If nature will not tell the tale
  Jehovah told to her,
Can human nature not survive
  Without a listener?

Admonished by her buckled lips
  Let every babbler be. 
The only secret people keep
  Is Immortality.

XXV.

With flowers.

If recollecting were forgetting,
  Then I remember not;
And if forgetting, recollecting,
  How near I had forgot! 
And if to miss were merry,
  And if to mourn were gay,
How very blithe the fingers
  That gathered these to-day!

XXVI.

The farthest thunder that I heard
  Was nearer than the sky,
And rumbles still, though torrid noons
  Have lain their missiles by. 
The lightning that preceded it
  Struck no one but myself,
But I would not exchange the bolt
  For all the rest of life. 
Indebtedness to oxygen
  The chemist may repay,
But not the obligation
  To electricity. 
It founds the homes and decks the days,
  And every clamor bright
Is but the gleam concomitant
  Of that waylaying light. 
The thought is quiet as a flake, —­
  A crash without a sound;
How life’s reverberation
  Its explanation found!

XXVII.

On the bleakness of my lot
  Bloom I strove to raise. 
Late, my acre of a rock
  Yielded grape and maize.

Soil of flint if steadfast tilled
  Will reward the hand;
Seed of palm by Lybian sun
  Fructified in sand.

XXVIII.

Contrast.

A door just opened on a street —­
  I, lost, was passing by —­
An instant’s width of warmth disclosed,
  And wealth, and company.

The door as sudden shut, and I,
  I, lost, was passing by, —­
Lost doubly, but by contrast most,
  Enlightening misery.

XXIX.

Friends.

Are friends delight or pain? 
  Could bounty but remain
Riches were good.

But if they only stay
Bolder to fly away,
  Riches are sad.

XXX.

Fire.

Ashes denote that fire was;
  Respect the grayest pile
For the departed creature’s sake
  That hovered there awhile.

Fire exists the first in light,
  And then consolidates, —­
Only the chemist can disclose
  Into what carbonates.

XXXI.

A man.

Fate slew him, but he did not drop;
  She felled —­ he did not fall —­
Impaled him on her fiercest stakes —­
  He neutralized them all.

She stung him, sapped his firm advance,
  But, when her worst was done,
And he, unmoved, regarded her,
  Acknowledged him a man.