I’m Nobody! Who are you?

Are you – Nobody – too?

Then there’s a pair of us!

Don’t tell! they’d advertise – you know!

How dreary – to be – Somebody!

How public – like a Frog –

To tell one’s name – the livelong June –

To an admiring Bog!

For every bird a nest,

Wherefore in timid quest

Some little wren goes seeking round.

Wherefore where boughs are free,

Households in every tree,

Pilgrim be found ?

Perhaps a home too high —

Ah, aristocracy ! —

The little wren desires.

The lark is not ashamed

To build upon the ground

Her modest house.

Yet who of all the throng

Dancing around the sun

Does so rejoice?

All the letters I can write

Are not fair as this,

Syllables of velvet,

Sentences of plush,

Depths of ruby, undrained,

Hid, lip, for thee —

Play it were a hummingbird

And just sipped me !

All but Death can be

Adjusted ;

Dynasties repaired,

Systems settled in their

Sockets,

Centuries removed, —

Wastes of lives resown

With colors

By superior springs,

Death — unto itself exception —

Is exempt from change.

I dwell in Possibility
A fairer house than Prose,
More numerous of windows,
Superior of doors.

Of chambers, as the cedars —
Impregnable of eye;
And for an everlasting roof
The gables of the sky.

Of visitors — the fairest —
For occupation — this —
The spreading wide my narrow hands
To gather Paradise.

I never felt at home below, 

And in the handsome skies

I shall not feel at home

I know,

I don’t like Paradise.

Because it’s Sunday all the time

And recess never comes,

And Eden’ll be so lonesome

Bright Wednesday afternoons.

If God could make a visit,

Or ever took a nap —

So not to see us — but they say

Himself a telescope

Perennial beholds us, —

Myself would run away

From Him and Holy Ghost and All —

But — there’s the Judgment Day!