Nay, tell me not to-day the publish’d shame, Read not to-day the journal’s crowded page, The merciless reports still branding forehead after forehead, The guilty column following guilty column.
To-day to me the tale refusing, Turning from it—from the white capitol turning, Far from these swelling domes, topt with statues, More endless, jubilant, vital visions rise Unpublish’d, unreported.
Through all your quiet ways, or North or South, you Equal States, you honest farms, Your million untold manly healthy lives, or East or West, city or country, Your noiseless mothers, sisters, wives, unconscious of their good, Your mass of homes nor poor nor rich, in visions rise—(even your excellent poverties,) Your self-distilling, never-ceasing virtues, self-denials, graces, Your endless base of deep integrities within, timid but certain, Your blessings steadily bestow’d, sure as the light, and still, (Plunging to these as a determin’d diver down the deep hidden waters,) These, these to-day I brood upon—all else refusing, these will I con, To-day to these give audience.
Supplement Hours
Sane, random, negligent hours, Sane, easy, culminating hours, After the flush, the Indian summer, of my life, Away from Books—away from Art—the lesson learn’d, pass’d o’er, Soothing, bathing, merging all—the sane, magnetic, Now for the day and night themselves—the open air, Now for the fields, the seasons, insects, trees—the rain and snow, Where wild bees flitting hum, Or August mulleins grow, or winter’s snowflakes fall, Or stars in the skies roll round— The silent sun and stars.
Of Many a Smutch’d Deed Reminiscent
Full of wickedness, I—of many a smutch’d deed reminiscent—of worse deeds capable, Yet I look composedly upon nature, drink day and night