Page:Emily Dickinson Poems - third series (1896).djvu/142

 128 POEMS.

��XXIII. THE BALLOON.

VT'OU've seen balloons set, have n't you? ^ So stately they ascend It is as swans discarded you For duties diamond.

Their liquid feet go softly out

Upon a sea of blond ; They spurn the air as 't were too mean

For creatures so renowned.

Their ribbons just beyond the eye, They struggle some for breath,

And yet the crowd applauds below ; They would not encore death.

The gilded creature strains and spins,

Trips frantic in a tree, Tears open her imperial veins

And tumbles in the sea.

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