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Complete Poems by Emily Dickinson

Page 6

by Emily Dickinson


  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.
r />   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;

 

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