Collected Poems

by Emily Dickinson

If I can stop one heart from breaking, I shall not live in vain; If I can ease one life the aching, Or cool one pain,

Or help one fainting robin Unto his nest again, I shall not live in vain.

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.

Some things that fly there be, — Birds, hours, the bumble-bee: Of these no elegy. Some things that stay there be, — Grief, hills, eternity: Nor this behooveth me. There are, that resting, rise. Can I expound the skies? How still the riddle lies!

To 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. We trust, in plumed procession, For such the angels go, Rank after rank, with even feet And uniforms of snow.

Pain has an element of blank; It cannot recollect When it began, or if there were A day when it was not.

It has no future but itself, Its infinite realms contain Its past, enlightened to perceive New periods of pain.

When landlords turn the drunken bee Out of the foxglove’s door, When butterflies renounce their drams, I shall but drink the more!

I had no time to hate, because The grave would hinder me, And life was not so ample I Could finish enmity.

Nor had I time to love; but since Some industry must be, The little toil of love, I thought, Was large enough for me.

The brain within its groove Runs evenly and true; But let a splinter swerve, ’T were easier for you To put the water back

I’m nobody! Who are you? Are you nobody, too? Then there’s a pair of us — don’t tell! They’d banish us, you know. How dreary to be somebody! How public, like a frog To tell your name the livelong day To an admiring bog!

I turn my brimming eyes away, And come next hour to look. The hands still hug the tardy glass; The lips I would have cooled,