XX

   
I TASTE a liquor never brewed,      
From tankards scooped in pearl;      
Not all the vats upon the Rhine      
Yield such an alcohol!      
     
Inebriate of air am I,           5   
And debauchee of dew,      
Reeling, through endless summer days,      
From inns of molten blue.      
     
When landlords turn the drunken bee      
Out of the foxglove’s door,           10   
When butterflies renounce their drams,      
I shall but drink the more!      
     
Till seraphs swing their snowy hats,      
And saints to windows run,      
To see the little tippler           15   
Leaning against the sun!

XXI

   
HE ate and drank the precious words,      
His spirit grew robust;      
He knew no more that he was poor,      
Nor that his frame was dust.      
He danced along the dingy days,           5   
And this bequest of wings      
Was but a book. What liberty      
A loosened spirit brings!

XXII

   
I HAD no time to hate, because      
The grave would hinder me,      
And life was not so ample I      
Could finish enmity.      
     
Nor had I time to love; but since           5   
Some industry must be,      
The little toil of love, I thought,      
Was large enough for me.

XXIII

   
’T WAS such a little, little boat      
That toddled down the bay!      
’T was such a gallant, gallant sea      
That beckoned it away!      
     
’T was such a greedy, greedy wave           5   
That licked it from the coast;      
Nor ever guessed the stately sails      
My little craft was lost!

XXIV

   
WHETHER my bark went down at sea,      
Whether she met with gales,      
Whether to isles enchanted      
She bent her docile sails;      
     
By what mystic mooring           5   
She is held to-day,—      
This is the errand of the eye      
Out upon the bay.

XXV

   
BELSHAZZAR had a letter,—      
He never had but one;      
Belshazzar’s correspondent      
Concluded and begun      
In that immortal copy           5   
The conscience of us all      
Can read without its glasses      
On revelation’s wall.

XXVI

   
THE BRAIN within its groove      
Runs evenly and true;      
But let a splinter swerve,      
’T were easier for you      
To put the water back           5   
When floods have slit the hills,      
And scooped a turnpike for themselves,      
And blotted out the mills!

XXVII

   
I ’M nobody! Who are you?      
Are you nobody, too?      
Then there ’s a pair of us—don’t tell!      
They ’d banish us, you know.      
     
How dreary to be somebody!           5   
How public, like a frog      
To tell your name the livelong day      
To an admiring bog!

XXVIII

   
I BRING an unaccustomed wine      
To lips long parching, next to mine,      
And summon them to drink.      
     
Crackling with fever, they essay;      
I turn my brimming eyes away,           5   
And come next hour to look.      
     
The hands still hug the tardy glass;      
The lips I would have cooled, alas!      
Are so superfluous cold,      
     
I would as soon attempt to warm           10   
The bosoms where the frost has lain      
Ages beneath the mould.      
     
Some other thirsty there may be      
To whom this would have pointed me      
Had it remained to speak.           15   
     
And so I always bear the cup      
If, haply, mine may be the drop      
Some pilgrim thirst to slake,—      
     
If, haply, any say to me,      
“Unto the little, unto me,”           20   
When I at last awake.

XXIX

   
THE NEAREST dream recedes, unrealized.      
        The heaven we chase      
        Like the June bee      
        Before the school-boy      
        Invites the race;           5   
        Stoops to an easy clover—      
Dips—evades—teases—deploys;      
        Then to the royal clouds      
        Lifts his light pinnace      
        Heedless of the boy           10   
Staring, bewildered, at the mocking sky.      
     
        Homesick for steadfast honey,      
        Ah! the bee flies not      
That brews that rare variety.