Success is counted sweetest (112)

The Soul selects her own Society (303)

Success is counted sweetest

By those who ne'er succeed.
To comprehend a nectar
Requires sorest need.

The Soul selects her own Society

Then shuts the Door
To her divine Majority
Present no more

Not one of all the purple Host

Who took the Flag today
Can tell the definition
So clear of victory

Unmoved she notes the Chariots

pausing
At her low Gate
Unmoved an Emperor be kneeling
Upon her Mat

As he defeated dying
On whose forbidden ear
The distant strains of triumph
Burst agonized and clear!

Ive known her from an ample nation

Choose One
Then close the Valves of her attention
Like Stone

Hope is the thing with feathers - (314)

A Bird came down the Walk (328)

Hope is the thing with feathers That perches in the soul And sings the tune without the words And never stops - at all -

A Bird came down the Walk

He did not know I saw
He bit an Angleworm in halves
And ate the fellow, raw,

And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard And sore must be the storm That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm -

And then he drank a Dew

From a convenient Grass
And then hopped sidewise to the Wall
To let a Beetle pass

Ive heard it in the chillest land And on the strangest Sea Yet - never - in Extremity,
It asked a crumb - of me.

He glanced with rapid eyes

That hurried all around
They looked like frightened Beads, I thought

He stirred his Velvet Head

Im Nobody! Who are you? (260)

Im Nobody! Who are you?
Are you Nobody too?
Then theres a pair of us!
Dont tell! theyd advertise you know!
How dreary to be Somebody!
How public like a Frog
To tell ones name the livelong June
To an admiring Bog!

Like one in danger, Cautious,

I offered him a Crumb
And he unrolled his feathers
And rowed him softer home
Than Oars divide the Ocean,
Too silver for a seam
Or Butterflies, off Banks of Noon
Leap, plashless as they swim.

After great pain, a formal feeling comes

(372)
After great pain, a formal feeling comes
The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs
The stiff Heart questions was it He, that
bore,
And Yesterday, or Centuries before?
The Feet, mechanical, go round
A Wooden way
Of Ground, or Air, or Ought
Regardless grown,
A Quartz contentment, like a stone
This is the Hour of Lead
Remembered, if outlived,
As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow
First Chill then Stupor then the letting
go
I died for beauty but was scarce
I died for beauty but was scarce
Adjusted in the Tomb
When One who died for Truth, was lain
In an adjoining Room

I heard a Fly buzz - when I died - (591)

I heard a Fly buzz - when I died The Stillness in the Room
Was like the Stillness in the Air Between the Heaves of Storm The Eyes around - had wrung them dry And Breaths were gathering firm
For that last Onset - when the King
Be witnessed - in the Room I willed my Keepsakes - Signed away
What portion of me be
Assignable - and then it was
There interposed a Fly With Blue - uncertain - stumbling Buzz Between the light - and me And then the Windows failed - and then
I could not see to see
The Brain is wider than the Sky

He questioned softly Why I failed?

"For Beauty," I replied
"And I for Truth Themselves are One

We Brethren, are," He said

And so, as Kinsmen, met a Night
We talked between the Rooms
Until the Moss had reached our lips
And covered up Our names

The Brain is wider than the Sky

For put them side by side
The one the other will contain
With ease and You beside
The Brain is deeper than the sea
For hold them Blue to Blue
The one the other will absorb
As Sponges Buckets do
The Brain is just the weight of God
For Heft them Pound for Pound
And they will differ if they do
As Syllable from Sound