UNFINISHED by GRACE BROWN PUTNAM

It seems to me I cannot die
And being dead,
Leave THIS unseen and THAT unsaid.

On my low couch I still should know
The ancient lure of Alpine snow;
My frozen blood would swiftly rush
To meet the morning's rosy flush
Upon the mountains' piercing spires
Where sunrise streams in leaping fires.

The gay enchantment of the night
Where Venice holds her mirror bright
Would rend the curtains of that bed
Where rests at last each weary head.

The camel's tread my heart would shake
And bid my slothful veins awake
To meet the rapture deeply hid
In palmy tree and pyramid.

And then the songs I could not sing—
Elusive as the flashing wing
Of birds that thread the summer through
With fleeting glimpses of their hue.

How can I leave to other lips
The honeyed nectar of those sips
At that intoxicating wine
Which poets pour at nature's shrine?

I think a lovely phrase would swim
Upon my senses, dull and dim,
And like a lily, golden gleam,
Upon death's sullen, sluggish stream;
Or else, perchance, some martial word
Might pierce my calm, and like a sword
Cut through the dark and curtained gloom
With shining haste to reach my tomb.

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