Poems (Series 3) / by Emily Dickinson [electronic text]

I.
LIFE.

POEMS.

I.
REAL RICHES.

'T IS little I could care for pearls Who own the ample sea; Or brooches, when the Emperor With rubies pelteth me;

Or gold, who am the Prince of Mines; Or diamonds, when I see A diadem to fit a dome Continual crowning me.

II.
SUPERIORITY TO FATE.

SUPERIORITY to fate Is difficult to learn. 'T is not conferred by any, But possible to earn

A pittance at a time, Until, to her surprise, The soul with strict economy Subsists till Paradise.

III.
HOPE.

HOPE is a subtle glutton; He feeds upon the fair; And yet, inspected closely, What abstinence is there!

His is the halcyon table That never seats but one, And whatsoever is consumed The same amounts remain.

IV.
FORBIDDEN FRUIT.
I.

FORBIDDEN fruit a flavor has That lawful orchards mocks; How luscious lies the pea within The pod that Duty locks!

V.
FORBIDDEN FRUIT.
II.

HEAVEN is what I cannot reach! The apple on the tree, Provided it do hopeless hang, That 'heaven' is, to me.

The color on the cruising cloud,The interdicted ground Behind the hill, the house behind, — There Paradise is found!

VI.
A WORD.

AWORD is dead When it is said, Some say. I say it just Begins to live That day.

VII.

To venerate the simple days Which lead the seasons by, Needs but to remember That from you or me They may take the trifle Termed mortality!

To invent existence with a stately air, Needs but to remember That the acorn there Is the egg of forests, For the upper air!

VIII.
LIFE'S TRADES.

IT's such a little thing to weep, So short a thing to sigh; And yet by trades the size of these We men and women die!

IX.

DROWNING is not so pitiful As the attempt to rise. Three times, 't is 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.

X.

HOW still the bells in steeples stand, Till, swollen with the sky, They leap upon their silver feet In frantic melody!

XI.

IF the foolish call them 'flowers,' Need the wiser tell? If the savans 'classify' them, It is just as well!

Those who read the Revelations Must not criticise Those who read the same edition With beclouded eyes!

Could we stand with that old Moses Canaan denied, — Scan, like him, the stately landscape On the other side, —

Doubtless we should deem superfluous Many sciences Not pursued by learnèd angels In scholastic skies!

Low amid that glad Belles lettres Grant that we may stand, Stars, amid profound Galaxies, At that grand 'Right hand'!

XII.
A SYLLABLE.

COULD mortal lip divine The undeveloped freight Of a delivered syllable, 'T would crumble with the weight.

XIII.
PARTING.

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.

XIV.
ASPIRATION.

WE never know how high we are Till we are called to rise; And then, if we are true to plan, Our statures touch the skies.

The heroism we recite Would be a daily thing, Did not ourselves the cubits warp For fear to be a king.

XV.
THE INEVITABLE.

WHILE I was fearing it, it came, But came with less of fear, Because that fearing it so long Had almost made it dear. There is a fitting a dismay, A fitting a despair. 'Tis harder knowing it is due, Than knowing it is here. The trying on the utmost, The morning it is new, Is terribler than wearing it A whole existence through.

XVI.
A BOOK.

THERE is no frigate like a book To take us lands away, Nor any coursers like a page Of prancing poetry. This traverse may the poorest take Without oppress of toll; How frugal is the chariot That bears a human soul!

XVII.

WHO has not found the heaven below Will fail of it above. God's residence is next to mine, His furniture is love.

XVIII.
A PORTRAIT.

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.

XIX.
I HAD A GUINEA GOLDEN.

I HAD a guinea golden; I lost it in the sand, And though the sum was simple, And pounds were in the land, Still had it such a value Unto my frugal eye, That when I could not find it I sat me down to sigh.

I had a crimson robin Who sang full many a day, But when the woods were painted He, too, did fly away. Time brought me other robins, —Their ballads were the same, — Still for my missing troubadour I kept the 'house at hame.'

I had a star in heaven; One Pleiad was its name, And when I was not heeding It wandered from the same. And though the skies are crowded, And all the night ashine, I do not care about it, Since none of them are mine.

