Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series, Complete

 
In an emergency!
 

XXXI

 
Except the heaven had come so near,
So seemed to choose my door,
The distance would not haunt me so;
I had not hoped before.
 
 
But just to hear the grace depart
I never thought to see,
Afflicts me with a double loss;
'T is lost, and lost to me.
 

XXXII

 
Portraits are to daily faces
As an evening west
To a fine, pedantic sunshine
In a satin vest.
 

XXXIII

THE DUEL

 
I took my power in my hand.
And went against the world;
'T was not so much as David had,
But I was twice as bold.
 
 
I aimed my pebble, but myself
Was all the one that fell.
Was it Goliath was too large,
Or only I too small?
 

XXXIV

 
A shady friend for torrid days
Is easier to find
Than one of higher temperature
For frigid hour of mind.
 
 
The vane a little to the east
Scares muslin souls away;
If broadcloth breasts are firmer
Than those of organdy,
 
 
Who is to blame? The weaver?
Ah! the bewildering thread!
The tapestries of paradise
So notelessly are made!
 

XXXV

THE GOAL

 
Each life converges to some centre
Expressed or still;
Exists in every human nature
A goal,
 
 
Admitted scarcely to itself, it may be,
Too fair
For credibility's temerity
To dare.
 
 
Adored with caution, as a brittle heaven,
To reach
Were hopeless as the rainbow's raiment
To touch,
 
 
Yet persevered toward, surer for the distance;
How high
Unto the saints' slow diligence
The sky!
 
 
Ungained, it may be, by a life's low venture,
But then,
Eternity enables the endeavoring
Again.
 

XXXVI

SIGHT

 
Before I got my eye put out,
I liked as well to see
As other creatures that have eyes,
And know no other way.
 
 
But were it told to me, to-day,
That I might have the sky
For mine, I tell you that my heart
Would split, for size of me.
 
 
The meadows mine, the mountains mine, —
All forests, stintless stars,
As much of noon as I could take
Between my finite eyes.
 
 
The motions of the dipping birds,
The lightning's jointed road,
For mine to look at when I liked, —
The news would strike me dead!
 
 
So safer, guess, with just my soul
Upon the window-pane
Where other creatures put their eyes,
Incautious of the sun.
 

XXXVII

 
Talk with prudence to a beggar
Of 'Potosi' and the mines!
Reverently to the hungry
Of your viands and your wines!
 
 
Cautious, hint to any captive
You have passed enfranchised feet!
Anecdotes of air in dungeons
Have sometimes proved deadly sweet!
 

XXXVIII

THE PREACHER

 
He preached upon "breadth" till it argued him narrow, —
The broad are too broad to define;
And of "truth" until it proclaimed him a liar, —
The truth never flaunted a sign.
 
 
Simplicity fled from his counterfeit presence
As gold the pyrites would shun.
What confusion would cover the innocent Jesus
To meet so enabled a man!
 

XXXIX

 
Good night! which put the candle out?
A jealous zephyr, not a doubt.
    Ah! friend, you little knew
How long at that celestial wick
The angels labored diligent;
    Extinguished, now, for you!
 
 
It might have been the lighthouse spark
Some sailor, rowing in the dark,
    Had importuned to see!
It might have been the waning lamp
That lit the drummer from the camp
    To purer reveille!
 

XL

 
When I hoped I feared,
Since I hoped I dared;
Everywhere alone
As a church remain;
Spectre cannot harm,
Serpent cannot charm;
He deposes doom,
Who hath suffered him.
 

XLI

DEED

 
A deed knocks first at thought,
And then it knocks at will.
That is the manufacturing spot,
And will at home and well.
 
 
It then goes out an act,
Or is entombed so still
That only to the ear of God
Its doom is audible.
 

XLII

TIME'S LESSON

 
Mine enemy is growing old, —
I have at last revenge.
The palate of the hate departs;
If any would avenge, —
 
 
Let him be quick, the viand flits,
It is a faded meat.
Anger as soon as fed is dead;
'T is starving makes it fat.
 

XLIII

REMORSE

 
Remorse is memory awake,
Her companies astir, —
A presence of departed acts
At window and at door.
 
 
It's past set down before the soul,
And lighted with a match,
Perusal to facilitate
Of its condensed despatch.
 
 
Remorse is cureless, – the disease
Not even God can heal;
For 't is his institution, —
The complement of hell.
 

