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All these my banners be.
I sow my pageantry
In May -
It rises train by train -
Then sleeps in state again -
My chancel - all the plain
Today.
To lose - if one can find again -
To miss - if one shall meet -
The Burglar cannot rob - then -
The Broker cannot cheat.
So build the hillocks gaily
Thou little spade of mine
Leaving nooks for Daisy
And for Columbine -
You and I the secret
Of the Crocus know -
Let us chant it softly -
"There is no more snow!"
To him who keeps an Orchis' heart -
The swamps are pink with June.
Bring me the sunset in a cup,
Reckon the morning's flagons up
And say how many Dew,
Tell me how far the morning leaps -
Tell me what time the weaver sleeps
Who spun the breadths of blue!
Write me how many notes there be
In the new Robin's ecstasy
Among astonished boughs -
How many trips the Tortoise makes -
How many cups the Bee partakes,
The Debauchee of Dews!
Also, who laid the Rainbow's piers,
Also, who leads the docile spheres
By withes of supple blue?
Whose fingers string the stalactite -
Who counts the wampum of the night
To see that none is due?
Who built this little Alban House
And shut the windows down so close
My spirit cannot see?
Who'll let me out some gala day
With implements to flu away,
Passing Pomposity?
I've nothing else - to bring, You know -
So I keep bringing These -
Just as the Night keeps fetching Stars
To our familiar eyes -
Maybe, we shouldn't mind them -
Unless they didn't come -
Then - maybe, it would puzzle us
To find our way Home -
Forever - is composed of Nows -
'Tis not a different time -
Except for Infiniteness -
And Latitude of Home -
From this - experienced Here -
Remove the Dates - to These -
Let Months dissolve in further Months -
And Years - exhale in Years -
Without Debate - or Pause -
Or Celebrated Days -
No different Our Years would be
From Anno Domini's -
One need not be a Chamber - to be Haunted -
One need not be a House -
The Brain has Corridors - surpassing
Material Place -
Far safer, of a Midnight Meeting
External Ghost
Than its interior Confronting -
That Cooler Host.
Far safer, through an Abbey gallop,
The Stones a'chase -
Than Unarmed, one's a'self encounter -
In lonesome Place -
Ourself behind ourself, concealed -
Should startle most -
Assassin hid in our Apartment
Be Horror's least.
The Body - borrows a Revolver -
He bolts the Door -
O'erlooking a superior spectre -
Or More -
These - saw Visions -
Latch them softly -
These - held Dimples -
Smooth them slow -
This - addressed departing accents -
Quick - Sweet Mouth - to miss thee so -
This - We stroked -
Unnumbered Satin -
These - we held among our own -
Fingers of the Slim Aurora -
Not so arrogant - this Noon -
These - adjust - that ran to meet us -
Pearl - for Stocking - Pearl for Shoe -
Paradise - the only Palace
Fit for Her reception - now -
We met as Sparks - Diverging Flints
Sent various - scattered ways -
We parted as the Central Flint
Were cloven with an Adze -
Subsisting on the Light We bore
Before We felt the Dark -
A Flint unto this Day - perhaps -
But for that single Spark.
In this short Life
That only lasts an hour
How much - how little - is
Within our power
To see the Summer Sky
Is Poetry, though never in a Book it lie -
True Poems flee -
There are two Mays
And then a Must
And after that a Shall.
How infinite the compromise
That indicates I will!
Edited by Thomas H. Johnson
