transport

If I’m lost — now
That I was found –
Shall still my transport be –
That once — on me — those Jasper Gates
Blazed open — suddenly –

That in my awkward — gazing — face –
The Angels — softly peered –
And touched me with their fleeces,
Almost as if they cared –
I’m banished — now — you know it –
How foreign that can be –
You’ll know — Sir — when the Savior’s face
Turns so — away from you –

A transport one cannot contain
May yet a transport be –
Though God forbid it lift the lid –
Unto its Ecstasy!

A Diagram — of Rapture!
A sixpence at a Show –
With Holy Ghosts in Cages!
The Universe would go!

To learn the Transport by the Pain
As Blind Men learn the sun!
To die of thirst — suspecting
That Brooks in Meadows run!

To stay the homesick — homesick feet
Upon a foreign shore –
Haunted by native lands, the while –
And blue — beloved air!

This is the Sovereign Anguish!
This — the signal woe!
These are the patient “Laureates”
Whose voices — trained — below –

Ascend in ceaseless Carol –
Inaudible, indeed,
To us — the duller scholars
Of the Mysterious Bard!

Musicians wrestle everywhere –
All day — among the crowded air
I hear the silver strife –
And — waking — long before the morn –
Such transport breaks upon the town
I think it that “New Life”!

If is not Bird — it has no nest –
Nor “Band” — in brass and scarlet — drest –
Nor Tamborin — nor Man –
It is not Hymn from pulpit read –
The “Morning Stars” the Treble led
On Time’s first Afternoon!

Some — say — it is “the Spheres” — at play!
Some say that bright Majority
Of vanished Dames — and Men!
Some — think it service in the place
Where we — with late — celestial face –
Please God — shall Ascertain!

Flowers — Well — if anybody
Can the ecstasy define –
Half a transport — half a trouble –
With which flowers humble men:
Anybody find the fountain
From which floods so contra flow –
I will give him all the Daisies
Which upon the hillside blow.

Too much pathos in their faces
For a simple breast like mine –
Butterflies from St. Domingo
Cruising round the purple line –
Have a system of aesthetics –
Far superior to mine.

Water, is taught by thirst.
Land — by the Oceans passed.
Transport — by throe –
Peace — by its battles told –
Love, by Memorial Mold –
Birds, by the Snow.