Poems by Emily Dickinson Second Series

by Emily Dickinson

  'T was the new liquor, --

  That was all!

  Power is only pain,

  Stranded, through discipline,

  Till weights will hang.

  Give balm to giants,

  And they 'll wilt, like men.

  Give Himmaleh, --

  They 'll carry him!

  X. ESCAPE.

  I NEVER hear the word "escape"

  Without a quicker blood,

  A sudden expectation,

  A flying attitude.

  I never hear of prisons broad

  By soldiers battered down,

  But I tug childish at my bars, --

  Only to fail again!

  XI. COMPENSATION.

  FOR each ecstatic instant

  We must an anguish pay

  In keen and quivering ratio

  To the ecstasy.

  For each beloved hour

  Sharp pittances of years,

  Bitter contested farthings

  And coffers heaped with tears.

  XII. THE MARTYRS.

  THROUGH the straight pass of suffering

  The martyrs even trod,

  Their feet upon temptation,

  Their faces upon God.

  A stately, shriven company;

  Convulsion playing round,

  Harmless as streaks of meteor

  Upon a planet's bound.

  Their faith the everlasting troth;

  Their expectation fair;

  The needle to the north degree

  Wades so, through polar air.

  XIII. A PRAYER.

  I MEANT to have but modest needs,

  Such as content, and heaven;

  Within my income these could lie,

  And life and I keep even.

  But since the last included both,

  It would suffice my prayer

  But just for one to stipulate,

  And grace would grant the pair.

  And so, upon this wise I prayed, --

  Great Spirit, give to me

  A heaven not so large as yours,

  But large enough for me.

  A smile suffused Jehovah's face;

  The cherubim withdrew;

  Grave saints stole out to look at me,

  And showed their dimples, too.

  I left the place with all my might, --

  My prayer away I threw;

  The quiet ages picked it up,

  And Judgment twinkled, too,

  That one so honest be extant

  As take the tale for true

  That "Whatsoever you shall ask,

  Itself be given you."

  But I, grown shrewder, scan the skies

  With a suspicious air, --

  As children, swindled for the first,

  All swindlers be, infer.

  XIV. THE thought beneath so slight a film

  Is more distinctly seen, --

  As laces just reveal the surge,

  Or mists the Apennine.

  XV. THE soul unto itself

  Is an imperial friend, --

  Or the most agonizing spy

  An enemy could send.

  Secure against its own,

  No treason it can fear;

  Itself its sovereign, of itself

  The soul should stand in awe.

  XVI.

  SURGEONS must be very careful

  When they take the knife!

  Underneath their fine incisions

  Stirs the culprit, -- Life!

  XVII. THE RAILWAY TRAIN.

  I LIKE to see it lap the miles,

  And lick the valleys up,

  And stop to feed itself at tanks;

  And then, prodigious, step

  Around a pile of mountains,

  And, supercilious, peer

  In shanties by the sides of roads;

  And then a quarry pare.

  To fit its sides, and crawl between,

  Complaining all the while

  In horrid, hooting stanza;

  Then chase itself down hill

  And neigh like Boanerges;

  Then, punctual as a star,

  Stop -- docile and omnipotent --

  At its own stable door.

  XVIII. THE SHOW.

  THE show is not the show,

  But they that go.

  Menagerie to me

  My neighbor be.

  Fair play --

  Both went to see.

  XIX.

  DELIGHT becomes pictorial

  When viewed through pain, --

  More fair, because impossible

  That any gain.

  The mountain at a given distance

  In amber lies;

  Approached, the amber flits a little, --

  And that 's the skies!

  XX.

  A THOUGHT went up my mind to-day

  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.

  XXI.

  IS Heaven a physician?

  They say that He can heal;

  But medicine posthumous

  Is unavailable.

  Is Heaven an exchequer?

  They speak of what we owe;

  But that negotiation

  I 'm not a party to.

  XXII. THE RETURN.

  THOUGH I get home how late, how late!

  So I get home, 't will compensate.

  Better will be the ecstasy

  That they have done expecting me,

  When, night descending, dumb and dark,

  They hear my unexpected knock.

  Transporting must the moment be,

  Brewed from decades of agony!

  To think just how the fire will burn,

  Just how long-cheated eyes will turn

  To wonder what myself will say,

  And what itself will say to me,

  Beguiles the centuries of way!

  XXIII.

  A POOR torn heart, a tattered heart,

  That sat it down to rest,

  Nor noticed that the ebbing day

  Flowed silver to the west,

  Nor noticed night did soft descend

  Nor constellation burn,

  Intent upon the vision

  Of latitudes unknown.

  The angels, happening that way,

  This dusty heart espied;

  Tenderly took it up from toil

  And carried it to God.

  There, -- sandals for the barefoot;

  There, -- gathered from the gales,

  Do the blue havens by the hand

  Lead the wandering sails.

  XXIV. TOO MUCH.

  I SHOULD have been too glad, I see,

  Too lifted for the scant degree

  Of life's penurious round;

  My little circuit would have shamed

  This new circumference, have blamed

  The homelier time behind.

  I should have been too saved, I see,

  Too rescued; fear too dim to me

  That I could spell the prayer

  I knew so perfect yesterday, --

  That scalding one, "Sabachthani,"

  Recited fluent here.

  Earth would have been too much, I see,

  And heaven not enough for me;

  I should have had the joy

  Without the fear to justify, --

  The palm without the Calvary;

  So, Saviour, crucify.

  Defeat whets victory, they say;

  The reefs in old Gethsemane

  Endear the shore beyond.

  'T is beggars banquets best defin
e;

  'T is thirsting vitalizes wine, --

  Faith faints to understand.

  XXV. SHIPWRECK.

  IT tossed and tossed, --

  A little brig I knew, --

  O'ertook by blast,

  It spun and spun,

  And groped delirious, for morn.

  It slipped and slipped,

  As one that drunken stepped;

  Its white foot tripped,

  Then dropped from sight.

  Ah, brig, good-night

  To crew and you;

  The ocean's heart too smooth, too blue,

  To break for you.

  XXVI.

  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!

  XXVII. ENOUGH.

  GOD gave a loaf to every bird,

  But just a crumb to me;

  I dare not eat it, though I starve, --

  My poignant luxury

  To own it, touch it, prove the feat

  That made the pellet mine, --

  Too happy in my sparrow chance

  For ampler coveting.

  It might be famine all around,

  I could not miss an ear,

  Such plenty smiles upon my board,

  My garner shows so fair.

  I wonder how the rich may feel, --

  An Indiaman -- an Earl?

  I deem that I with but a crumb

  Am sovereign of them all.

  XXVIII.

  EXPERIMENT to me

  Is every one I meet.

  If it contain a kernel?

  The figure of a nut

  Presents upon a tree,

  Equally plausibly;

  But meat within is requisite,

  To squirrels and to me.

  XXIX.

  MY COUNTRY'S WARDROBE.

  MY country need not change her gown,

  Her triple suit as sweet

  As when 't was cut at Lexington,

  And first pronounced "a fit."

  Great Britain disapproves "the stars;"

  Disparagement discreet, --

  There 's something in their attitude

  That taunts her bayonet.

  XXX.

  FAITH is a fine invention

  For gentlemen who see;

  But microscopes are prudent

  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 t
o 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.