If tolling bell I ask the cause.

'A soul has gone to G.o.d,'

I'm answered in a lonesome tone; Is heaven then so sad?

That bells should joyful ring to tell A soul had gone to heaven, Would seem to me the proper way A good news should be given.

XLIV.

If I may have it when it's dead I will contented be; If just as soon as breath is out It shall belong to me,

Until they lock it in the grave, 'T is bliss I cannot weigh, For though they lock thee in the grave, Myself can hold the key.

Think of it, lover! I and thee Permitted face to face to be; After a life, a death we'll say, -- For death was that, and this is thee.

XLV.

Before the ice is in the pools, Before the skaters go, Or any cheek at nightfall Is tarnished by the snow,

Before the fields have finished, Before the Christmas tree, Wonder upon wonder Will arrive to me!

What we touch the hems of On a summer's day; What is only walking Just a bridge away;

That which sings so, speaks so, When there's no one here, -- Will the frock I wept in Answer me to wear?

XLVI.

DYING.

I heard a fly buzz when I died; The stillness round my form Was like the stillness in the air Between the heaves of storm.

The eyes beside had wrung them dry, And breaths were gathering sure For that last onset, when the king Be witnessed in his power.

I willed my keepsakes, signed away What portion of me I Could make a.s.signable, -- and then There interposed a fly,

With blue, uncertain, stumbling buzz, Between the light and me; And then the windows failed, and then I could not see to see.

XLVII.

Adrift! A little boat adrift!

And night is coming down!

Will no one guide a little boat Unto the nearest town?

So sailors say, on yesterday, Just as the dusk was brown, One little boat gave up its strife, And gurgled down and down.

But angels say, on yesterday, Just as the dawn was red, One little boat o'erspent with gales Retrimmed its masts, redecked its sails Exultant, onward sped!

XLVIII.

There's been a death in the opposite house As lately as to-day.

I know it by the numb look Such houses have alway.

The neighbors rustle in and out, The doctor drives away.

A window opens like a pod, Abrupt, mechanically;

Somebody flings a mattress out, -- The children hurry by; They wonder if It died on that, -- I used to when a boy.

The minister goes stiffly in As if the house were his, And he owned all the mourners now, And little boys besides;

And then the milliner, and the man Of the appalling trade, To take the measure of the house.

There'll be that dark parade

Of ta.s.sels and of coaches soon; It's easy as a sign, -- The intuition of the news In just a country town.

XLIX.

We never know we go, -- when we are going We jest and shut the door; Fate following behind us bolts it, And we accost no more.

L.

THE SOUL'S STORM.

It struck me every day The lightning was as new As if the cloud that instant slit And let the fire through.