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.

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!

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!

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

Perhaps you’d like to buy a flower? But I could never sell. If you would like to borrow Until the daffodil Unties her yellow bonnet Beneath the village door, Until the bees, from clover rows

Their hock and sherry draw, Why, I will lend until just then, But not an hour more!

If you were coming in the fall, I’d brush the summer by

With half a smile and half a spurn, As housewives do a fly. If I could see you in a year, I’d wind the months in balls, And put them each in separate drawers, Until their time befalls. If only centuries delayed, I’d count them on my hand, Subtracting till my fingers dropped Into Van Diemen’s land. If certain, when this life was out, That yours and mine should be, I’d toss it yonder like a rind, And taste eternity.

But now, all ignorant of the length Of time’s uncertain wing, It goads me, like the goblin bee, T...

I hide myself within my flower, That wearing on your breast, You, unsuspecting, wear me too — And angels know the rest. I hide myself within my flower, That, fading from your vase, You, unsuspecting, feel for me Almost a loneliness.

I have no life but this, To lead it here; Nor any death, but lest Dispelled from there; Nor tie to earths to come,

Nor action new, Except through this extent, The realm of you.

I held a jewel in my fingers And went to sleep. The day was warm, and winds were prosy; I said: “ ’T will keep.”

I woke and chid my honest fingers, — The gem was gone; And now an amethyst remembrance Is all I own.

We outgrow love like other things And put it in the drawer, Till it an antique fashion shows Like costumes grandsires wore.

My friend must be a bird, Because it flies! Mortal my friend must be, Because it dies!

Barbs has it, like a bee. Ah, curious friend, Thou puzzlest me!

I live with him, I see his face; I go no more away For visitor, or sundown; Death’s single privacy,

The only one forestalling mine, And that by right that he Presents a claim invisible, No wedlock granted me. I live with him, I hear his voice, I stand alive to-day To witness to the certainty Of immortality Taught me by Time, — the lower way, Conviction every day, — That life like this is endless, Be judgment what it may.

Look back on time with kindly eyes, He doubtless did his best; How softly sinks his trembling sun In human nature’s west!

A train went through a burial gate, A bird broke forth and sang, And trilled, and quivered, and shook his throat Till all the churchyard rang;

And then adjusted his little notes, And bowed and sang again. Doubtless, he thought it meet of him To say good-by to men.

I died for beauty, but was scarce Adjusted in the tomb, When one who died for truth was lain In an adjoining room. He questioned softly why I failed? “For beauty,” I replied. “And I for truth, — the two are one; We brethren are,” he said.

And so, as kinsmen met a night, We talked between the rooms, Until the moss had reached our lips, And covered up our names.

I never saw a moor, I never saw the sea; Yet know I how the heather looks, And what a wave must be. I never spoke with God, Nor visited in heaven; Yet certain am I of the spot As if the chart were given.

The bustle in a house

The morning after death Is solemnest of industries Enacted upon earth, — The sweeping up the heart, And putting love away We shall not want to use again Until eternity.

I reason, earth is short, And anguish absolute, And many hurt; But what of that? I reason, we could die: The best vitality Cannot excel decay; But what of that? I reason that in heaven Somehow, it will be even,

Some new equation given; But what of that?

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.

Death is a dialogue between The spirit and the dust. “Dissolve,” says Death. The Spirit, “Sir, I have another trust.” Death doubts it, argues from the ground.

The Spirit turns away, Just laying off, for evidence, An overcoat of clay.

If I shouldn’t be alive When the robins come, Give the one in red cravat A memorial crumb. If I couldn’t thank you, Being just asleep, You will know I’m trying With my granite lip!

Death sets a thing significant The eye had hurried by, Except a perished creature Entreat us tenderly To ponder little workmanships In crayon or in wool, With “This was last her fingers did,” Industrious until

The thimble weighed too heavy, The stitches stopped themselves, And then ’t was put among the dust Upon the closet shelves. A book I have, a friend gave, Whose pencil, here and there, Had notched the place that pleased him, — At rest his fingers are. Now, when I read, I read not, For interrupting tears Obliterate the etchings Too costly for repairs.

If I should die, And you should live, And time should gurgle on, And morn should beam, And noon should burn, As it has usual done; If birds should build as early, And bees as bustling go, — One might depart at option From enterprise below! ’T is sweet to know that stocks will stand When we with daisies lie, That commerce will continue, And trades as briskly fly. It makes the parting tranquil And keeps the soul serene, That gentlemen so sprightly Conduct the pleasing scene!