Collected Poems

by Emily Dickinson

If tolling bell I ask the cause. “A soul has gone to God,” I’m answered in a lonesome tone; Is heaven then so sad? That bells should joyful ring to tell A soul had gone to heaven, Would seem to me the proper way A good news should be given.

If I may have it when it’s dead I will contented be; If just as soon as breath is out It shall belong to me, Until they lock it in the grave, ’T is bliss I cannot weigh, For though they lock thee in the grave, Myself can hold the key. Think of it, lover! I and thee Permitted face to face to be; After a life, a death we’ll say, — For death was that, and this is thee.

I heard a fly buzz when I died; The stillness round my form Was like the stillness in the air Between the heaves of storm. The eyes beside had wrung them dry, And breaths were gathering sure For that last onset, when the king Be witnessed in his power. I willed my keepsakes, signed away What portion of me I Could make assignable, — and then There interposed a fly, With blue, uncertain, stumbling buzz, Between the light and me; And then the windows failed, and then I could not see to see.

Adrift! A little boat adrift! And night is coming down! Will no one guide a little boat Unto the nearest town? So sailors say, on yesterday, Just as the dusk was brown, One little boat gave up its strife, And gurgled down and down. But angels say, on yesterday, Just as the dawn was red, One little boat o’erspent with gales Retrimmed its masts, redecked its sails Exultant, onward sped!

There’s been a death in the opposite house As lately as to-day. I know it by the numb look Such houses have alway. The neighbors rustle in and out, The doctor drives away. A window opens like a pod, Abrupt, mechanically; Somebody flings a mattress out, — The children hurry by; They wonder if It died on that, — I used to when a boy. The minister goes stiffly in As if the house were his, And he owned all the mourners now, And little boys besides; And then the milliner, and the man Of the appalling trade, To take the measure of the house. There’ll be that dark parade Of tassels and of coaches soon; It’s easy as a sign, — The intuition of the news In just a country town.

We never know we go, — when we are going We jest and shut the door; Fate following behind us bolts it, And we accost no more.

It struck me every day The lightning was as new As if the cloud that instant slit And let the fire through. It burned me in the night, It blistered in my dream; It sickened fresh upon my sight With every morning’s beam. I thought that storm was brief, — The maddest, quickest by; But Nature lost the date of this, And left it in the sky.

Water is taught by thirst; Land, by the oceans passed; Transport, by throe; Peace, by its battles told; Love, by memorial mould; Birds, by the snow.

We thirst at first, — ’t is Nature’s act; And later, when we die, A little water supplicate Of fingers going by. It intimates the finer want, Whose adequate supply Is that great water in the west Termed immortality.

A clock stopped — not the mantel’s; Geneva’s farthest skill Can’t put the puppet bowing That just now dangled still. An awe came on the trinket! The figures hunched with pain, Then quivered out of decimals Into degreeless noon. It will not stir for doctors, This pendulum of snow; The shopman importunes it, While cool, concernless No Nods from the gilded pointers, Nods from the seconds slim, Decades of arrogance between The dial life and him.

Far from love the Heavenly Father Leads the chosen child; Oftener through realm of briar Than the meadow mild, Oftener by the claw of dragon Than the hand of friend, Guides the little one predestined To the native land.

On this wondrous sea, Sailing silently, Knowest thou the shore Ho! pilot, ho! 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!

Adventure most unto itself The Soul condemned to be; Attended by a Single Hound — Its own Identity.

The Soul that hath a Guest, Doth seldom go abroad, Diviner Crowd at home Obliterate the need, And courtesy forbid A Host’s departure, when Upon Himself be visiting The Emperor of Men!

Except the smaller size, no Lives are round, These hurry to a sphere, and show, and end. The larger, slower grow, and later hang — The Summers of Hesperides are long.

Fame is a fickle food Upon a shifting plate, Whose table once a Guest, but not The second time, is set. Whose crumbs the crows inspect, And with ironic caw Flap past it to the Farmer’s corn; Men eat of it and die.

The right to perish might be thought An undisputed right, Attempt it, and the Universe upon the opposite Will concentrate its officers — You cannot even die, But Nature and Mankind must pause To pay you scrutiny.

Reverse cannot befall that fine Prosperity Whose sources are interior. As soon Adversity A diamond overtake, In far Bolivian ground; Misfortune hath no implement Could mar it, if it found.

Exhilaration is the Breeze That lifts us from the ground, And leaves us in another place Whose statement is not found; Returns us not, but after time We soberly descend, A little newer for the term Upon enchanted ground.

No romance sold unto, Could so enthrall a man As the perusal of His individual one. ’T is fiction’s, to dilute To plausibility Our novel, when ’t is small enough To credit, — ’t isn’t true!

If what we could were what we would — Criterion be small; It is the Ultimate of talk The impotence to tell.

Perception of an Object costs Precise the Object’s loss. Perception in itself a gain Replying to its price; The Object Absolute is nought, Perception sets it fair, And then upbraids a Perfectness That situates so far.

The blunder is to estimate, — “Eternity is Then,” We say, as of a station. Meanwhile he is so near, He joins me in my ramble, Divides abode with me, No friend have I that so persists As this Eternity.

