READ STUDY GUIDE: "Success is counted sweetest..." | "The Soul selects her own Society--" |
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Part I, Section 1:
LIFE.
LIFE.
| 1 | |
| [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 host | 10 |
| Who took the flag to-day | |
| Can tell the definition, | |
| So clear, of victory, | |
| As he, defeated, dying, | |
| On whose forbidden ear | 15 |
| The distant strains of triumph | |
| Break, agonized and clear! | |
| 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! | |
| Soul, wilt thou toss again? | |
| By just such a hazard | 30 |
| Hundreds have lost, indeed, | |
| But tens have won an all. | |
| Angels' breathless ballot | |
| Lingers to record thee; | |
| Imps in eager caucus | 35 |
| Raffle for my soul. | |
| '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! | |
| Glee! The great storm is over! | |
| Four have recovered the land; | |
| Forty gone down together | 60 |
| 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. | |
| 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. | |
| 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. | |
| 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 redder | 100 |
| 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 |
| 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. |
| 115 | |
| 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 ran | 130 |
| 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. |
| 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. | |
| 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?" | |
| 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 attention | 175 |
| Like stone. | |
| 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! | |
| I know some lonely houses off the road | 190 |
| 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! | |
| 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. | |
| 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 care | 250 |
| For that old faded midnight | |
| That frightened but an hour. | |
| 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 hymn | 265 |
| The river could not drown; | |
| Brave names of men | |
| And celestial women, | |
| Passed out of record | |
| Into renown! | 270 |
| Pain has an element of blank; | |
| It cannot recollect | |
| When it began, or if there were | 275 |
| 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 |
| 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 bee | 290 |
| 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! | |
| 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 wings | 305 |
| Was but a book. What liberty | |
| A loosened spirit brings! | |
| 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. | |
| '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 sails | 325 |
| My little craft was lost! | |
| Whether my bark went down at sea, | |
| Whether she met with gales, | |
| Whether to isles enchanted | 330 |
| 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 |
| Belshazzar had a letter,— | |
| He never had but one; | |
| Belshazzar's correspondent | |
| Concluded and begun | 340 |
| In that immortal copy | |
| The conscience of us all | |
| Can read without its glasses | |
| On revelation's wall. | |
| 345 | |
| The brain within its groove | |
| Runs evenly and true; | |
| But let a splinter swerve, | |
| 'T were easier for you | |
| To put the water back | 350 |
| When floods have slit the hills, | |
| And scooped a turnpike for themselves, | |
| And blotted out the mills! | |




