Part 28

Nor was I hungry; so I found That hunger was a way Of persons outside windows, The entering takes away.

LI.

I gained it so, By climbing slow, By catching at the twigs that grow Between the bliss and me. It hung so high, As well the sky Attempt by strategy.

I said I gained it, -- This was all. Look, how I clutch it, Lest it fall, And I a pauper go; Unfitted by an instant's grace For the contented beggar's face I wore an hour ago.

LII.

To learn the transport by the pain, As blind men learn the sun; To die of thirst, suspecting That brooks in meadows run;

To stay the homesick, homesick feet Upon a foreign shore Haunted by native lands, the while, And blue, beloved air --

This is the sovereign anguish, This, the signal woe! These are the patient laureates Whose voices, trained below,

Ascend in ceaseless carol, Inaudible, indeed, To us, the duller scholars Of the mysterious bard!

LIII.

RETURNING.

I years had been from home, And now, before the door, I dared not open, lest a face I never saw before

Stare vacant into mine And ask my business there. My business, -- just a life I left, Was such still dwelling there?

I fumbled at my nerve, I scanned the windows near; The silence like an ocean rolled, And broke against my ear.

I laughed a wooden laugh That I could fear a door, Who danger and the dead had faced, But never quaked before.

I fitted to the latch My hand, with trembling care, Lest back the awful door should spring, And leave me standing there.

I moved my fingers off As cautiously as glass, And held my ears, and like a thief Fled gasping from the house.

LIV.

PRAYER.

Prayer is the little implement Through which men reach Where presence is denied them. They fling their speech

By means of it in God's ear; If then He hear, This sums the apparatus Comprised in prayer.

LV.

I know that he exists Somewhere, in silence. He has hid his rare life From our gross eyes.

'T is an instant's play, 'T is a fond ambush, Just to make bliss Earn her own surprise!

But should the play Prove piercing earnest, Should the glee glaze In death's stiff stare,

Would not the fun Look too expensive? Would not the jest Have crawled too far?

LVI.

MELODIES UNHEARD.