There is another Loneliness That many die without, Not want or friend occasions it, Or circumstances or lot. But nature sometimes, sometimes thought, And whoso it befall Is richer than could be divulged By mortal numeral.

So gay a flower bereaved the mind As if it were a woe, Is Beauty an affliction, then? Tradition ought to know.

Glory is that bright tragic thing, That for an instant Means Dominion, Warms some poor name That never felt the sun, Gently replacing In oblivion.

The suburbs of a secret A strategist should keep, Better than on a dream intrude To scrutinize the sleep.

The difference between despair And fear, is like the one Between the instant of a wreck, And when the wreck has been. The mind is smooth, — no motion — Contented as the eye Upon the forehead of a Bust, That knows it cannot see.

There is a solitude of space, A solitude of sea, A solitude of death, but these Society shall be, Compared with that profounder site, That polar privacy, A Soul admitted to Itself: Finite Infinity.

The gleam of an heroic act, Such strange illumination — The Possible’s slow fuse is lit By the Imagination!

Of Death the sharpest function, That, just as we discern, The Excellence defies us; Securest gathered then The fruit perverse to plucking, But leaning to the sight With the ecstatic limit Of unobtained Delight.

Down Time’s quaint stream Without an oar, We are enforced to sail, Our Port — a secret — Our Perchance — a gale. What Skipper would Incur the risk, What Buccaneer would ride, Without a surety from the wind Or schedule of the tide?

The Future never spoke, Nor will he, like the Dumb, Reveal by sign or syllable Of his profound To-come. But when the news be ripe, Presents it in the Act — Forestalling preparation Escape or substitute. Indifferent to him The Dower as the Doom, His office but to execute Fate’s Telegram to him.

Two lengths has every day, Its absolute extent — And area superior By hope or heaven lent. Eternity will be Velocity, or pause, At fundamental signals From fundamental laws. To die, is not to go — On doom’s consummate chart No territory new is staked, Remain thou as thou art.

Nature is what we see, The Hill, the Afternoon — Squirrel, Eclipse, the Bumble-bee, Nay — Nature is Heaven. Nature is what we hear, The Bobolink, the Sea — Thunder, the Cricket — Nay, — Nature is Harmony. Nature is what we know But have no art to say, So impotent our wisdom is To Her simplicity.

Ah, Teneriffe! Retreating Mountain! Purples of Ages pause for you, Sunset reviews her Sapphire Regiment, Day drops you her red Adieu! Still, clad in your mail of ices, Thigh of granite and thew of steel — Heedless, alike, of pomp or parting, Ah, Teneriffe! I’m kneeling still.

She died at play, Gambolled away Her lease of spotted hours, Then sank as gaily as a Turk Upon a couch of flowers. Her ghost strolled softly o’er the hill Yesterday and today, Her vestments as the silver fleece, Her countenance as spray.

A little madness in the Spring Is wholesome even for the King, But God be with the Clown, Who ponders this tremendous scene — This whole experiment of green, As if it were his own!

Some Days retired from the rest In soft distinction lie, The Day that a companion came — Or was obliged to die.

The butterfly obtains But little sympathy, Though favorably mentioned In Entomology. Because he travels freely And wears a proper coat, The circumspect are certain That he is dissolute. Had he the homely scutcheon of modest Industry, ’T were fitter certifying for Immortality.

Beauty crowds me till I die, Beauty, mercy have on me! But if I expire today, Let it be in sight of thee.

The largest fire ever known Occurs each afternoon, Discovered is without surprise, Proceeds without concern: Consumes, and no report to men, An Occidental town, Rebuilt another morning To be again burned down.

Bloom upon the Mountain, stated, Blameless of a name. Efflorescence of a Sunset — Reproduced, the same. Seed, had I, my purple sowing Should endow the Day, Not a tropic of the twilight Show itself away. Who for tilling, to the Mountain Come, and disappear — Whose be Her renown, or fading, Witness, is not here. While I state — the solemn petals Far as North and East, Far as South and West expanding, Culminate in rest. And the Mountain to the Evening Fit His countenance, Indicating by no muscle The Experience.

The Duties of the Wind are few — To cast the Ships at sea, Establish March, The Floods escort, And usher Liberty.

I think that the root of the Wind is Water, It would not sound so deep Were it a firmamental product, Airs no Oceans keep — Mediterranean intonations, To a Current’s ear There is a maritime conviction In the atmosphere.

A cap of lead across the sky Was tight and surly drawn, We could not find the Mighty Face, The Figure was withdrawn. A chill came up as from a shaft, Our noon became a well, A Thunder storm combines the charms Of Winter and of Hell.

Of this is Day composed — A morning and a noon, A Revelry unspeakable And then a gay Unknown; Whose Pomps allure and spurn — And dower and deprive, And penury for glory Remedilessly leave.

The Hills erect their purple heads, The Rivers lean to see — Yet Man has not, of all the throng, A curiosity.

Lightly stepped a yellow star To its lofty place, Loosed the Moon her silver hat From her lustral face. All of evening softly lit As an astral hall — “Father,” I observed to Heaven, “You are punctual.”

The Moon upon her fluent route Defiant of a road, The stars Etruscan argument, Substantiate a God. If Aims impel these Astral Ones, The Ones allowed to know, Know that which makes them as forgot As Dawn forgets them now.