Mad for Poetry

Our lives are Swiss, —So still, so cool,Till, some odd afternoon,The Alps neglect their curtains,And we look farther on. Italy stands the other side,While, like…

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…

  Within my reach!    I could have touched!    I might have chanced that way!    Soft sauntered through the village,    Sauntered as soft away!    So unsuspected violets    Within the fields lie low,    Too late…

  The murmuring of bees has ceased;    But murmuring of some    Posterior, prophetic,    Has simultaneous come, —     The lower metres of the year,    When nature’s laugh is done, —    The Revelations…

Afraid? Of whom am I afraid?    Not death; for who is he?    The porter of my father’s lodge    As much abasheth me.     Of life? ‘T were odd I…

Adrift! A little boat adrift!    And night is coming down!    Will no one guide a little boat    Unto the nearest town?     So sailors say, on yesterday,    Just as the…

 A word is dead    When it is said,    Some say.    I say it just    Begins to live    That day.

 What mystery pervades a well!    The water lives so far,    Like neighbor from another world    Residing in a jar.     The grass does not appear afraid;    I often wonder he    Can…

  A train went through a burial gate,    A bird broke forth and sang,    And trilled, and quivered, and shook his throat    Till all the churchyard rang;     And then…