Collected Poems

by Emily Dickinson

Life is but life, and death but death! Bliss is but bliss, and breath but breath! And if, indeed, I fail, At least to know the worst is sweet. Defeat means nothing but defeat, No drearier can prevail!

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.

A precious, mouldering pleasure ’t is To meet an antique book, In just the dress his century wore; A privilege, I think, His venerable hand to take, And warming in our own, A passage back, or two, to make To times when he was young. His quaint opinions to inspect, His knowledge to unfold On what concerns our mutual mind, The literature of old; What interested scholars most, What competitions ran When Plato was a certainty. And Sophocles a man; When Sappho was a living girl, And Beatrice wore The gown that Dante deified. Facts, centuries before, He traverses familiar, As one should come to town And tell you all your dreams were true; He lived where dreams were born. His presence is enchantment, You beg him not to go; Old volumes shake their vellum heads And tantalize, just so.

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.

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!

Hope is the thing with feathers That perches in the soul, And sings the tune without the words, And never stops at all,

A thought went up my mind to-day That I have had before, But did not finish, — some way back, I could not fix the year, Nor where it went, nor why it came The second time to me, Nor definitely what it was, Have I the art to say. But somewhere in my soul, I know I’ve met the thing before; It just reminded me — ’t was all — And came my way no more.

God gave a loaf to every bird, But just a crumb to me; I dare not eat it, though I starve, — My poignant luxury To own it, touch it, prove the feat That made the pellet mine, — Too happy in my sparrow chance For ampler coveting. It might be famine all around, I could not miss an ear, Such plenty smiles upon my board, My garner shows so fair. I wonder how the rich may feel, — An Indiaman — an Earl? I deem that I with but a crumb Am sovereign of them all.

Unto my books so good to turn Far ends of tired days; It half endears the abstinence, And pain is missed in praise. As flavors cheer retarded guests With banquetings to be, So spices stimulate the time Till my small library. It may be wilderness without, Far feet of failing men, But holiday excludes the night, And it is bells within. I thank these kinsmen of the shelf; Their countenances bland Enamour in prospective, And satisfy, obtained.

I years had been from home, And now, before the door, I dared not open, lest a face I never saw before Stare vacant into mine And ask my business there. My business, — just a life I left, Was such still dwelling there? I fumbled at my nerve, I scanned the windows near; The silence like an ocean rolled, And broke against my ear. I laughed a wooden laugh That I could fear a door, Who danger and the dead had faced, But never quaked before. I fitted to the latch My hand, with trembling care, Lest back the awful door should spring, And leave me standing there. I moved my fingers off As cautiously as glass, And held my ears, and like a thief Fled gasping from the house.

I know that he exists Somewhere, in silence. He has hid his rare life From our gross eyes. ’T is an instant’s play, ’T is a fond ambush, Just to make bliss Earn her own surprise! But should the play Prove piercing earnest, Should the glee glaze In death’s stiff stare, Would not the fun Look too expensive? Would not the jest Have crawled too far?

Hope is a subtle glutton; He feeds upon the fair; And yet, inspected closely, What abstinence is there! His is the halcyon table That never seats but one, And whatsoever is consumed The same amounts remain.

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 a fitting a dismay, A fitting a despair. ’T is harder knowing it is due, Than knowing it is here. The trying on the utmost, The morning it is new, Is terribler than wearing it A whole existence through.