We play at paste,    Till qualified for pearl,    Then drop the paste,    And deem ourself a fool.    The shapes, though, were similar,    And our new hands    Learned gem-tactics    Practising sands.

    We outgrow love like other things    And put it in the drawer,    Till it an antique fashion shows    Like costumes grandsires wore.

    We never know we go, — when we are going    We jest and shut the door;    Fate following behind us bolts it,    And we accost no more.

    We learn in the retreating    How vast an one    Was recently among us.    A perished sun     Endears in the departure    How doubly more    Than all the golden presence    It was before!

    We cover thee, sweet face.    Not that we tire of thee,    But that thyself fatigue of us;    Remember, as thou flee,    We follow thee until    Thou notice us no more,    And…

    Water is taught by thirst;    Land, by the oceans passed;    Transport, by throe;    Peace, by its battles told;    Love, by memorial mould;    Birds, by the snow.

    I sing to use the waiting,    My bonnet but to tie,    And shut the door unto my house;    No more to do have I,     Till, his best step…

    Great streets of silence led away    To neighborhoods of pause;    Here was no notice, no dissent,    No universe, no laws.     By clocks ‘t was morning, and for night    The…

    Victory comes late,    And is held low to freezing lips    Too rapt with frost    To take it.    How sweet it would have tasted,    Just a drop!    Was God so economical?    His table…

    Finite to fail, but infinite to venture.    For the one ship that struts the shore    Many’s the gallant, overwhelmed creature    Nodding in navies nevermore.