By Emily Dickinson (1830 - 1886)

Life

LIFE OUR share of night to bear, Our share of morning, Our blank in bliss to fill, Our blank in scorning.   Here a star, and there a star, Some lose their way. Here a mist, and there a mist, Afterwards—day!   A BOOK HE ate and drank the precious words, His spirit grew robust; He knew no more that he was poor, Nor that his frame was dust. He danced along the dingy days, And this bequest of wings Was but a book. What liberty A loosened spirit brings!   UTTERANCE I FOUND the phrase to every thought I ever had, but one; And that defies me,—as a hand Did try to chalk the sun   To races nurtured in the dark:— How would your own begin? Can blaze be done in cochineal, Or noon in mazarin?   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!   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.   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.

Love

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!   CONSTANT ALTER? When the hills do. Falter? When the sun Question if his glory Be the perfect one.   Surfeit? When the daffodil Doth of the dew: Even as herself, O friend! I will of you!   HEART, WE WILL FORGET HIM HEART, we will forget him!   You and I, to-night! You may forget the warmth he gave,   I will forget the light.   When you have done, pray tell me,   That I my thoughts may dim; Haste! lest while you ’re lagging,   I may remember him!

Morning

WILL there really be a morning? Is there such a thing as day? Could I see it from the mountains If I were as tall as they? Has it feet like water lilies? Has it feathers like a bird? Is it brought from famous countries Of which I ’ve never heard? Oh some scholar, oh some sailor, Oh some wise man from the skies, Please to tell a little pilgrim Where the place called morning lies.

Nature

THE WAKING YEAR A LADY red upon the hill   Her annual secret keeps; A lady white within the field   In placid lily sleeps!   The tidy breezes with their brooms   Sweep vail, and hill, and tree! Prithee, my pretty housewives!   Who may expected be?   The neighbors do not yet suspect!   The woods exchange a smile,— Orchard, and buttercup, and bird,   In such a little while!   And yet how still the landscape stands,   How nonchalant the wood, As if the resurrection   Were nothing very odd!   AUTUMN THE MORNS are meeker than they were, The nuts are getting brown; The berry’s cheek is plumper, The rose is out of town. The maple wears a gayer scarf, The field a scarlet gown. Lest I should be old-fashioned, I ’ll put a trinket on.   BECLOUDED THE SKY is low, the clouds are mean, A travelling flake of snow Across a barn or through a rut Debates if it will go.   A narrow wind complains all day How someone treated him: Nature, like us, is sometimes caught Without her diadem.   FRINGED GENTIAN GOD made a little gentian; It tried to be a rose And failed, and all the summer laughed; But just before the snows There came a purple creature That ravished all the hill; And summer hid her forehead, And mockery was still. The frosts were her condition; The Tyrian would not come Until the North evoked it:— “Creator! shall I bloom?”

Time and Eternity

TOO LATE DELAYED till she had ceased to know, Delayed till in its vest of snow   Her loving bosom lay: An hour behind the fleeting breath, Later by just an hour than death,—   Oh, lagging yesterday!   Could she have guessed that it would be; Could but a crier of the glee   Have climbed the distant hill; Had not the bliss so slow a pace,— Who knows but this surrendered face   Were undefeated still?   Oh, if there may departing be Any forgot by victory   In her imperial round, Show them this meek apparelled thing, That could not stop to be a king,   Doubtful if it be crowned!   CHARTLESS I NEVER saw a moor, I never saw the sea; Yet know I how the heather looks, And what a wave must be.   I never spoke with God, Nor visited in heaven; Yet certain am I of the spot As if the chart were given.   THE BATTLE-FIELD THEY dropped like flakes, they dropped like stars,   Like petals from a rose, When suddenly across the June   A wind with finger goes.   They perished in the seamless grass,—   No eye could find the place; But God on his repealless list   Can summon every face.   VANISHED SHE died,—this was the way she died; And when her breath was done, Took up her simple wardrobe And started for the sun.   Her little figure at the gate The angels must have spied, Since I could never find her Upon the mortal side.   THAT SUCH HAVE DIED THAT such have died enables us   The tranquiller to die; That such have lived, certificate   For immortality.   THE SECRET I HAVE not told my garden yet, Lest that should conquer me; I have not quite the strength now To break it to the bee.   I will not name it in the street, For shops would stare, that I, So shy, so very ignorant, Should have the face to die.   The hillsides must not know it, Where I have rambled so, Nor tell the loving forests The day that I shall go,   Nor lisp it at the table, Nor heedless by the way Hint that within the riddle One will walk to-day!   ETERNITY ON this wondrous sea, Sailing silently,   Ho! pilot, ho! Knowest thou the shore Where no breakers roar,   Where the storm is o’er?   In the silent west Many sails at rest,   Their anchors fast; Thither I pilot thee,— Land, ho! Eternity!   Ashore at last!

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