Poor bird! why with such energy reprove
My presence? why that tone which pines and grieves?
At early dawn, thy sweet voice from the eaves
Hath gone between us oft, a voice of love,
A bond of peace. Why should I ever plot
Thy ruin, or thy fond affections baulk?
Dost thou not send me down thy happy talk
Even to my pillow, though thou seest me not?
How should I harm thee? yet thy timid eye
Is on me, and a harsh rebuke succeeds;
Not like the tender brooding note that pleads
Thy cause so well, so all-unconsciously;

IT has walked beside me long,
With its white lips never speaking;
When it came, my heart was strong—
Now its chords are slowly breaking.
When the daylight dawns or dies;
When the stars set, when they rise;
Wheresoe'er my path may be,
That pale phantom walks with me—
Pointing backward to the Past;
Pointing with unmoving finger
To the Past—
The irrevocable Past.

When I lock and bar the door
Of my chamber, high and lonely,
Where the loved ones come no more,
And my footsteps echo only;
Suddenly a darkness falls

Pride is the untrue mask,
Shame is a cloak that clings,
Tenderness oft is a trammelling veil
Because of truth that stings.

O to be stript, and to use
All one's soul entire!
To be seen in the light, to be known for one's own,
To abound in the beauty of desire!

As the young man casts his clothes,
And, freed to the living air,
Runs down the radiant ocean-sands
With singing body bare.

'T IS sweet to view in safety from the shore
A vessel rolling on the stormy main;
Pleas'd to escape ourselves the dang'rous roar,
Not that we triumph in another's pain.
'Tis sweet, when loud conflicting cannons pour
Their ghastly rage, to view the gleamy plain,
Where neighing steeds toss high the floating mane,
And trample warriors gasping in their gore.
But sweeter far the tranquil heights to gain.
Of Wisdom, rais'd above the madding crowd;
Thence to look down on all their tumults vain
And needless fears, as through the maze they stray

It was mid-day, and yet the setting sun
Glow'd like a red ball at the horizon's edge,
And a dim twilight on the landscape fell.
As on we journeyed a white ptarmigan
Would rise at times and whir away in flight;
A magpie through the pines on muffled wings
Would pass, or yellow fox flit by;
An eagle high in firmament would soar,
But naught of other life or sound prevail'd.
Far off, a belt of timber by a stream
Waver'd and trembled in its outlines faint,
And the white, ghostly mountains far away
Were upthrown in a myriad airy shapes,

As often as some where before my Feet
I with a fine, rare, and fair Object meet,
I shut my Outward Eyes,
And bid my Inward rise
To Him, who made, and does uphold that Thing
So that my heart (whilst I His praises sing,)
To the Creator cleaves
And that quaint Creature leaves.
Concluding thus: If this, which is but vain,
Appears to men so handsom, deft and clean,
How beautiful must he
Pure, Bright, and Glorious be
Whose wondrous works I see.

There is a world that's floored with clouds,
And hung with tall black trees
Whose lustrous heads are weighted down
With plumèd mysteries.

That world where pines grow upside-down,
And you can see the air,
Though it is clearer than clear glass—
I have lost something there.

I hang above my lifted oar,
And look, and look, until
The water-spell has almost caught
My heart, my dreaming will.

For very much I'd like to slip
Down through the rippled floor,
And dive for something I had once
And haven't any more.

In a mountain's shade,
below
winds
that dissipate
a storm's white clouds—
what has not yet
cleared away
is the darkness
of my thoughts.

Bike’s tires skim the ice-rimmed
road, crazed as a skull’s surface.
A long way from, a long way to,
with the temperature still dropping—
then we skid round a curve carved
through forest, find this black and white
tableau. You stop, your body rigid. The frozen
lake is bled of color, yet somehow
missing nothing. I want to stay to take it in—
spooky cathedral of trees and snow—
but you gun the motor, ride fast and far
till the cold’s coiled through our bones.
Later, in our motel bed, curled
round me like a comma, you call me

Sing, O Mind, the lotus feet of the Immortal.
All that Thou seest between heaven and earth, thereby will vanish away.
What profit hadst thou from pilgrimage and fast? What profits it to close thine eyes in Kasi?
The real is within thy doors and thou perceivest not: from jungle to jungle in the garb of penance thou dost wander.
What profit hadst thou from the dyed garment, thy house forsaken, the recluse life?
Thou wast a Jogi knowing not Joga's meaning: instead there fell on thee the noose of endless births.