XXVIII I BRING an unaccustomed wine To lips long parching, next to min… And summon them to drink. Crackling with fever, they essay;
XXVI THE brain within its groove Runs evenly and true; But let a splinter swerve, ’T were easier for you
XXV BELSHAZZAR had a letter,— He never had but one; Belshazzar’s correspondent Concluded and begun
XXIV WHETHER my bark went down at se… Whether she met with gales, Whether to isles enchanted She bent her docile sails;
XXII I had no time to hate, because The grave would hinder me, And life was not so ample I Could finish enmity.
XXI HE ate and drank the precious wor… His spirit grew robust; He knew no more that he was poor, Nor that his frame was dust.
XIX PAIN has an element of blank; It cannot recollect When it began, or if there were A day when it was not.
XVIII READ, sweet, how others strove, Till we are stouter; What they renounced, Till we are less afraid;
XVII WHEN night is almost done, And sunrise grows so near That we can touch the spaces, It ’s time to smooth the hair
XVI TO fight aloud is very brave, But gallanter, I know, Who charge within the bosom, The cavalry of woe.
XV I know some lonely houses off the… A robber ’d like the look of,— Wooden barred, And windows hanging low,
XIII THE soul selects her own society, Then shuts the door; On her divine majority Obtrude no more.
XII I ASKED no other thing, No other was denied. I offered Being for it; The mighty merchant smiled.
XI MUCH madness is divinest sense To a discerning eye; Much sense the starkest madness. ’T is the majority
IX THE heart asks pleasure first, And then, excuse from pain; And then, those little anodynes That deaden suffering;
VIII A wounded deer leaps highest, I ’ve heard the hunter tell; ’T is but the ecstasy of death, And then the brake is still.
VII WITHIN my reach! I could have touched! I might have chanced that way! Soft sauntered through the village…
Epigram THIS is my letter to the world, That never wrote to me,— The simple news that Nature told, With tender majesty.
IF I can stop one heart from brea… I shall not live in vain; If I can ease one life the aching… Or cool one pain, Or help one fainting robin
GLEE! the great storm is over! Four have recovered the land; Forty gone down together Into the boiling sand. Ring, for the scant salvation!
’T IS so much joy! ’T is so much… If I should fail, what poverty! And yet, as poor as I Have ventured all upon a throw; Have gained! Yes! Hesitated so
III SOUL, wilt thou toss again? By just such a hazard Hundreds have lost, indeed, But tens have won an all.
II OUR share of night to bear, Our share of morning, Our blank in bliss to fill, Our blank in scorning.
The sentencing goes blithely on it… And takes the playfully objected r… As surely as it takes the stroke a… In having its undeviable say.
A voice said, Look me in the star… And tell me truly, men of earth, If all the soul-and-body scars Were not too much to pay for birth…
XXII I GAVE myself to him, And took himself for pay. The solemn contract of a life Was ratified this way.
O what can ail thee, knight-at-arm… Alone and palely loitering? The sedge has withered from the la… And no birds sing. O what can ail thee, knight-at-arm…
If by dull rhymes our English mus… And, like Andromeda, the Sonnet s… Fetter’d, in spite of pained lovel… Let us find out, if we must be con… Sandals more interwoven and comple…
Deep in the shady sadness of a val… Far sunken from the healthy breath… Far from the fiery noon, and eve’s… Sat gray-hair’d Saturn, quiet as… Still as the silence round about h…
Ever let the Fancy roam, Pleasure never is at home: At a touch sweet Pleasure melteth… Like to bubbles when rain pelteth; Then let winged Fancy wander