Collected Poems

by Emily Dickinson

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, And sweetest in the gale is heard; And sore must be the storm That could abash the little bird That kept so many warm. I’ve heard it in the chillest land, And on the strangest sea; Yet, never, in extremity, It asked a crumb of me.

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. I wonder if when years have piled — Some thousands — on the cause Of early hurt, if such a lapse Could give them any pause; Or would they go on aching still Through centuries above, Enlightened to a larger pain By contrast with the love. The grieved are many, I am told; The reason deeper lies, — Death is but one and comes but once, And only nails the eyes. There’s grief of want, and grief of cold, — A sort they call “despair”; There’s banishment from native eyes, In sight of native air. And though I may not guess the kind Correctly, yet to me A piercing comfort it affords In passing Calvary, To note the fashions of the cross, Of those that stand alone, Still fascinated to presume That some are like my own.

I started early, took my dog, And visited the sea; The mermaids in the basement Came out to look at me, And frigates in the upper floor Extended hempen hands, Presuming me to be a mouse Aground, upon the sands. But no man moved me till the tide Went past my simple shoe, And past my apron and my belt, And past my bodice too, And made as he would eat me up As wholly as a dew Upon a dandelion’s sleeve — And then I started too. And he — he followed close behind; I felt his silver heel Upon my ankle, — then my shoes Would overflow with pearl. Until we met the solid town, No man he seemed to know; And bowing with a mighty look At me, the sea withdrew.

It can’t be summer, — that got through; It’s early yet for spring; There’s that long town of white to cross Before the blackbirds sing. It can’t be dying, — it’s too rouge, — The dead shall go in white. So sunset shuts my question down With clasps of chrysolite.

Wild nights! Wild nights! Were I with thee, Wild nights should be Our luxury! Futile the winds To a heart in port, — Done with the compass, Done with the chart. Rowing in Eden! Ah! the sea! Might I but moor To-night in thee!

Split the lark and you’ll find the music, Bulb after bulb, in silver rolled, Scantily dealt to the summer morning, Saved for your ear when lutes be old. Loose the flood, you shall find it patent, Gush after gush, reserved for you; Scarlet experiment! sceptic Thomas, Now, do you doubt that your bird was true?

Because I could not stop for Death, He kindly stopped for me; The carriage held but just ourselves And Immortality. We slowly drove, he knew no haste, And I had put away My labor, and my leisure too, For his civility. We passed the school where children played, Their lessons scarcely done; We passed the fields of gazing grain, We passed the setting sun. We paused before a house that seemed A swelling of the ground; The roof was scarcely visible, The cornice but a mound. Since then ’t is centuries; but each Feels shorter than the day I first surmised the horses’ heads Were toward eternity.

The Stars are old, that stood for me — The West a little worn, Yet newer glows the only Gold I ever cared to earn — Presuming on that lone result Her infinite disdain, But vanquished her with my defeat, ’T was Victory was slain.