XLIV

THE SHELTER

 
The body grows outside, —
The more convenient way, —
That if the spirit like to hide,
Its temple stands alway
 
 
Ajar, secure, inviting;
It never did betray
The soul that asked its shelter
In timid honesty.
 

XLV

 
Undue significance a starving man attaches
To food
Far off; he sighs, and therefore hopeless,
And therefore good.
 
 
Partaken, it relieves indeed, but proves us
That spices fly
In the receipt. It was the distance
Was savory.
 

XLVI

 
Heart not so heavy as mine,
Wending late home,
As it passed my window
Whistled itself a tune, —
 
 
A careless snatch, a ballad,
A ditty of the street;
Yet to my irritated ear
An anodyne so sweet,
 
 
It was as if a bobolink,
Sauntering this way,
Carolled and mused and carolled,
Then bubbled slow away.
 
 
It was as if a chirping brook
Upon a toilsome way
Set bleeding feet to minuets
Without the knowing why.
 
 
To-morrow, night will come again,
Weary, perhaps, and sore.
Ah, bugle, by my window,
I pray you stroll once more!
 

XLVII

 
I many times thought peace had come,
When peace was far away;
As wrecked men deem they sight the land
At centre of the sea,
 
 
And struggle slacker, but to prove,
As hopelessly as I,
How many the fictitious shores
Before the harbor lie.
 

XLVIII

 
Unto my books so good to turn
Far ends of tired days;
It half endears the abstinence,
And pain is missed in praise.
 
 
As flavors cheer retarded guests
With banquetings to be,
So spices stimulate the time
Till my small library.
 
 
It may be wilderness without,
Far feet of failing men,
But holiday excludes the night,
And it is bells within.
 
 
I thank these kinsmen of the shelf;
Their countenances bland
Enamour in prospective,
And satisfy, obtained.
 

XLIX

 
This merit hath the worst, —
It cannot be again.
When Fate hath taunted last
And thrown her furthest stone,
 
 
The maimed may pause and breathe,
And glance securely round.
The deer invites no longer
Than it eludes the hound.
 

L

HUNGER

 
I had been hungry all the years;
My noon had come, to dine;
I, trembling, drew the table near,
And touched the curious wine.
 
 
'T was this on tables I had seen,
When turning, hungry, lone,
I looked in windows, for the wealth
I could not hope to own.
 
 
I did not know the ample bread,
'T was so unlike the crumb
The birds and I had often shared
In Nature's dining-room.
 
 
The plenty hurt me, 't was so new, —
Myself felt ill and odd,
As berry of a mountain bush
Transplanted to the road.
 
 
Nor was I hungry; so I found
That hunger was a way
Of persons outside windows,
The entering takes away.
 

LI

 
I gained it so,
       By climbing slow,
By catching at the twigs that grow
Between the bliss and me.
       It hung so high,
       As well the sky
       Attempt by strategy.
 
 
I said I gained it, —
       This was all.
Look, how I clutch it,
       Lest it fall,
And I a pauper go;
Unfitted by an instant's grace
For the contented beggar's face
I wore an hour ago.
 

LII

 
To learn the transport by the pain,
As blind men learn the sun;
To die of thirst, suspecting
That brooks in meadows run;
 
 
To stay the homesick, homesick feet
Upon a foreign shore
Haunted by native lands, the while,
And blue, beloved air —
 
 
This is the sovereign anguish,
This, the signal woe!
These are the patient laureates
Whose voices, trained below,
 
 
Ascend in ceaseless carol,
Inaudible, indeed,
To us, the duller scholars
Of the mysterious bard!
 

LIII

RETURNING

 
I years had been from home,
And now, before the door,
I dared not open, lest a face
I never saw before
 
 
Stare vacant into mine
And ask my business there.
My business, – just a life I left,
Was such still dwelling there?
 
 
I fumbled at my nerve,
I scanned the windows near;
The silence like an ocean rolled,
And broke against my ear.
 
 
I laughed a wooden laugh
That I could fear a door,
Who danger and the dead had faced,
But never quaked before.
 
 
I fitted to the latch
My hand, with trembling care,
Lest back the awful door should spring,
And leave me standing there.
 
 
I moved my fingers off
As cautiously as glass,
And held my ears, and like a thief
Fled gasping from the house.
 

LIV

PRAYER

 
Prayer is the little implement
Through which men reach
Where presence is denied them.
They fling their speech
 
 
By means of it in God's ear;
If then He hear,
This sums the apparatus
Comprised in prayer.
 

LV

 
I know that he exists
Somewhere, in silence.
He has hid his rare life
From our gross eyes.
 
