Collected Poems

by Emily Dickinson

One need not be a chamber to be haunted, One need not be a house; The brain has corridors surpassing Material place.

The distance that the dead have gone Does not at first appear; Their coming back seems possible For many an ardent year. And then, that we have followed them We more than half suspect, So intimate have we become With their dear retrospect.

I wish I knew that woman’s name, So, when she comes this way, To hold my life, and hold my ears, For fear I hear her say

She’s “sorry I am dead,” again, Just when the grave and I Have sobbed ourselves almost to sleep, — Our only lullaby.

I heard a fly buzz when I died; The stillness round my form Was like the stillness in the air Between the heaves of storm. The eyes beside had wrung them dry, And breaths were gathering sure For that last onset, when the king

Be witnessed in his power. I willed my keepsakes, signed away What portion of me I Could make assignable, — and then There interposed a fly, With blue, uncertain, stumbling buzz, Between the light and me; And then the windows failed, and then I could not see to see.

I held her hand the tighter, Which shortened all the miles. And still her hum the years among Deceives the Butterfly, Still in her eye the Violets lie Mouldered this many May. I spilt the dew but took the morn, I chose this single Star From out the wide night’s numbers, Sue — forevermore! EMILY

Beauty crowds me till I die, Beauty, mercy have on me! But if I expire today, Let it be in sight of thee.

That Love is all there is, Is all we know of Love; It is enough, the freight should be Proportioned to the groove.