Wades so, through polar air.
XIII.
A PRAYER
I meant to have but modest needs,
Such as content, and heaven;
Within my income these could lie,
And life and I keep even.
But since the last included both,
It would suffice my prayer
But just for one to stipulate,
And grace would grant the pair.
And so, upon this wise I prayed, —
Great Spirit, give to me
A heaven not so large as yours,
But large enough for me.
A smile suffused Jehovah's face;
The cherubim withdrew;
Grave saints stole out to look at me,
And showed their dimples, too.
I left the place with all my might, —
My prayer away I threw;
The quiet ages picked it up,
And Judgment twinkled, too,
That one so honest be extant
As take the tale for true
That "Whatsoever you shall ask,
Itself be given you."
But I, grown shrewder, scan the skies
With a suspicious air, —
As children, swindled for the first,
All swindlers be, infer.
XIV
The thought beneath so slight a film
Is more distinctly seen, —
As laces just reveal the surge,
Or mists the Apennine.
XV
The soul unto itself
Is an imperial friend, —
Or the most agonizing spy
An enemy could send.
Secure against its own,
No treason it can fear;
Itself its sovereign, of itself
The soul should stand in awe.
XVI
Surgeons must be very careful
When they take the knife!
Underneath their fine incisions
Stirs the culprit, – Life!
XVII.
THE RAILWAY TRAIN
I like to see it lap the miles,
And lick the valleys up,
And stop to feed itself at tanks;
And then, prodigious, step
Around a pile of mountains,
And, supercilious, peer
In shanties by the sides of roads;
And then a quarry pare
To fit its sides, and crawl between,
Complaining all the while
In horrid, hooting stanza;
Then chase itself down hill
And neigh like Boanerges;
Then, punctual as a star,
Stop – docile and omnipotent —
At its own stable door.
XVIII.
THE SHOW
The show is not the show,
But they that go.
Menagerie to me
My neighbor be.
Fair play —
Both went to see.
XIX
Delight becomes pictorial
When viewed through pain, —
More fair, because impossible
That any gain.
The mountain at a given distance
In amber lies;
Approached, the amber flits a little, —
And that 's the skies!
XX
A thought went up my mind to-day
That I have had before,
But did not finish, – some way back,
I could not fix the year,
Nor where it went, nor why it came
The second time to me,
Nor definitely what it was,
Have I the art to say.
But somewhere in my soul, I know
I 've met the thing before;
It just reminded me – 't was all —
And came my way no more.
XXI
Is Heaven a physician?
They say that He can heal;
But medicine posthumous
Is unavailable.
Is Heaven an exchequer?
They speak of what we owe;
But that negotiation
I 'm not a party to.
XXII.
THE RETURN
Though I get home how late, how late!
So I get home, 't will compensate.
Better will be the ecstasy
That they have done expecting me,
When, night descending, dumb and dark,
They hear my unexpected knock.
Transporting must the moment be,
Brewed from decades of agony!
To think just how the fire will burn,
Just how long-cheated eyes will turn
To wonder what myself will say,
And what itself will say to me,
Beguiles the centuries of way!
XXIII
A poor torn heart, a tattered heart,
That sat it down to rest,
Nor noticed that the ebbing day
Flowed silver to the west,
Nor noticed night did soft descend
Nor constellation burn,
Intent upon the vision
Of latitudes unknown.
The angels, happening that way,
This