The surest thing there is is we are riders,
And though none too successful at it, guiders,
Through everything presented, land and tide
And now the very air, of what we ride.

What is this talked-of mystery of birth
But being mounted bareback on the earth?
We can just see the infant up astride,
His small fist buried in the bushy hide.

There is our wildest mount–a headless horse.
But though it runs unbridled off its course,
And all our blandishments would seem defied,
We have ideas yet that we haven’t tried.

– Riders by Robert Frost

THE props assist the house
Until the house is built,
And then the props withdraw–
And adequate, erect,
The house supports itself;
Ceasing to recollect
The auger and the carpenter.
Just such a retrospect
Hath the perfected life,
A past of plank and nail,
And slowness,–then the scaffolds drop–
Affirming it a soul.

– THE props assist the house by Emily Dickinson

Color of lemon, mango, peach,
These storybook villas
Still dream behind
Shutters, thier balconies
Fine as hand-
Made lace, or a leaf-and-flower pen-sketch.

Tilting with the winds,
On arrowy stems,
Pineapple-barked,
A green crescent of palms
Sends up its forked
Firework of fronds.

A quartz-clear dawn
Inch by bright inch
Gilds all our Avenue,
And out of the blue drench
Of Angels’ Bay
Rises the round red watermelon sun.

– Southern Sunrise by Sylvia Plath

When the spent sun throws up its rays on cloud
And goes down burning into the gulf below,
No voice in nature is heard to cry aloud
At what has happened. Birds, at least must know
It is the change to darkness in the sky.
Murmuring something quiet in her breast,
One bird begins to close a faded eye;
Or overtaken too far from his nest,
Hurrying low above the grove, some waif
Swoops just in time to his remembered tree.
At most he thinks or twitters softly, ‘Safe!
Now let the night be dark for all of me.
Let the night bee too dark for me to see
Into the future. Let what will be, be.’

– Acceptance by Robert Frost

There is no frigate like a book
To take us lands away,
Nor any coursers like a page
Of prancing poetry.
This traverse may the poorest take
Without oppress of toll;
How frugal is the chariot
That bears a human soul!

– A BOOK – There is no frigate like a book by Emily Dickinson

Ah, whispering, something again, unseen,
Where late this heated day thou enterest at my window, door,
Thou, laving, tempering all, cool-freshing, gently vitalizing
Me, old, alone, sick, weak-down, melted-worn with sweat;
Thou, nestling, folding close and firm yet soft, companion better
than talk, book, art,
(Thou hast, O Nature! elements! utterance to my heart beyond the
rest–and this is of them,)
So sweet thy primitive taste to breathe within–thy soothing fingers
my face and hands,
Thou, messenger–magical strange bringer to body and spirit of me,
(Distances balk’d–occult medicines penetrating me from head to foot,)
I feel the sky, the prairies vast–I feel the mighty northern lakes,
I feel the ocean and the forest–somehow I feel the globe itself
swift-swimming in space;
Thou blown from lips so loved, now gone–haply from endless store,
God-sent,
(For thou art spiritual, Godly, most of all known to my sense,)
Minister to speak to me, here and now, what word has never told, and
cannot tell,
Art thou not universal concrete’s distillation? Law’s, all
Astronomy’s last refinement?
Hast thou no soul? Can I not know, identify thee?

– To the Sun-Set Breeze by Walt Whitman

Lo! where the Moon along the sky
Sails with her happy destiny;
Oft is she hid from mortal eye
Or dimly seen,
But when the clouds asunder fly
How bright her mien!

Far different we–a froward race,
Thousands though rich in Fortune’s grace
With cherished sullenness of pace
Their way pursue,
Ingrates who wear a smileless face
The whole year through.

If kindred humours e’er would make
My spirit droop for drooping’s sake,
From Fancy following in thy wake,
Bright ship of heaven!
A counter impulse let me take
And be forgiven.

– A Night Thought by William Wordsworth

Poor little heart!
Did they forget thee?
Then dinna care! Then dinna care!

Proud little heart!
Did they forsake thee?
Be debonair! Be debonair!

Frail little heart!
I would not break thee:
Could’st credit me? Could’st credit me?

Gay little heart!
Like morning glory
Thou’ll wilted be; thou’ll wilted be!

– Poor little heart! by Emily Dickinson

The two old, simple problems ever intertwined,
Close home, elusive, present, baffled, grappled.
By each successive age insoluble, pass’d on,
To ours to-day–and we pass on the same.

– Life and Death by Walt Whitman

‘And ask ye why these sad tears stream?’

‘Te somnia nostra reducunt.’
OVID.

And ask ye why these sad tears stream?
; ;Why these wan eyes are dim with weeping?
I had a dream–a lovely dream,
; ;Of her that in the grave is sleeping.

I saw her as ’twas yesterday,
; ;The bloom upon her cheek still glowing;
And round her play’d a golden ray,
; ;And on her brows were gay flowers blowing.

With angel-hand she swept a lyre,
; ;A garland red with roses bound it;
Its strings were wreath’d with lambent fire
; ;And amaranth was woven round it.

I saw her mid the realms of light,
; ;In everlasting radiance gleaming;
Co-equal with the seraphs bright,
; ;Mid thousand thousand angels beaming.

I strove to reach her, when, behold,
; ;Those fairy forms of bliss Elysian,
And all that rich scene wrapt in gold,
; ;Faded in air–a lovely vision!

And I awoke, but oh! to me
; ;That waking hour was doubly weary;
And yet I could not envy thee,
; ;Although so blest, and I so dreary.

– ‘And ask ye why these sad tears stream?’ by Lord Alfred Tennyson