No More Learning

Perhaps every mite has once formed part of a sick person--Yet behold!
The grass covers the prairies,
The bean bursts noiselessly through the mould in the garden,
The delicate spear of the onion pierces upward,
The apple-buds cluster together on the apple branches,
The resurrection of the wheat appears with pale visage out of its graves,
The tinge awakes over the willow-tree and the mulberry-tree,
The he-birds carol mornings and evenings, while the she-birds sit on their
nests,
The young of poultry break through the hatched eggs,
The new-born of animals appear--the calf is dropped from the cow, the colt
from the mare,
Out of its little hill faithfully rise the potato's dark-green leaves,
Out of its hill rises the yellow maize-stalk;
The summer growth is innocent and disdainful above all those strata of sour
dead.

What chemistry!
That the winds are really not infectious,
That this is no cheat, this transparent green-wash of the sea, which is so
amorous after me;
That it is safe to allow it to lick my naked body all over with its
tongues,
That it will not endanger me with the fevers that have deposited themselves
in it,
That all is clean for ever and for ever,
That the cool drink from the well tastes so good,
That blackberries are so flavorous and juicy,
That the fruits of the apple-orchard, and of the orange-orchard--that
melons, grapes, peaches, plums, will none of them poison me,
That when I recline on the grass I do not catch any disease,
Though probably every sphere of grass rises out of what was once a catching
disease.


4.

Now I am terrified at the Earth! it is that calm and patient,
It grows such sweet things out of such corruptions,
It turns harmless and stainless on its axis, with such endless successions
of diseased corpses,
It distils such exquisite winds out of such infused fetor,
It renews with such unwitting looks its prodigal, annual, sumptuous crops,
It gives such divine materials to men, and accepts such leavings from them
at last.



_DESPAIRING CRIES. _


1.

Despairing cries float ceaselessly toward me, day and night,
The sad voice of Death--the call of my nearest lover, putting forth,
alarmed, uncertain,
"_The Sea I am quickly to sail: come tell me,
Come tell me where I am speeding--tell me my destination_. "


2.

I understand your anguish, but I cannot help you;
I approach, hear, behold--the sad mouth, the look out of the eyes, your
mute inquiry,
"_Whither I go from the bed I recline on, come tell me_. "
Old age, alarmed, uncertain--A young woman's voice, appealing to me for
comfort;
A young man's voice, "_Shall I not escape_? "



_THE CITY DEAD-HOUSE_


By the City Dead-House, by the gate,
As idly sauntering, wending my way from the clangour,
I curious pause--for lo! an outcast form, a poor dead prostitute brought;
Her corpse they deposit unclaimed, it lies on the damp brick pavement.
The divine woman, her body--I see the body--I look on it alone,
That house once full of passion and beauty--all else I notice not;
Nor stillness so cold, nor running water from faucet, nor odours morbific
impress me;
But the house alone--that wondrous house--that delicate fair house--that
ruin!
That immortal house, more than all the rows of dwellings ever built,
Or white-domed Capitol itself, with majestic figure surmounted--or all the
old high-spired cathedrals,
That little house alone, more than them all--poor, desperate house!
Fair, fearful wreck! tenement of a Soul! itself a Soul!
Unclaimed, avoided house! take one breath from my tremulous lips;
Take one tear, dropped aside as I go, for thought of you,
Dead house of love! house of madness and sin, crumbled! crushed!
House of life--erewhile talking and laughing--but ah, poor house! dead even
then;
Months, years, an echoing, garnished house-but dead, dead, dead!



_TO ONE SHORTLY TO DIE. _


1.

From all the rest I single out you, having a message for you:
You are to die--Let others tell you what they please, I cannot prevaricate,
I am exact and merciless, but I love you--There is no escape for you.


2.

Softly I lay my right hand upon you--you just feel it;
I do not argue--I bend my head close, and half envelop it,
I sit quietly by--I remain faithful,
I am more than nurse, more than parent or neighbour,
I absolve you from all except yourself, spiritual, bodily--that is
eternal,--
The corpse you will leave will be but excrementitious.