I have hidden my heart in vain
To the world thou hast sung it all!
Who told thee my secret pain?"
'WHITE, PILLARED NECK"
WHITE, pillared neck; a brow to make men quake;
A woman's perfect form;
Like some cool marble, should that wake,
Breathe, and be warm.
A shape, a mind, a heart,
Of womanhood the whole:
Her breath, her smile, her touch, her art,
"GREAT NATURE IS AN ARMY GAY"
GREAT nature is an army gay,
Resistless marching on its way;
I hear the bugles clear and sweet,
I hear the tread of million feet.
Across the plain I see it pour;
It tramples down the waving grass;
Within the echoing mountain-pass
I hear a thousand cannoň roar.
It swarms within my garden gate;
My deepest well it drinketh dry.
It doth not rest; it doth not wait;
By night and day it sweepeth by;
Ceaseless it marcheth by my door;
It heeds me not, tho' I implore.
I know not whence it comes, nor where
It goes. For me it doth not care
Whether I starve, or eat, or sleep,
Or live, or die, or sing, or weep.
And now the banners all are bright,
Now torn and blackened by the fight.
Sometimes its laughter shakes the sky,
Sometimes the groans of those who die.
Still through the night and through the livelong day The infinite army marches on its remorseless way.
Is 't I for whom the law's brute penalty
Was made; to whom the law once seemed a power
Far off and not to be concerned withal?
Am I indeed this rank and noisome thing
Fit for such handling; to be pushed aside
Into a human, foul receptacle, -
A fetid compost of dull, festering crime-
Even not meet for nutriment of earth,
But only here to rot in memories
Of my own shame, and shame of other men?
Here let me rot, then there's a taste one has For just the best of all things, even of sin.
He's a poor devil who in deepest hell
Knows no keen relish for the worst that is,
The very acme of intensest pain,
Nor smacks charred lips at thoughts of some dear crime,
The sweetest, deadliest, damnablest of all.
Sometimes I hug that hellish happiness;
And then a loathing falls upon my soul
For what I was, and am, and still must be.
And this same I there comes to me a time,
And often comes, when all this slips away;
Stays not one stain, nor scar, nor fatal hurt.
Perhaps it is a sort of waking dream;
But if I dream, I'm breathing audibly,
I feel my pulse beat, hear the talk and tread
Down these long corridors; see the barred blue
Of the cell's window, hear a singing bird-
Yes, O my God, I hear a singing bird,
Such as I heard in childhood. Now, you think,
I dream I am a child once more. Not so;
I am just what I am: a man in prison
(Damn them! I'm innocent of what they swore
And proved with cant, and well-paid perjury;
Tho' other crimes, they know not of, I did) –
But suddenly my soul is pure as yours;
My thought as clean; my spirit is as free
As any man's, or any purest woman's.
I think as justly, as for instance, sir,
You think; as circumspectly, wisely, freely,
As does my jolly keeper, or the smith
Who enters once a day to try the bars
That shut my body out from freedom! Not
My soul. Why, this my soul has thoughts that strike Into the very hights and depths of Heaven.
You'll think it passing strange, good friend, no doubt. 'Tis strange; but here's a further mystery:
Think you that in some other living state
After what we call death,
The thinking part of us we name the soul
Can ever get away from its old self;
Can wash the earth all off from it, that so
It really will be, what I sometimes seem
As sinless as a little child at birth,
With all a woman's love for all things pure,
And all a grown man's strength to do the right?
THE CONDEMNED
THOU art not fit to die? Why not?
The fairest body ripes to rot.
Thy soul? O, why not let it go
Free from the flesh that drags it low!
To die! Poor wretch, do not deceive
Thyself who art not fit to live.
Sow thou sorrow and thou shalt reap it;
Sow thou joy and thou shalt keep it.
NOT alone in pain and gloom,
Does the abhorrèd tempter come;
Not in light alone and pleasure
Proffers he the poisoned measure.
When the soul doth rise
Nearest to its native skies,
There the exalted spirit finds
Borne upon the heavenly winds
Satan, in an angel's guise,
With voice divine and innocent eyes.
FACE once the thought: This piled up sky of cloud,
Blue vastness, and white vastness steept in light,
Struck through with light, that centers in the sun,
This blue of waves below that meets blue sky;
But a white, trembling shore between, that sweeps
The circle of the bay; this green of woods,
And keener green of new-mown, grassy fields;
This ceaseless, leaf-like rustle of the waves;
These shining, billowy tree-tops; songs of birds;
Strong scent of seaweed, mixt with smell of pines;
Face once this thought: Thy spirit that looks forth,
That breathes the light, and life, and joy of all,
Shall cease, but not the things that pleasure thee;
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