The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson by Emily Dickinson - HTML preview

Poems No. 1700-1775

1700

To tell the Beauty would decrease To state the Spell demean -- There is a syllable-less Sea Of which it is the sign -
My will endeavors for its word And fails, but entertains
A Rapture as of Legacies -- Of introspective Mines --

1701

To their apartment deep No ribaldry may creep Untumbled this abode By any man but God --

1702

Today or this noon She dwelt so close I almost touched her -Tonight she lies
Past neighborhood And bough and steeple, Now past surmise.

1703

'Twas comfort in her Dying Room To hear the living Clock --
A short relief to have the wind Walk boldly up and knock -- Diversion from the Dying Theme To hear the children play -- But wrong the more
That these could live
And this of ours must die.

1704

Unto a broken heart
No other one may go
Without the high prerogative Itself hath suffered too.

1705

Volcanoes be in Sicily
And South America
I judge from my Geography -- Volcanos nearer here
A Lava step at any time
Am I inclined to climb --
A Crater I may contemplate Vesuvius at Home.

1706

When we have ceased to care The Gift is given
For which we gave the Earth And mortgaged Heaven
But so declined in worth
'Tis ignominy now
To look upon --

1707 Winter under cultivation Is as arable as Spring.

1708

Witchcraft has not a Pedigree 'Tis early as our Breath
And mourners meet it going out The moment of our death --

1709

With sweetness unabated Informed the hour had come With no remiss of triumph The autumn started home

Her home to be with Nature As competition done
By influential kinsmen
Invited to return --

In supplements of Purple An adequate repast
In heavenly reviewing Her residue be past --

1710

A curious Cloud surprised the Sky, 'Twas like a sheet with Horns; The sheet was Blue --
The Antlers Gray --
It almost touched the lawns.

So low it leaned -- then statelier drew -- And trailed like robes away,
A Queen adown a satin aisle Had not the majesty.

1711

A face devoid of love or grace, A hateful, hard, successful face, A face with which a stone
Would feel as thoroughly at ease As were they old acquaintances -- First time together thrown.

1712

A Pit -- but Heaven over it --
And Heaven beside, and Heaven abroad, And yet a Pit --
With Heaven over it.

To stir would be to slip -To look would be to drop -- To dream -- to sap the Prop That holds my chances up. Ah! Pit! With Heaven over it!

The depth is all my thought -- I dare not ask my feet --
'Twould start us where we sit
So straight you'd scarce suspect It was a Pit -- with fathoms under it -- Its Circuit just the same.
Seed -- summer -- tomb --
Whose Doom to whom?

1713

As subtle as tomorrow That never came,
A warrant, a conviction, Yet but a name.

1714

By a departing light
We see acuter, quite,
Than by a wick that stays. There's something in the flight That clarifies the sight
And decks the rays.

1715

Consulting summer's clock, But half the hours remain. I ascertain it with a shock -- I shall not look again.
The second half of joy
Is shorter than the first.
The truth I do not dare to know I muffle with a jest.

1716

Death is like the insect Menacing the tree, Competent to kill it, But decoyed may be.

Bait it with the balsam, Seek it with the saw, Baffle, if it cost you Everything you are.

Then, if it have burrowed Out of reach of skill -- Wring the tree and leave it, 'Tis the vermin's will.

1717

Did life's penurious length Italicize its sweetness, The men that daily live Would stand so deep in joy That it would clog the cogs Of that revolving reason Whose esoteric belt
Protects our sanity.

1718

Drowning is not so pitiful
As the attempt to rise
Three times, 'tis said, a sinking man Comes up to face the skies,
And then declines forever
To that abhorred abode,
Where hope and he part company -- For he is grasped of God.
The Maker's cordial visage,
However good to see,
Is shunned, we must admit it, Like an adversity.

1719

God is indeed a jealous God -- He cannot bear to see
That we had rather not with Him But with each other play.

