A toad can die of light! 
Death is the common right
  Of toads and men, —­
Of earl and midge
The privilege. 
  Why swagger then? 
The gnat’s supremacy
Is large as thine.

LVI.

Far from love the Heavenly Father
  Leads the chosen child;
Oftener through realm of briar
  Than the meadow mild,

Oftener by the claw of dragon
  Than the hand of friend,
Guides the little one predestined
  To the native land.

LVII.

Sleeping.

A long, long sleep, a famous sleep
  That makes no show for dawn
By stretch of limb or stir of lid, —­
  An independent one.

Was ever idleness like this? 
  Within a hut of stone
To bask the centuries away
  Nor once look up for noon?

LVIII.

Retrospect.

’T was just this time last year I died. 
  I know I heard the corn,
When I was carried by the farms, —­
  It had the tassels on.

I thought how yellow it would look
  When Richard went to mill;
And then I wanted to get out,
  But something held my will.

I thought just how red apples wedged
  The stubble’s joints between;
And carts went stooping round the fields
  To take the pumpkins in.

I wondered which would miss me least,
  And when Thanksgiving came,
If father’d multiply the plates
  To make an even sum.

And if my stocking hung too high,
  Would it blur the Christmas glee,
That not a Santa Claus could reach
  The altitude of me?

But this sort grieved myself, and so
  I thought how it would be
When just this time, some perfect year,
  Themselves should come to me.

LIX.

Eternity.

On this wondrous sea,
Sailing silently,
  Ho! pilot, ho! 
Knowest thou the shore
Where no breakers roar,
  Where the storm is o’er?

In the silent west
Many sails at rest,
  Their anchors fast;
Thither I pilot thee, —­
Land, ho!  Eternity! 
  Ashore at last!