My story has a moral: I have a missing friend, — Pleiad its name, and robin, And guinea in the sand, —And when this mournful ditty, Accompanied with tear, Shall meet the eye of traitor In country far from here, Grant that repentance solemn May seize upon his mind, And he no consolation Beneath the sun may find.

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XX.
SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

FROM all the jails the boys and girls Ecstatically leap, — Beloved, only afternoon That prison doesn't keep.

They storm the earth and stun the air, A mob of solid bliss. Alas! that frowns could lie in wait For such a foe as this!

XXI.

FEW get enough, — enough is one; To that ethereal throng Have not each one of us the right To stealthily belong?

XXII.

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. ''T was all I had,' she stricken gasped; Oh, what a livid boon!

XXIII.
THE LOST THOUGHT.

I FELT a clearing in my mind As if my brain had split; I tried to match it, seam by seam, But could not make them fit.

The thought behind I strove to join Unto the thought before, But sequence ravelled out of reach Like balls upon a floor.

XXIV.
RETICENCE.

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.

XXV.
WITH FLOWERS.

IF recollecting were forgetting, Then I remember not; And if forgetting, recollecting, How near I had forgot! And if to miss were merry, And if to mourn were gay, How very blithe the fingers That gathered these to-day!

XXVI.

THE farthest thunder that I heard Was nearer than the sky, And rumbles still, though torrid noons Have lain their missiles by. The lightning that preceded it Struck no one but myself, But I would not exchange the bolt For all the rest of life. Indebtedness to oxygen The chemist may repay, But not the obligation To electricity. It founds the homes and decks the days, And every clamor bright Is but the gleam concomitant Of that waylaying light. The thought is quiet as a flake, — A crash without a sound; How life's reverberation Its explanation found!

XXVII.

ON the bleakness of my lot Bloom I strove to raise. Late, my acre of a rock Yielded grape and maize.

Soil of flint if steadfast tilled Will reward the hand; Seed of palm by Lybian sun Fructified in sand.

XXVIII.
CONTRAST.

A DOOR just opened on a street —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.

XXIX.
FRIENDS.

ARE friends delight or pain? Could bounty but remain Riches were good.

But if they only stay Bolder to fly away, Riches are sad.

XXX.
FIRE.

ASHES denote that fire was; Respect the grayest pile For the departed creature's sake That hovered there awhile.

Fire exists the first in light; And then consolidates, —Only the chemist can disclose Into what carbonates.

XXXI.
A MAN.

FATE slew him, but he did not drop; She felled — he did not fall — Impaled him on her fiercest stakes —He neutralized them all.

She stung him, sapped his firm advance, But, when her worst was done, And he, unmoved, regarded her, Acknowledged him a man.

XXXII.
VENTURES.

FINITE to fail, but infinite to venture. For the one ship that struts the shore Many's the gallant, overwhelmed creature Nodding in navies nevermore.

XXXIII.
GRIEFS.

I MEASURE every grief I meet 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.

XXXIV.

I HAVE a king who does not speak; So, wondering, thro' the hours meek I trudge the day away,— Half glad when it is night and sleep, If, haply, thro' a dream to peep In parlors shut by day.

And if I do, when morning comes, It is as if a hundred drums Did round my pillow roll. And shouts fill all my childish sky, And bells keep saying 'victory' From steeples in my soul!

And if I don't, the little Bird Within the Orchard is not heard, And I omit to pray, 'Father, thy will be done' to-day, For my will goes the other way, And it were perjury!

XXXV.
DISENCHANTMENT.

IT dropped so low in my regard I heard it hit the ground, And go to pieces on the stones At bottom of my mind;

Yet blamed the fate that fractured, less Than I reviled myself For entertaining plated wares Upon my silver shelf.

XXXVI.
LOST FAITH.

TO lose one's faith surpassesThe loss of an estate, Because estates can be Replenished, — faith cannot.

Inherited with life, Belief but once can be; Annihilate a single clause, And Being's beggary.

XXXVII.
LOST JOY.

I HAD a daily bliss I half indifferent viewed, Till sudden I perceived it stir, — It grew as I pursued,

Till when, around a crag, It wasted from my sight, Enlarged beyond my utmost scope, I learned its sweetness right.

XXXVIII.

I WORKED for chaff, and earning wheat Was haughty and betrayed. What right had fields to arbitrate In matters ratified?

