If I can stop one heart from breaking, I shall not live in vain; If I can ease one life the aching, Or cool one pain, Or help one fainting robin Unto his nest again, I shall not live in vain.
Here a star, and there a star, Some lose their way. Here a mist, and there a mist, Afterwards — day!
PARTING. My life closed twice before its close; It yet remains to see If Immortality unveil A third event to me, So huge, so hopeless to conceive, As these that twice befell. Parting is all we know of heaven, And all we need of hell
WITH A FLOWER. I hide myself within my flower, That wearing on your breast, You, unsuspecting, wear me too — And angels know the rest. I hide myself within my flower, That, fading from your vase, You, unsuspecting, feel for me Almost a loneliness.
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 Some industry must be, The little toil of love, I thought, Was large enough for me.
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! How public, like a frog To tell your name the livelong day To an admiring bog!
THE CHARIOT. Because I could not stop for Death, He kindly stopped for me; The carriage held but just ourselves And Immortality.
THE OUTLET. My river runs to thee: Blue sea, wilt welcome me? My river waits reply. Oh sea, look graciously! I'll fetch thee brooks From spotted nooks, — Say, sea, Take me!
Some things that fly there be, — Birds, hours, the bumble-bee: Of these no elegy. Some things that stay there be, — Grief, hills, eternity: Nor this behooveth me. There are, that resting, rise. Can I expound the skies? How still the riddle lies!
The heart asks pleasure first, And then, excuse from pain; And then, those little anodynes That deaden suffering; And then, to go to sleep; And then, if it should be The will of its Inquisitor, The liberty to die.