CIX

OF bronze and blaze

The north, to-night!

So adequate its forms,

So preconcerted with itself,

So distant to alarms,—

An unconcern so sovereign

To universe, or me,

It paints my simple spirit

With tints of majesty,

Till I take vaster attitudes,

And strut upon my stem,

Disdaining men and oxygen,

For arrogance of them.

My splendors are menagerie;

But their competeless show

Will entertain the centuries

When I am, long ago,

An island in dishonored grass,

Whom none but daisies know.