DEED - A deed knocks first at thought
A deed knocks first at thought, / And then it knocks at will.
How dare the robins sing,
When men and women hear
Who since they went to their account
Have settled with the year! --
Paid all that life had earned
In one consummate bill,
And now, what life or death can do
Is immaterial.
Insulting is the sun
To him whose mortal light,
Beguiled of immortality,
Bequeaths him to the night.
In deference to him
Extinct be every hum,
Whose garden wrestles with the dew,
At daybreak overcome!
A deed knocks first at thought, / And then it knocks at will.
EXHILARATION is the Breeze / That lifts us from the ground,
Let down the bars, O Death! / The tired flocks come in
Bereaved of all, I went abroad, / No less bereaved to be