I sing of life, yet mind me well of death: To-day shadowy Death dogs my steps, my seated shape, and has for years— Draws sometimes close to me, as face to face.
The Unexpress’d
How dare one say it? After the cycles, poems, singers, plays, Vaunted Ionia’s, India’s—Homer, Shakespeare—the long, long times’ thick dotted roads, areas, The shining clusters and the Milky Ways of stars—Nature’s pulses reap’d, All retrospective passions, heroes, war, love, adoration, All ages’ plummets dropt to their utmost depths, All human lives, throats, wishes, brains—all experiences’ utterance; After the countless songs, or long or short, all tongues, all lands, Still something not yet told in poesy’s voice or print—something lacking, (Who knows? the best yet unexpress’d and lacking.)
Grand Is the Seen
Grand is the seen, the light, to me—grand are the sky and stars, Grand is the earth, and grand are lasting time and space, And grand their laws, so multiform, puzzling, evolutionary; But grander far the unseen soul of me, comprehending, endowing all those, Lighting the light, the sky and stars, delving the earth, sailing the sea, (What were all those, indeed, without thee, unseen soul? of what amount without thee?) More evolutionary, vast, puzzling, O my soul! More multiform far—more lasting thou than they.
Unseen Buds
Unseen buds, infinite, hidden well, Under the snow and ice, under the darkness, in every square or cubic inch, Germinal, exquisite, in delicate