MINE enemy is growing old,

Day and I—in competition ran—I finished Two—and several Stars—While He—was making One—His own was ampler—but as IWas saying to a friend—Mine—is the more convenientTo Carry in the Hand—

And workmen finished, one by one,Their seam the day upon.The low grass loaded with the dew,The twilight stood as strangers doWith hat in hand, polite and new,To stay as if, or go.A vastness, as a neighbor, came,–A wisdom without face or name,A peace, as hemispheres at home,–And so the night became.

A fundamental pauseDilapidation’s processesAre organized Decays.‘Tis first a Cobweb on the SoulA Cuticle of DustA Borer in the AxisAn Elemental Rust—Ruin is formal—Devil’s workConsecutive and slow—Fail in an instant, no man didSlipping—is Crash’s law.

And just to turn away,The fluttering of her fringesChild my perfidy—Weary for my—————I will singing go—I shall not feel the sleet—then—I shall not fear the snow.Flees so the phantom meadowBefore the breathless Bee—So bubble brooks in desertsOn Ears that dying lie—Burn so the Evening SpiresTo Eyes that Closing go—Hangs so distant Heaven—To a hand below.

So pretty—so ashamed!So hidden in her leafletsLest anybody find—So breathless till I passed here—So helpless when I turnedAnd bore her struggling, blushing,Her simple haunts beyond!For whom I robbed the Dingle—For whom I betrayed the Dell—Many, will doubtless ask me,But I shall never tell!

But doom me not to forfeit Thee—To forfeit Thee? The very nameIs sentence from Belief—and House—