I make bean stalks, I'm A builder, like yourself.

For my omniscience paid I toll In infinite remorse of soul. All sin was of my sinning, all Atoning mine, and mine the gall Of all regret. Mine was the weight Of every brooded wrong, the hate That stood behind each envious thrust, Mine every greed, mine every lust. And all the while for every grief, Each suffering, I craved relief With individual desire, – Craved all in vain! And felt fierce fire About a thousand people crawl; Perished with each, — then mourned for all!

My heart is warm with the friends I make, And better friends I'll not be knowing, Yet there isn't a train I wouldn't take, No matter where it's going.

There are a hundred places where I fear To go, --so with his memory they brim! And entering with relief some quiet place Where never fell his foot or shone his face I say, 'There is no memory of him here!' And so stand stricken, so remembering him!

And he whose soul is flat -- the sky Will cave in on him by and by.

I dread no more the first white in my hair, Or even age itself, the easy shoe, The cane, the wrinkled hands, the special chair: Time, doing this to me, may alter too My anguish, into something I can bear

Oh, friend, forget not, when you fain would note In me a beauty that was never mine, How first you knew me in a book I wrote, How first you loved me for a written line.