Part 23

XIV.

The thought beneath so slight a film Is more distinctly seen, -- As laces just reveal the surge, Or mists the Apennine.

XV.

The soul unto itself Is an imperial friend, -- Or the most agonizing spy An enemy could send.

Secure against its own, No treason it can fear; Itself its sovereign, of itself The soul should stand in awe.

XVI.

Surgeons must be very careful When they take the knife! Underneath their fine incisions Stirs the culprit, -- Life!

XVII.

THE RAILWAY TRAIN.

I like to see it lap the miles, And lick the valleys up, And stop to feed itself at tanks; And then, prodigious, step

Around a pile of mountains, And, supercilious, peer In shanties by the sides of roads; And then a quarry pare

To fit its sides, and crawl between, Complaining all the while In horrid, hooting stanza; Then chase itself down hill

And neigh like Boanerges; Then, punctual as a star, Stop -- docile and omnipotent -- At its own stable door.

XVIII.

THE SHOW.

The show is not the show, But they that go. Menagerie to me My neighbor be. Fair play -- Both went to see.

XIX.

Delight becomes pictorial When viewed through pain, -- More fair, because impossible That any gain.

The mountain at a given distance In amber lies; Approached, the amber flits a little, -- And that 's the skies!

XX.

A thought went up my mind to-day That I have had before, But did not finish, -- some way back, I could not fix the year,

Nor where it went, nor why it came The second time to me, Nor definitely what it was, Have I the art to say.

But somewhere in my soul, I know I 've met the thing before; It just reminded me -- 't was all -- And came my way no more.

XXI.

Is Heaven a physician? They say that He can heal, But medicine posthumous Is unavailable.

Is Heaven an exchequer? They speak of what we owe; But that negotiation I 'm not a party to.

XXII.

THE RETURN.