 
'T is an instant's play,
'T is a fond ambush,
Just to make bliss
Earn her own surprise!
 
 
But should the play
Prove piercing earnest,
Should the glee glaze
In death's stiff stare,
 
 
Would not the fun
Look too expensive?
Would not the jest
Have crawled too far?
 

LVI

MELODIES UNHEARD

 
Musicians wrestle everywhere:
All day, among the crowded air,
   I hear the silver strife;
And – waking long before the dawn —
Such transport breaks upon the town
   I think it that "new life!"
 
 
It is not bird, it has no nest;
Nor band, in brass and scarlet dressed,
   Nor tambourine, nor man;
It is not hymn from pulpit read, —
The morning stars the treble led
   On time's first afternoon!
 
 
Some say it is the spheres at play!
Some say that bright majority
   Of vanished dames and men!
Some think it service in the place
Where we, with late, celestial face,
   Please God, shall ascertain!
 

LVII

CALLED BACK

 
Just lost when I was saved!
Just felt the world go by!
Just girt me for the onset with eternity,
When breath blew back,
And on the other side
I heard recede the disappointed tide!
 
 
Therefore, as one returned, I feel,
Odd secrets of the line to tell!
Some sailor, skirting foreign shores,
Some pale reporter from the awful doors
Before the seal!
 
 
Next time, to stay!
Next time, the things to see
By ear unheard,
Unscrutinized by eye.
 
 
Next time, to tarry,
While the ages steal, —
Slow tramp the centuries,
And the cycles wheel.
 

II. LOVE

I

CHOICE

 
Of all the souls that stand create
I have elected one.
When sense from spirit files away,
And subterfuge is done;
 
 
When that which is and that which was
Apart, intrinsic, stand,
And this brief tragedy of flesh
Is shifted like a sand;
 
 
When figures show their royal front
And mists are carved away, —
Behold the atom I preferred
To all the lists of clay!
 

II

 
I have no life but this,
To lead it here;
Nor any death, but lest
Dispelled from there;
 
 
Nor tie to earths to come,
Nor action new,
Except through this extent,
The realm of you.
 

III

 
Your riches taught me poverty.
Myself a millionnaire
In little wealths, – as girls could boast, —
Till broad as Buenos Ayre,
 
 
You drifted your dominions
A different Peru;
And I esteemed all poverty,
For life's estate with you.
 
 
Of mines I little know, myself,
But just the names of gems, —
The colors of the commonest;
And scarce of diadems
 
 
So much that, did I meet the queen,
Her glory I should know:
But this must be a different wealth,
To miss it beggars so.
 
 
I 'm sure 't is India all day
To those who look on you
Without a stint, without a blame, —
Might I but be the Jew!
 
 
I 'm sure it is Golconda,
Beyond my power to deem, —
To have a smile for mine each day,
How better than a gem!
 
 
At least, it solaces to know
That there exists a gold,
Although I prove it just in time
Its distance to behold!
 
 
It 's far, far treasure to surmise,
And estimate the pearl
That slipped my simple fingers through
While just a girl at school!
 

IV

THE CONTRACT

 
I gave myself to him,
And took himself for pay.
The solemn contract of a life
Was ratified this way.
 
 
The wealth might disappoint,
Myself a poorer prove
Than this great purchaser suspect,
The daily own of Love
 
 
Depreciate the vision;
But, till the merchant buy,
Still fable, in the isles of spice,
The subtle cargoes lie.
 
 
At least, 't is mutual risk, —
Some found it mutual gain;
Sweet debt of Life, – each night to owe,
Insolvent, every noon.
 

V

THE LETTER

 
"Going to him! Happy letter! Tell him —
Tell him the page I didn't write;
Tell him I only said the syntax,
And left the verb and the pronoun out.
Tell him just how the fingers hurried,
Then how they waded, slow, slow, slow;
And then you wished you had eyes in your pages,
So you could see what moved them so.
 
 
"Tell him it wasn't a practised writer,
You guessed, from the way the sentence toiled;
You could hear the bodice tug, behind you,
As if it held but the might of a child;
You almost pitied it, you, it worked so.
Tell him – No, you may quibble there,
For it would split his heart to know it,
And then you and I were silenter.
 
 
"Tell him night finished before we finished,
And the old clock kept neighing 'day!'
And you got sleepy and begged to be ended —
What could it hinder so, to say?
Tell him just how she sealed you, cautious,
But if he ask where you are hid
Until to-morrow, – happy letter!
Gesture, coquette, and shake your head!"
 

