Poetry for Monday, January 16

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7

The feet of people walking home
With gayer sandals go -
The Crocus - till she rises
The Vassal of the snow -
The lips at Hallelujah
Long years of practise bore
Till bye and bye these Bargemen
Walked singing on the shore.

Pearls are the Diver's farthings
Extorted form the Sea -
Pinions - the Seraph's wagon
Pedestrian once - as we -
Night is the morning's Canvas
Larceny - legacy -
Death, but our rapt attention
To immortality.

My figures fail to tell me
How far the Village lies -
Whose peasants are the Angels -
Whose Cantons dot the skies -
My Classics veil their faces -
My faith that Dark adores -
Which from it's solemn abbeys
Such resurrection pours.

40

When I count the seeds
That are sown beneath,
To bloom so, bye and bye --

When I con the people
Lain so low,
To be received as high --

When I believe the garden
Mortal shall not see --
Pick by faith its blossom
And avoid its Bee,
I can spare this summer, unreluctantly.

463

I live with Him -- I see His face --
I go no more away
For Visitor -- or Sundown --
Death's single privacy

The Only One -- forestalling Mine --
And that -- by Right that He
Presents a Claim invisible --
No wedlock -- granted Me --

I live with Him -- I hear His Voice --
I stand alive -- Today --
To witness to the Certainty
Of Immortality --

Taught Me -- by Time -- the lower Way --
Conviction -- Every day --
That Life like This -- is stopless --
Be Judgment -- what it may –

1194

Somehow myself survived the Night
And entered with the Day --
That it be saved the Saved suffice
Without the Formula.

Henceforth I take my living place
As one commuted led --
A Candidate for Morning Chance
But dated with the Dead.

1234

If my Bark sink
'Tis to another sea --
Mortality's Ground Floor
Is Immortality --

1365

Take all away --
The only thing worth larceny
Is left -- the Immortality --

1728

Is Immortality a bane
That men are so oppressed?