No More Learning

XIV.

A WELL.

What mystery pervades a well!
The water lives so far,
Like neighbor from another world
Residing in a jar.

The grass does not appear afraid;
I often wonder he
Can stand so close and look so bold
At what is dread to me.

Related somehow they may be, --
The sedge stands next the sea,
Where he is floorless, yet of fear
No evidence gives he.

But nature is a stranger yet;
The ones that cite her most
Have never passed her haunted house,
Nor simplified her ghost.

To pity those that know her not
Is helped by the regret
That those who know her, know her less
The nearer her they get.





XV.

To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee, --
One clover, and a bee,
And revery.
The revery alone will do
If bees are few.





XVI.

THE WIND.

It's like the light, --
A fashionless delight
It's like the bee, --
A dateless melody.

It's like the woods,
Private like breeze,
Phraseless, yet it stirs
The proudest trees.
It's like the morning, --
Best when it's done, --
The everlasting clocks
Chime noon.





XVII.

A dew sufficed itself
And satisfied a leaf,
And felt, 'how vast a destiny!
How trivial is life! '

The sun went out to work,
The day went out to play,
But not again that dew was seen
By physiognomy.

Whether by day abducted,
Or emptied by the sun
Into the sea, in passing,
Eternally unknown.





XVIII.

THE WOODPECKER.

His bill an auger is,
His head, a cap and frill.
He laboreth at every tree, --
A worm his utmost goal.





XIX.

A SNAKE.

Sweet is the swamp with its secrets,
Until we meet a snake;
'T is then we sigh for houses,
And our departure take
At that enthralling gallop
That only childhood knows.
A snake is summer's treason,
And guile is where it goes.





XX.

Could I but ride indefinite,
As doth the meadow-bee,
And visit only where I liked,
And no man visit me,

And flirt all day with buttercups,
And marry whom I may,
And dwell a little everywhere,
Or better, run away

With no police to follow,
Or chase me if I do,
Till I should jump peninsulas
To get away from you, --

I said, but just to be a bee
Upon a raft of air,
And row in nowhere all day long,
And anchor off the bar,--
What liberty!