VI

 
The way I read a letter 's this:
'T is first I lock the door,
And push it with my fingers next,
For transport it be sure.
 
 
And then I go the furthest off
To counteract a knock;
Then draw my little letter forth
And softly pick its lock.
 
 
Then, glancing narrow at the wall,
And narrow at the floor,
For firm conviction of a mouse
Not exorcised before,
 
 
Peruse how infinite I am
To – no one that you know!
And sigh for lack of heaven, – but not
The heaven the creeds bestow.
 

VII

 
Wild nights! Wild nights!
Were I with thee,
Wild nights should be
Our luxury!
 
 
Futile the winds
To a heart in port, —
Done with the compass,
Done with the chart.
 
 
Rowing in Eden!
Ah! the sea!
Might I but moor
To-night in thee!
 

VIII

AT HOME

 
The night was wide, and furnished scant
With but a single star,
That often as a cloud it met
Blew out itself for fear.
 
 
The wind pursued the little bush,
And drove away the leaves
November left; then clambered up
And fretted in the eaves.
 
 
No squirrel went abroad;
A dog's belated feet
Like intermittent plush were heard
Adown the empty street.
 
 
To feel if blinds be fast,
And closer to the fire
Her little rocking-chair to draw,
And shiver for the poor,
 
 
The housewife's gentle task.
"How pleasanter," said she
Unto the sofa opposite,
"The sleet than May – no thee!"
 

IX

POSSESSION

 
Did the harebell loose her girdle
To the lover bee,
Would the bee the harebell hallow
Much as formerly?
 
 
Did the paradise, persuaded,
Yield her moat of pearl,
Would the Eden be an Eden,
Or the earl an earl?
 

X

 
A charm invests a face
Imperfectly beheld, —
The lady dare not lift her veil
For fear it be dispelled.
 
 
But peers beyond her mesh,
And wishes, and denies, —
Lest interview annul a want
That image satisfies.
 

XI

THE LOVERS

 
The rose did caper on her cheek,
Her bodice rose and fell,
Her pretty speech, like drunken men,
Did stagger pitiful.
 
 
Her fingers fumbled at her work, —
Her needle would not go;
What ailed so smart a little maid
It puzzled me to know,
 
 
Till opposite I spied a cheek
That bore another rose;
Just opposite, another speech
That like the drunkard goes;
 
 
A vest that, like the bodice, danced
To the immortal tune, —
Till those two troubled little clocks
Ticked softly into one.
 

XII

 
In lands I never saw, they say,
Immortal Alps look down,
Whose bonnets touch the firmament,
Whose sandals touch the town, —
 
 
Meek at whose everlasting feet
A myriad daisies play.
Which, sir, are you, and which am I,
Upon an August day?
 

XIII

 
The moon is distant from the sea,
And yet with amber hands
She leads him, docile as a boy,
Along appointed sands.
 
 
He never misses a degree;
Obedient to her eye,
He comes just so far toward the town,
Just so far goes away.
 
 
Oh, Signor, thine the amber hand,
And mine the distant sea, —
Obedient to the least command
Thine eyes impose on me.
 

XIV

 
He put the belt around my life, —
I heard the buckle snap,
And turned away, imperial,
My lifetime folding up
Deliberate, as a duke would do
A kingdom's title-deed, —
Henceforth a dedicated sort,
A member of the cloud.
 
 
Yet not too far to come at call,
And do the little toils
That make the circuit of the rest,
And deal occasional smiles
To lives that stoop to notice mine
And kindly ask it in, —
Whose invitation, knew you not
For whom I must decline?
 

XV

THE LOST JEWEL

 
I held a jewel in my fingers
And went to sleep.
The day was warm, and winds were prosy;
I said: "'T will keep."
 
 
I woke and chid my honest fingers, —
The gem was gone;
And now an amethyst remembrance
Is all I own.
 

XVI

 
What if I say I shall not wait?
What if I burst the fleshly gate
And pass, escaped, to thee?
What if I file this mortal off,
See where it hurt me, – that 's enough, —
And wade in liberty?
 
 
They cannot take us any more, —
Dungeons may call, and guns implore;
Unmeaning now, to me,
As laughter was an hour ago,
Or laces, or a travelling show,
Or who died yesterday!
 

III. NATURE

I

MOTHER NATURE

 
Nature, the gentlest mother,
Impatient of no child,
The feeblest or the waywardest, —
Her admonition mild
 
 
In forest and the hill
By traveller is heard,
Restraining rampant squirrel
Or too impetuous bird.
 
