Collected Poems

by Emily Dickinson

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.

fight aloud is very brave, But gallanter, I know, Who charge within the bosom, The cavalry of woe. Who win, and nations do not see, Who fall, and none observe, Whose dying eyes no country Regards with patriot love.

The soul unto itself Is an imperial friend, — Or the most agonizing spy An enemy could send.

Remorse is cureless, — the disease Not even God can heal; For ’t is His institution, — The complement of hell.

Partaken, it relieves indeed, but proves us That spices fly In the receipt. It was the distance Was savory.

I gained it so, By climbing slow, By catching at the twigs that grow Between the bliss and me.

Prayer is the little implement Through which men reach Where presence is denied them.

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!

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

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.

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.

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.

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!

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!

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

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.

No man he seemed to know; And bowing with a mighty look At me, the sea withdrew.

Arcturus is his other name, — I’d rather call him star! It’s so unkind of science To go and interfere!

An everywhere of silver, With ropes of sand To keep it from effacing The track called land.

How happy is the little stone That rambles in the road alone, And doesn’t care about careers, And exigencies never fears; Whose coat of elemental brown A passing universe put on; And independent as the sun, Associates or glows alone, Fulfilling absolute decree In casual simplicity.

Frequently the woods are pink, Frequently are brown; Frequently the hills undress Behind my native town.

Bring me the sunset in a cup, Reckon the morning’s flagons up, And say how many dew;

She sweeps with many-colored brooms, And leaves the shreds behind; Oh, housewife in the evening west, Come back, and dust the pond! You dropped a purple ravelling in, You dropped an amber thread; And now you’ve littered all the East With duds of emerald!

Where ships of purple gently toss On seas of daffodil, Fantastic sailors mingle, And then — the wharf is still.

Blazing in gold and quenching in purple, Leaping like leopards to the sky, Then at the feet of the old horizon Laying her spotted face, to die; Stooping as low as the otter’s window, Touching the roof and tinting the barn, Kissing her bonnet to the meadow, — And the juggler of day is gone!

The red upon the hill Taketh away my will; If anybody sneer, Take care, for God is here, That’s all.

The pedigree of honey Does not concern the bee; A clover, any time, to him Is aristocracy.

From some old fortress on the sun Baronial bees march, one by one, In murmuring platoon!

A drop fell on the apple tree, Another on the roof; A half a dozen kissed the eaves, And made the gables laugh. A few went out to help the brook, That went to help the sea. Myself conjectured, Were they pearls, What necklaces could be!

His feet are shod with gauze, His helmet is of gold; His breast, a single onyx With chrysoprase, inlaid. His labor is a chant, His idleness a tune; Oh, for a bee’s experience Of clovers and of noon!

Oh, sacrament of summer days, Oh, last communion in the haze, Permit a child to join, Thy sacred emblems to partake, Thy consecrated bread to break, Taste thine immortal wine!

A narrow wind complains all day How some one treated him; Nature, like us, is sometimes caught Without her diadem.

To my quick ear the leaves conferred; The bushes they were bells; I could not find a privacy From Nature’s sentinels.

The moon was but a chin of gold A night or two ago, And now she turns her perfect face Upon the world below. Her forehead is of amplest blond; Her cheek like beryl stone; Her eye unto the summer dew The likest I have known.

How the old mountains drip with sunset, And the brake of dun! How the hemlocks are tipped in tinsel By the wizard sun!

Then, how the fire ebbs like billows, Touching all the grass With a departing, sapphire feature, As if a duchess pass!

You left me boundaries of pain Capacious as the sea, Between eternity and time, Your consciousness and me.

Alter? When the hills do. Falter? When the sun Question if his glory Be the perfect one.

If certain, when this life was out, That yours and mine should be, I’d toss it yonder like a rind, And taste eternity.

Have you got a brook in your little heart, Where bashful flowers blow, And blushing birds go down to drink, And shadows tremble so? And nobody knows, so still it flows, That any brook is there; And yet your little draught of life Is daily drunken there.

Rowing in Eden! Ah! the sea! Might I but moor To-night in thee!

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!

I envy seas whereon he rides, I envy spokes of wheels Of chariots that him convey, I envy speechless hills That gaze upon his journey; How easy all can see What is forbidden utterly As heaven, unto me!

I like a look of agony, Because I know it’s true; Men do not sham convulsion, Nor simulate a throe. The eyes glaze once, and that is death. Impossible to feign The beads upon the forehead By homely anguish strung.

The house of supposition, The glimmering frontier That skirts the acres of perhaps, To me shows insecure.

The general rose decays; But this, in lady’s drawer, Makes summer when the lady lies In ceaseless rosemary.

One need not be a chamber to be haunted, One need not be a house; The brain has corridors surpassing Material place.

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.

This world is not conclusion; A sequel stands beyond, Invisible, as music, But positive, as sound. It beckons and it baffles; Philosophies don’t know, And through a riddle, at the last, Sagacity must go. To guess it puzzles scholars; To gain it, men have shown Contempt of generations, And crucifixion known.

The distance that the dead have gone Does not at first appear; Their coming back seems possible For many an ardent year.