STRANGE JOKES. WELL: Death is a huge omnivorous Toad He curseth all who upward glance Once in a whimsey mood he sat And so he toadied Adam's wife There, in the dew. O dainty dew, O morning dew That gleamed in the world's first dawn, did you Give lair and rest To him who toadwise sits and croaks Who fears the hungry Toad? Not I! The German still, when one is dead, Cries out "Der Tod !" But, pilgrims, Christ will walk ahead MACON, GEORGIA, July, 1867. NIRVANA. THROUGH seas of dreams and seas of phantasies, Oh long ago the billow-flow of sense, By waves swept on, I learned to ride the waves. His watery graves, Nirvâna. And once I clomb a mountain's stony crown And stood, and smiled no smile and frowned no frown, Nor ate, nor drank, nor slept, nor faltered down, Five days and nights, Nirvâna. Sunrise and noon and sunset and strange night The silence ground my soul keen like a spear. I slew gross bodies of old ethnic hates That stirred long race-wars betwixt States and States. I stood and scorned these foolish dead debates, Calmly, calmly, Nirvâna. I smote away the filmy base of Caste. I thrust through antique blood and riches vast, Then all fair types, of form and sound and hue, And all outrageous ugliness of time, High on the topmost thrilling of the surge I saw two lovers sitting on a star. He kissed her lip, she kissed his battle-scar. And never a king but had some king above, Saw I on earth, Nirvâna. But I, with kingship over kings, am free. So by mine inner contemplation long, By thoughts that need no speech nor oath nor song, My spirit soars above the motley throng Of days and nights, Nirvâna. O Suns, O Rains, O Day and Night, O Chance, O Time besprent with seven-hued circumstance, I float above ye all into the trance That draws me nigh Nirvâna. Gods of small worlds, ye little Deities The storms of Self below me rage and die. A lotus on a lake of balm, I lie Forever in Nirvâna. MACON, GEORGIA, 1869. THE RAVEN DAYS. OUR hearths are gone out and our hearts are broken, O Raven days, dark Raven days of sorrow, Some strip of sea-green dawn, some orange streaks. Ye float in dusky files, forever croaking. Ye chill our manhood with your dreary shade. O Raven days, dark Raven days of sorrow, Begin to gleam athwart the mournful plain? PRATTVILLE, ALABAMA, February, 1868. |