1720 Had I known that the first was the last I should have kept it longer.
Had I known that the last was the first I should have drunk it stronger. Cup, it was your fault,
Lip was not the liar.
No, lip, it was yours,
Bliss was most to blame.

1721

He was my host -- he was my guest, I never to this day
If I invited him could tell,
Or he invited me.

So infinite our intercourse So intimate, indeed,
Analysis as capsule seemed To keeper of the seed.

1722

Her face was in a bed of hair,
Like flowers in a plot --
Her hand was whiter than the sperm That feeds the sacred light.
Her tongue more tender than the tune That totters in the leaves --
Who hears may be incredulous, Who witnesses, believes.

1723

High from the earth I heard a bird, He trod upon the trees
As he esteemed them trifles, And then he spied a breeze, And situated softly
Upon a pile of wind
Which in a perturbation Nature had left behind. A joyous going fellow
I gathered from his talk Which both of benediction And badinage partook. Without apparent burden I subsequently learned He was the faithful father Of a dependent brood. And this untoward transport His remedy for care.
A contrast to our respites. How different we are!

1724

How dare the robins sing,
When men and women hear
Who since they went to their account Have settled with the year! --
Paid all that life had earned
In one consummate bill,
And now, what life or death can do Is immaterial.
Insulting is the sun
To him whose mortal light
Beguiled of immortality
Bequeaths him to the night.
Extinct be every hum
In deference to him
Whose garden wrestles with the dew, At daybreak overcome!

1725

I took one Draught of Life -- I'll tell you what I paid -Precisely an existence -The market price, they said.

They weighed me, Dust by Dust -- They balanced Film with Film, Then handed me my Being's worth -- A single Dram of Heaven!

1726

If all the griefs I am to have Would only come today, I am so happy I believe They'd laugh and run away.

If all the joys I am to have Would only come today,
They could not be so big as this That happens to me now.

1727

If ever the lid gets off my head
And lets the brain away
The fellow will go where he belonged -- Without a hint from me,

And the world -- if the world be looking on -- Will see how far from home
It is possible for sense to live
The soul there -- all the time.

1728

Is Immortality a bane
That men are so oppressed? I've got an arrow here. Loving the hand that sent it I the dart revere.

Fell, they will say, in "skirmish"! Vanquished, my soul will know By but a simple arrow
Sped by an archer's bow.

1730

"Lethe" in my flower, Of which they who drink In the fadeless orchards Hear the bobolink!

Merely flake or petal As the Eye beholds Jupiter! my father! I perceive the rose!

1731

Love can do all but raise the Dead I doubt if even that
From such a giant were withheld Were flesh equivalent

But love is tired and must sleep, And hungry and must graze And so abets the shining Fleet Till it is out of gaze.

1732

My life closed twice before its close -It yet remains to see
If Immortality unveil
A third event to me

So huge, so hopeless to conceive As these that twice befell.
Parting is all we know of heaven, And all we need of hell.

1733

No man saw awe, nor to his house Admitted he a man
Though by his awful residence Has human nature been.

Not deeming of his dread abode Till laboring to flee
A grasp on comprehension laid Detained vitality.

Returning is a different route The Spirit could not show For breathing is the only work To be enacted now.

"Am not consumed," old Moses wrote, "Yet saw him face to face" --
That very physiognomy
I am convinced was this.

1734

Oh, honey of an hour, I never knew thy power, Prohibit me
Till my minutest dower, My unfrequented flower, Deserving be.
One crown that no one seeks And yet the highest head Its isolation coveted
Its stigma deified

While Pontius Pilate lives In whatsoever hell
That coronation pierces him He recollects it well.

1736

 

Proud of my broken heart, since thou didst break it, Proud of the pain I did not feel till thee,

 

Proud of my night, since thou with moons dost slake it, Not to partake thy passion, my humility.

 

Thou can'st not boast, like Jesus, drunken without companion Was the strong cup of anguish brewed for the Nazarene

 

Thou can'st not pierce tradition with the peerless puncture, See! I usurped thy crucifix to honor mine!

