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.

The heart asks pleasure first, And then, excuse from pain; And then, those little anodynes That deaden suffering;

A precious, mouldering pleasure ’t is To meet an antique book, In just the dress his century wore; A privilege, I think,

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.

The soul selects her own society, Then shuts the door; On her divine majority Obtrude no more.

He ate and drank the precious words, His spirit grew robust; He knew no more that he was poor, Nor that his frame was dust. He danced along the dingy days, And this bequest of wings Was but a book. What liberty A loosened spirit brings!

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

I can wade grief, Whole pools of it, — I’m used to that.

Remorse is memory awake, Her companies astir, —

A presence of departed acts At window and at door. It’s past set down before the soul, And lighted with a match, Perusal to facilitate Of its condensed despatch.

I had been hungry all the years; My noon had come, to dine; I, trembling, drew the table near, And touched the curious wine.

A word is dead When it is said, Some say. I say it just Begins to live

That day.

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!

I felt a clearing in my mind As if my brain had split; I tried to match it, seam by seam, But could not make them fit. The thought behind I strove to join Unto the thought before,

But sequence ravelled out of reach Like balls upon a floor.

On the bleakness of my lot Bloom I strove to raise. Late, my acre of a rock Yielded grape and maize.

A door just opened on a street — I, lost, was passing by — An instant’s width of warmth disclosed,

And wealth, and company.

The door as sudden shut, and I, I, lost, was passing by, — Lost doubly, but by contrast ...

Ashes denote that fire was; Respect the grayest pile For the departed creature’s sake That hovered there awhile. Fire exists the first in light, And then consolidates, —

Only the chemist can disclose Into what carbonates.

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. 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 ...

It dropped so low in my regard I heard it hit the ground, And go to pieces on the stones At bottom of my mind;

I knew not but the next Would be my final inch, —

This gave me that precarious gait Some call experience.

Arcturus is his other name, — I’d rather call him star! It’s so unkind of science To go and interfere! I pull a flower from the woods, — A monster with a glass Computes the stamens in a breath, And has her in a class.

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.

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!

As imperceptibly as grief The summer lapsed away, — Too imperceptible, at last, To seem like perfidy.

Could I but ride indefinite, As doth the meadow-bee, And visit only where I liked, And no man visit me, And flirt all day with buttercups, And marry whom I may,

And dwell a little everywhere, Or better, run away With no police to follow, Or chase me if I do, Till I should jump peninsulas To get away from you, — I said, but just to be a bee Upon a raft of air, And row in nowhere all day long, And anchor off the bar, — What liberty! So captives deem Who tight in dungeons are.

A sloop of amber slips away Upon an ether sea, And wrecks in peace a purple tar, The son of ecstasy.

The way I read a letter’s this: ’T is first I lock the door, And push it with my fingers next, For transport it be sure. And then I go the furthest off To counteract a knock; Then draw my little letter forth And softly pick its lock.

There is a word Which bears a sword Can pierce an armed man. It hurls its barbed syllables, — At once is mute again. But where it fell The saved will tell On patriotic day, Some epauletted brother Gave his breath away. Wherever runs the breathless sun, Wherever roams the day, There is its noiseless onset, There is its victory! Behold the keenest marksman! The most accomplished shot! Time’s sublimest target Is a soul “forgot”!

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!

The daisy follows soft the sun, And when his golden walk is done, Sits shyly at his feet. He, waking, finds the flower near. “Wherefore, marauder, art thou here?” “Because, sir, love is sweet!” We are the flower, Thou the sun! Forgive us, if as days decline, We nearer steal to Thee, — Enamoured of the parting west, The peace, the flight, the amethyst, Night’s possibility!

No rack can torture me, My soul’s at liberty Behind this mortal bone There knits a bolder one You cannot prick with saw, Nor rend with scymitar. Two bodies therefore be; Bind one, and one will flee. The eagle of his nest No easier divest And gain the sky, Than mayest thou, Except thyself may be Thine enemy; Captivity is consciousness, So’s liberty.

I shall know why, when time is over, And I have ceased to wonder why; Christ will explain each separate anguish In the fair schoolroom of the sky.

He will tell me what Peter

promised, And I, for wonder at his woe, I shall forget the drop of anguish That scalds me now, that scalds me now.

I have not told my garden yet, Lest that should conquer me; I have not quite the strength now To break it to the bee. I will not name it in the street, For shops would stare, that I, So shy, so very ignorant,

Should have the face to die. The hillsides must not know it, Where I have rambled so, Nor tell the loving forests The day that I shall go, Nor lisp it at the table, Nor heedless by the way Hint that within the riddle One will walk to-day!