I tasted wheat, — and hated chaff, And thanked the ample friend; Wisdom is more becoming viewed At distance than at hand.

XXXIX.

LIFE, and Death, and Giants Such as these, are still. Minor apparatus, hopper of the mill, Beetle at the candle, Or a fife's small fame, Maintain by accident That they proclaim.

XL.
ALPINE GLOW.

OUR lives are Swiss, — So still, so cool, Till, some odd afternoon, The Alps neglect their curtains, And we look farther on.

Italy stands the other side, While, like a guard between, The solemn Alps, The siren Alps, Forever intervene!

XLI.
REMEMBRANCE.

REMEMBRANCE has a rear and front, — 'T is something like a house; It has a garret also For refuse and the mouse,

Besides, the deepest cellar That ever mason hewed; Look to it, by its fathoms Ourselves be not pursued.

XLII.

TO hang our head ostensibly, And subsequent to find That such was not the posture Of our immortal mind,

Affords the sly presumption That, in so dense a fuzz, You, too, take cobweb attitudes Upon a plane of gauze!

XLIII.
THE BRAIN.

THE brain is wider than the sky, For, put them side by side, The one the other will include With ease, and you beside.

The brain is deeper than the sea, For, hold them, blue to blue, The one the other will absorb, As sponges, buckets do.

The brain is just the weight of God, For, lift them, pound for pound, And they will differ, if they do, As syllable from sound.

XLIV.

THE bone that has no marrow; What ultimate for that? It is not fit for table, For beggar, or for cat.

A bone has obligations, A being has the same; A marrowless assembly Is culpabler than shame.

But how shall finished creatures A function fresh obtain? —Old Nicodemus' phantom Confronting us again!

XLV.
THE PAST.

THE past is such a curious creature, To look her in the face. A transport may reward us, Or a disgrace.

Unarmed if any meet her, I charge him, fly! Her rusty ammunition Might yet reply!

XLVI.

To help our bleaker parts Salubrious hours are given, Which if they do not fit for earth Drill silently for heaven.

XLVII.

WHAT soft, cherubic creatures These gentlewomen are! One would as soon assault a plush Or violate a star.

Such dimity convictions, A horror so refined Of freckled human nature, Of Deity ashamed, —

It's such a common glory, A fisherman's degree! Redemption, brittle lady, Be so, ashamed of thee.

XLVIII.
DESIRE.

WHO never wanted, — maddest joy Remains to him unknown:The banquet of abstemiousness Surpasses that of wine.

Within its hope, though yet ungrasped Desire's perfect goal, No nearer, lest reality Should disenthrall thy soul.

XLIX.
PHILOSOPHY.

IT might be easier To fail with land in sight, Than gain my blue peninsula To perish of delight.

L.
POWER.

YOU cannot put a fire out; A thing that can ignite Can go, itself, without a fan Upon the slowest night.

You cannot fold a flood And put it in a drawer, — Because the winds would find it out, And tell your cedar floor.

LI.

A MODEST lot, a fame petite, A brief campaign of sting and sweet Is plenty! Is enough! A sailor's business is the shore, A soldier's — balls. Who asketh more Must seek the neighboring life!

LII.

IS bliss, then, such abyss I must not put my foot amiss For fear I spoil my shoe?

I'd rather suit my foot Than save my boot, For yet to buy another pair Is possible At any fair.

But bliss is sold just once; The patent lost None buy it any more.

LIII.
EXPERIENCE.

I STEPPED from plank to plank So slow and cautiously; The stars about my head I felt, About my feet the sea.

I knew not but the next Would be my final inch, — This gave me that precarious gait Some call experience.

LIV.
THANKSGIVING DAY.

ONE day is there of the series Termed Thanksgiving day, Celebrated part at table, Part in memory.

Neither patriarch nor pussy, I dissect the play; Seems it, to my hooded thinking, Reflex holiday.

Had there been no sharp subtraction From the early sum, Not an acre or a caption Where was once a room,

Not a mention, whose small pebble Wrinkled any bay, —Unto such, were such assembly, 'T were Thanksgiving day.

LV.
CHILDISH GRIEFS.

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.

Notes

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  NOTE. — This poem may have had, like many others, a personal origin. It is more than probable that it was sent to some friend travelling in Europe, a dainty reminder of letter writing delinquencies.