 

1737

Rearrange a "Wife's" affection! When they dislocate my Brain! Amputate my freckled Bosom! Make me bearded like a man!

Blush, my spirit, in thy Fastness -- Blush, my unacknowledged clay -- Seven years of troth have taught thee More than Wifehood every may!

Love that never leaped its socket -- Trust entrenched in narrow pain -- Constancy thro' fire -- awarded -- Anguish -- bare of anodyne!

Burden -- borne so far triumphant -- None suspect me of the crown, For I wear the "Thorns" till Sunset -Then -- my Diadem put on.

Big my Secret but it's bandaged -- It will never get away
Till the Day its Weary Keeper Leads it through the Grave to thee.

1738

Softened by Time's consummate plush, How sleek the woe appears
That threatened childhood's citadel And undermined the years.

Bisected now, by bleaker griefs, We envy the despair
That devastated childhood's realm, So easy to repair.

1739

Some say goodnight -- at night -- I say goodnight by day --
Good-bye -- the Going utter me -- Goodnight, I still reply --

For parting, that is night,
And presence, simply dawn -- Itself, the purple on the height Denominated morn.
Sweet is the swamp with its secrets, Until we meet a snake;
'Tis then we sigh for houses, And our departure take

At that enthralling gallop That only childhood knows. A snake is summer's treason, And guile is where it goes.

1741

That it will never come again Is what makes life so sweet. Believing what we don't believe Does not exhilarate.

That if it be, it be at best An ablative estate --
This instigates an appetite Precisely opposite.

1742

The distance that the dead have gone Does not at first appear --
Their coming back seems possible For many an ardent year.

And then, that we have followed them, We more than half suspect,
So intimate have we become
With their dear retrospect.

1743 The grave my little cottage is, Where "Keeping house" for thee I make my parlor orderly
And lay the marble tea.

For two divided, briefly, A cycle, it may be,
Till everlasting life unite In strong society.

1744

The joy that has no stem no core, Nor seed that we can sow, Is edible to longing.
But ablative to show.

By fundamental palates Those products are preferred Impregnable to transit
And patented by pod.

1745

The mob within the heart Police cannot suppress The riot given at the first Is authorized as peace

Uncertified of scene
Or signified of sound
But growing like a hurricane In a congenial ground.

1746

The most important population Unnoticed dwell,
They have a heaven each instant Not any hell.
Their names, unless you know them, 'Twere useless tell.
Of bumble-bees and other nations The grass is full.

1747

The parasol is the umbrella's daughter, And associates with a fan
While her father abuts the tempest And abridges the rain.

The former assists a siren
In her serene display;
But her father is borne and honored, And borrowed to this day.

1748

The reticent volcano keeps His never slumbering plan -- Confided are his projects pink To no precarious man.

If nature will not tell the tale Jehovah told to her
Can human nature not survive Without a listener?

Admonished by her buckled lips Let every babbler be
The only secret people keep Is Immortality.

1749

The waters chased him as he fled, Not daring look behind -
A billow whispered in his Ear, "Come home with me, my friend -- My parlor is of shriven glass, My pantry has a fish
For every palate in the Year" -- To this revolting bliss
The object floating at his side Made no distinct reply.

1750

The words the happy say Are paltry melody
But those the silent feel Are beautiful --

1751

There comes an hour when begging stops, When the long interceding lips
Perceive their prayer is vain.
"Thou shalt not" is a kinder sword
Than from a disappointing God
"Disciple, call again."

1752

This docile one inter
While we who dare to live Arraign the sunny brevity That sparkled to the Grave.

On her departing span
No wilderness remain
As dauntless in the House of Death As if it were her own --
Through those old Grounds of memory, The sauntering alone
Is a divine intemperance
A prudent man would shun.
Of liquors that are vended
'Tis easy to beware
But statutes do not meddle
With the internal bar.
Pernicious as the sunset
Permitting to pursue
But impotent to gather,
The tranquil perfidy
Alloys our firmer moments
With that severest gold
Convenient to the longing
But otherwise withheld.

