
His spirit grew robust;
He knew no more that he was poor,
Nor that his frame was dust.
He danced along the dingy days,
And this bequest of wings305
Was but a book. What liberty
A loosened spirit brings!
XXII.
I had no time to hate, because
The grave would hinder me,310
And life was not so ample I
Could finish enmity.
Nor had I time to love; but since
Some industry must be,
The little toil of love, I thought,315
Was large enough for me.
XXIII.
UNRETURNING.
'T was such a little, little boat
That toddled down the bay!320
'T was such a gallant, gallant sea
That beckoned it away!
'T was such a greedy, greedy wave
That licked it from the coast;
Nor ever guessed the stately sails325
My little craft was lost!
XXIV.
Whether my bark went down at sea,
Whether she met with gales,
Whether to isles enchanted330
She bent her docile sails;
By what mystic mooring
She is held to-day,—
This is the errand of the eye
Out upon the bay.335
XXV.
Belshazzar had a letter,—
He never had but one;
Belshazzar's correspondent
Concluded and begun340
In that immortal copy
The conscience of us all
Can read without its glasses
On revelation's wall.
XXVI.345
The brain within its groove
Runs evenly and true;
But let a splinter swerve,
'T were easier for you
To put the water back350
When floods have slit the hills,
And scooped a turnpike for themselves,
And blotted out the mills!
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