You Ask Of My Companions. Hills, Sir,

Because I Could Not Stop For Death, He Kindly Stopped For Me; The Carriage Held But Just Ourselves And Immortality. We Slowly Drove, He Knew No Haste, And I Had Put Away My Labour, And My Leisure Too, For His Civility. We Passed The School Where Children Played, Their Lessons Scarcely Done; We Passed The Fields Of Gazing Grain, We Passed The Setting Sun. We Paused Before A House That Seemed A Swelling Of The Ground; The Roof Was Scarcely Visible, The Cornice But A Mound. Since Then 'tis Centuries; But Each Feels Shorter Than The Day I First Surmised The Horses' Heads Were Toward Eternity.

She Died--this Was The Way She Died; And When Her Breath Was Done, Took Up Her Simple Wardrobe And Started For The Sun. Her Little Figure At The Gate The Angels Must Have Spied, Since I Could Never Find Her Upon The Mortal Side.

He Fumbles At Your Spirit As Players At The Keys Before They Drop Full Music On; He Stuns You By Degrees. Prepares Your Brittle Substance For The Ethereal Blow By Fainter Hammers, Further Heard, Then Nearer, Then So Slow Your Breath Has Time To Straighten Your Brain To Bubble Cool,- Deals One Imperial Thunderbolt That Scalps Your Naked Soul.

Fame Is A Fickle Food Upon A Shifting Plate, Whose Table Once A Guest, But Not The Second Time, Is Set. Whose Crumbs The Crows Inspect, And With Ironic Caw Flap Past It To The Farmer's Corn; Men Eat Of It And Die.

Knew I How To Pray, To Intercede For Your [broken] Foot Were Intuitive - But I Am But A Pagan.