1754

To lose thee -- sweeter than to gain All other hearts I knew.
'Tis true the drought is destitute, But then, I had the dew!

The Caspian has its realms of sand, Its other realm of sea.
Without the sterile perquisite, No Caspian could be.

1755

To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee, One clover, and a bee,
And revery.
The revery alone will do,
If bees are few.
'Twas here my summer paused What ripeness after then
To other scene or other soul My sentence had begun.

To winter to remove
With winter to abide
Go manacle your icicle Against your Tropic Bride.

1757

Upon the gallows hung a wretch, Too sullied for the hell
To which the law entitled him.
As nature's curtain fell
The one who bore him tottered in , -For this was woman's son.
"'Twere all I had," she stricken gasped -- Oh, what a livid boon!

1758

Where every bird is bold to go And bees abashless play, The foreigner before he knocks Must thrust the tears away.

1759

Which misses most,
The hand that tends,
Or heart so gently borne, 'Tis twice as heavy as it was Because the hand is gone? Which blesses most, The lip that can,
Or that that went to sleep

With "if I could" endeavoring Without the strength to shape?

 

1760

Elysium is as far as to
The very nearest Room If in that Room a Friend await Felicity or Doom --

What fortitude the Soul contains, That it can so endure
The accent of a coming Foot -- The opening of a Door --

1761

A train went through a burial gate,
A bird broke forth and sang,
And trilled, and quivered, and shook his throat Till all the churchyard rang;

And then adjusted his little notes, And bowed and sang again.
Doubtless, he thought it meet of him To say good-by to men.

1762

Were natural mortal lady Who had so little time
To pack her trunk and order The great exchange of clime --

How rapid, how momentous -- What exigencies were -
But nature will be ready And have an hour to spare.

To make some trifle fairer That was too fair before -- Enchanting by remaining, And by departure more.

1763

Fame is a bee.
It has a song --
It has a sting --
Ah, too, it has a wing.

1764

The saddest noise, the sweetest noise, The maddest noise that grows, -- The birds, they make it in the spring, At night's delicious close.

Between the March and April line -That magical frontier
Beyond which summer hesitates, Almost too heavenly near.

It makes us think of all the dead That sauntered with us here, By separation's sorcery
Made cruelly more dear.

It makes us think of what we had, And what we now deplore.
We almost wish those siren throats Would go and sing no more.

An ear can break a human heart As quickly as a spear,
We wish the ear had not a heart So dangerously near.

1765

That Love is all there is,
Is all we know of Love;
It is enough, the freight should be Proportioned to the groove.

1766

Those final Creatures, -- who they are -- That, faithful to the close,
Administer her ecstasy,
But just the Summer knows.

1767

Sweet hours have perished here; This is a mighty room;
Within its precincts hopes have played, -- Now shadows in the tomb.

1768

Lad of Athens, faithful be To Thyself,
And Mystery --
All the rest is Perjury --

1769 The longest day that God appoints Will finish with the sun.
Anguish can travel to its stake, And then it must return.

1770

Experiment escorts us last -- His pungent company
Will not allow an Axiom An Opportunity

1771

How fleet -- how indiscreet an one -- How always wrong is Love --
The joyful little Deity
We are not scourged to serve --

1772

 

Let me not thirst with this Hock at my Lip, Nor beg, with Domains in my Pocket --

 

1773

The Summer that we did not prize, Her treasures were so easy Instructs us by departing now And recognition lazy --

Bestirs itself -- puts on its Coat, And scans with fatal promptness For Trains that moment out of sight, Unconscious of his smartness. 1774

Too happy Time dissolves itself And leaves no remnant by -- 'Tis Anguish not a Feather hath Or too much weight to fly --

1775

The earth has many keys, Where melody is not
Is the unknown peninsula. Beauty is nature's fact.

But witness for her land, And witness for her sea, The cricket is her utmost Of elegy to me.