No rack can torture me,    My soul’s at liberty    Behind this mortal bone    There knits a bolder one     You cannot prick with saw,    Nor rend with scymitar.    Two bodies therefore…

Each that we lose takes part of us;    A crescent still abides,    Which like the moon, some turbid night,    Is summoned by the tides.

I heard a fly buzz when I died;    The stillness round my form    Was like the stillness in the air    Between the heaves of storm.     The eyes beside…

The sun kept setting, setting still;    No hue of afternoon    Upon the village I perceived, —    From house to house ‘t was noon.     The dusk kept dropping, dropping…

Drowning is not so pitiful    As the attempt to rise.    Three times, ‘t is said, a sinking man    Comes up to face the skies,    And then declines forever    To that…

 Let me not mar that perfect dream    By an auroral stain,    But so adjust my daily night    That it will come again.

It dropped so low in my regard    I heard it hit the ground,    And go to pieces on the stones    At bottom of my mind;     Yet blamed the…

Who never wanted, — maddest joy    Remains to him unknown:    The banquet of abstemiousness    Surpasses that of wine.     Within its hope, though yet ungrasped    Desire’s perfect goal,    No nearer, lest…

 A deed knocks first at thought,    And then it knocks at will.    That is the manufacturing spot,    And will at home and well.     It then goes out an…

Death is like the insect    Menacing the tree,    Competent to kill it,    But decoyed may be.     Bait it with the balsam,    Seek it with the knife,    Baffle, if it cost…