 
How fair her conversation,
A summer afternoon, —
Her household, her assembly;
And when the sun goes down
 
 
Her voice among the aisles
Incites the timid prayer
Of the minutest cricket,
The most unworthy flower.
 
 
When all the children sleep
She turns as long away
As will suffice to light her lamps;
Then, bending from the sky
 
 
With infinite affection
And infiniter care,
Her golden finger on her lip,
Wills silence everywhere.
 

II

OUT OF THE MORNING

 
Will there really be a morning?
Is there such a thing as day?
Could I see it from the mountains
If I were as tall as they?
 
 
Has it feet like water-lilies?
Has it feathers like a bird?
Is it brought from famous countries
Of which I have never heard?
 
 
Oh, some scholar! Oh, some sailor!
Oh, some wise man from the skies!
Please to tell a little pilgrim
Where the place called morning lies!
 

III

 
At half-past three a single bird
Unto a silent sky
Propounded but a single term
Of cautious melody.
 
 
At half-past four, experiment
Had subjugated test,
And lo! her silver principle
Supplanted all the rest.
 
 
At half-past seven, element
Nor implement was seen,
And place was where the presence was,
Circumference between.
 

IV

DAY'S PARLOR

 
The day came slow, till five o'clock,
Then sprang before the hills
Like hindered rubies, or the light
A sudden musket spills.
 
 
The purple could not keep the east,
The sunrise shook from fold,
Like breadths of topaz, packed a night,
The lady just unrolled.
 
 
The happy winds their timbrels took;
The birds, in docile rows,
Arranged themselves around their prince
(The wind is prince of those).
 
 
The orchard sparkled like a Jew, —
How mighty 't was, to stay
A guest in this stupendous place,
The parlor of the day!
 

V

THE SUN'S WOOING

 
The sun just touched the morning;
The morning, happy thing,
Supposed that he had come to dwell,
And life would be all spring.
 
 
She felt herself supremer, —
A raised, ethereal thing;
Henceforth for her what holiday!
Meanwhile, her wheeling king
 
 
Trailed slow along the orchards
His haughty, spangled hems,
Leaving a new necessity, —
The want of diadems!
 
 
The morning fluttered, staggered,
Felt feebly for her crown, —
Her unanointed forehead
Henceforth her only one.
 

VI

THE ROBIN

 
The robin is the one
That interrupts the morn
With hurried, few, express reports
When March is scarcely on.
 
 
The robin is the one
That overflows the noon
With her cherubic quantity,
An April but begun.
 
 
The robin is the one
That speechless from her nest
Submits that home and certainty
And sanctity are best.
 

VII

THE BUTTERFLY'S DAY

 
From cocoon forth a butterfly
As lady from her door
Emerged – a summer afternoon —
Repairing everywhere,
 
 
Without design, that I could trace,
Except to stray abroad
On miscellaneous enterprise
The clovers understood.
 
 
Her pretty parasol was seen
Contracting in a field
Where men made hay, then struggling hard
With an opposing cloud,
 
 
Where parties, phantom as herself,
To Nowhere seemed to go
In purposeless circumference,
As 't were a tropic show.
 
 
And notwithstanding bee that worked,
And flower that zealous blew,
This audience of idleness
Disdained them, from the sky,
 
 
Till sundown crept, a steady tide,
And men that made the hay,
And afternoon, and butterfly,
Extinguished in its sea.
 

VIII

THE BLUEBIRD

 
Before you thought of spring,
Except as a surmise,
You see, God bless his suddenness,
A fellow in the skies
Of independent hues,
A little weather-worn,
Inspiriting habiliments
Of indigo and brown.
 
 
With specimens of song,
As if for you to choose,
Discretion in the interval,
With gay delays he goes
To some superior tree
Without a single leaf,
And shouts for joy to nobody
But his seraphic self!
 

IX

APRIL

 
An altered look about the hills;
A Tyrian light the village fills;
A wider sunrise in the dawn;
A deeper twilight on the lawn;
A print of a vermilion foot;
A purple finger on the slope;
A flippant fly upon the pane;
A spider at his trade again;
An added strut in chanticleer;
A flower expected everywhere;
An axe shrill singing in the woods;
Fern-odors on untravelled roads, —
All this, and more I cannot tell,
A furtive look you know as well,
And Nicodemus' mystery
Receives its annual reply.
 

X

THE SLEEPING FLOWERS

 
"Whose are the little beds," I asked,