The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson

by Emily Dickinson

IN A LIBRARY.

Much madness is divinest sense To a discerning eye; Much sense the starkest madness. ‘T is the majority

In this, as all, prevails. Assent, and you are sane; Demur, — you’re straightway dangerous, And handled with a chain.

XX.

HOPE.

For each ecstatic instant We must an anguish pay In keen and quivering ratio To the ecstasy.

And so, upon this wise I prayed, — Great Spirit, give to me A heaven not so large as yours, But large enough for me.

XX.

XLVI.

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,

LIII. RETURNING.

FORBIDDEN FRUIT. II. Heaven

IX.

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!

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 no frigate like a book

I HAD A GUINEA GOLDEN.

THE LOST THOUGHT. I felt a clearing in my mind

LII.

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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.