Emily Dickinson
Selected Poems
Hope is the
Thing Hope is the thing with feathers Victory Comes
Late There's been a
Death There's been a death in the opposite house They say that
Time They say that 'time assuages,'-- So Proud she
Was So proud she was to die Pain has an
Element Pain has an element of blank; Our Journey Our journey had advanced; It was not Death It was not death, for I stood up, I measure every
Grief I measure every grief I meet I had no time to
Hate I had no time to hate, because Each life
Converges Each life converges to some centre A thought went
Up A thought went up my mind to-day A light exists in
Spring A light exists in spring A door just
Opened A door just opened on a street--
That perches in the soul,
And
sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,
And
sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could
abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.
I've heard it in
the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in
extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.
Victory comes
late,
And is held low to freezing lips
Too rapt with frost
To
take it.
How sweet it would have tasted,
Just a drop!
Was God so
economical?
His table's spread too high for us
Unless we dine on
tip-toe.
Crumbs fit such little mouths,
Cherries suit robins;
The
eagle's golden breakfast
Strangles them.
God keeps his oath to
sparrows,
Who of little love
Know how to starve!
As lately as
to-day.
I know it by the numb look
Such houses have
alway.
The neighbors rustle in and out,
The doctor
drives away.
A window opens like a pod,
Abrupt,
mechanically;
Somebody flings a mattress out,--
The
children hurry by;
They wonder if It died on that,--
I
used to when a boy.
The minister goes stiffly
in
As if the house were his,
And he owned all the
mourners now,
And little boys besides;
And then the
milliner, and the man
Of the appalling trade,
To take
the measure of the house.
There'll be that dark
parade
Of tassels and of coaches soon;
It's easy as
a sign,--
The intuition of the news
In just a country
town.
Time never did
assuage;
An actual suffering strengthens,
As sinews do,
with age.
Time is a test of trouble,
But not a
remedy.
If such it prove, it prove too
There was no
malady.
It made us all ashamed
That
what we cherished, so unknown
To her desire
seemed.
So satisfied to go
Where none of us should
be,
Immediately, that anguish stooped
Almost to
jealousy.
It cannot recollect
When it began,
or if there were
A day when it was not.
It has no future but
itself,
Its infinite realms contain
Its past, enlightened to
perceive
New periods of pain.
Our feet were almost come
To that odd
fork in Being's road,
Eternity by term.
Our pace took sudden
awe,
Our feet reluctant led.
Before were cities, but between,
The
forest of the dead.
Retreat was out of hope,--
Behind, a sealed
route,
Eternity's white flag before,
And God at every gate.
And all the dead lie down;
It
was not night, for all the bells
Put out their tongues, for
noon.
It was not frost, for on my flesh
I felt siroccos
crawl,--
Nor fire, for just my marble feet
Could keep a chancel
cool.
And yet it tasted like them all;
The figures I have
seen
Set orderly, for burial,
Reminded me of mine,
As if my
life were shaven
And fitted to a frame,
And could not breathe
without a key;
And 't was like midnight, some,
When everything
that ticked has stopped,
And space stares, all around,
Or grisly
frosts, first autumn morns,
Repeal the beating ground.
But most
like chaos,--stopless, cool,--
Without a chance or spar,--
Or even a
report of land
To justify despair.
With analytic eyes;
I
wonder if it weighs like mine,
Or has an easier
size.
I wonder if they bore it long,
Or did it just
begin?
I could not tell the date of mine,
It feels so
old a pain.
I wonder if it hurts to live,
And if
they have to try,
And whether, could they choose
between,
They would not rather die.
I wonder if
when years have piled--
Some thousands--on the cause
Of
early hurt, if such a lapse
Could give them any
pause;
Or would they go on aching still
Through
centuries above,
Enlightened to a larger pain
By
contrast with the love.
The grieved are many, I am
told;
The reason deeper lies,--
Death is but one and
comes but once
And only nails the eyes.
There's
grief of want, and grief of cold,--
A sort they call
'despair,'
There's banishment from native eyes,
In
sight of native air.
And though I may not guess the
kind
Correctly yet to me
A piercing comfort it
affords
In passing Calvary,
To note the fashions of
the cross
Of those that stand alone
Still fascinated to
presume
That some are like my own.
The grave would hinder me,
And
life was not so ample I
Could finish enmity.
Nor had I time to
love, but since
Some industry must be,
The little toil of love, I
thought,
Was large enough for me.
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.
That I have had before,
But did
not finish,--some way back,
I could not fix the year,
Nor where
it went, nor why it came
The second time to me,
Nor definitely what
it was,
Have I the art to say.
But somewhere in my soul, I
know
I've met the thing before;
It just reminded me--'t was
all--
And came my way no more.
Not present on the year
At
any other period.
When March is scarcely here
A
color stands abroad
On solitary hills
That science
cannot overtake,
But human naturefeels.
It waits
upon the lawn;
It shows the furthest tree
Upon the
furthest slope we know;
It almost speaks to
me.
Then, as horizons step,
Or noons report
away,
Without the formula of sound,
It passes, and we
stay:
A quality of loss
Affecting our
content,
As trade had suddenly encroached
Upon a
sacrament.
I, lost, was passing
by--
An instant's width of warmth disclosed
And wealth,
and company.
The door as sudden shut, and I,
I,
lost, was passing by,--
Lost doubly, but by contrast
most,
Enlightening misery.