Emily Dickinson

How fortunate the Grave –
All Prizes to obtain –
Successful certain, if at last,
First Suitor not in vain.
-Emily Dickinson

How good his Lava Bed,
To this laborious Boy –
Who must be up to call the World
And dress the sleepy Day –
-Emily Dickinson

How happy I was if I could forget
To remember how sad I am
Would be an easy adversity
But the recollecting of Bloom

Keeps making November difficult
Till I who was almost bold
Lose my way like a little Child
And perish of the cold.
-Emily Dickinson

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 –
-Emily Dickinson

How know it from a Summer’s Day?
Its Fervors are as firm –
And nothing in the Countenance
But scintillates the same –
Yet Birds examine it and flee –
And Vans without a name
Inspect the Admonition
And sunder as they came –
-Emily Dickinson

How lonesome the Wind must feel Nights –
When people have put out the Lights
And everything that has an Inn
Closes the shutter and goes in –

How pompous the Wind must feel Noons
Stepping to incorporeal Tunes
Correcting errors of the sky
And clarifying scenery

How mighty the Wind must feel Morns
Encamping on a thousand dawns
Espousing each and spurning all
Then soaring to his Temple Tall –
-Emily Dickinson

How many Flowers fail in Wood –
Or perish from the Hill –
Without the privilege to know
That they are Beautiful –

How many cast a nameless Pod
Upon the nearest Breeze –
Unconscious of the Scarlet Freight –
It bear to Other Eyes –
– Emily Dickinson

How many schemes may die
In one short Afternoon
Entirely unknown
To those they most concern –
The man that was not lost
Because by accident
He varied by a Ribbon’s width
From his accustomed route –
The Love that would not try
Because beside the Door
It must be competitions
Some unsuspecting Horse was tied
Surveying his Despair
– Emily Dickinson

How many times these low feet staggered —
Only the soldered mouth can tell —
Try — can you stir the awful rivet —
Try — can you lift the hasps of steel!

Stroke the cool forehead — hot so often —
Lift — if you care — the listless hair —
Handle the adamantine fingers
Never a thimble — more — shall wear —

Buzz the dull flies — on the chamber window —
Brave — shines

How much of Source escapes with thee –
How chief thy sessions be –
For thou hast borne a universe
Entirely away.
– Emily Dickinson

How much the present moment means
To those who’ve nothing more —
The Fop — the Carp — the Atheist —
Stake an entire store
Upon a Moment’s shallow Rim
While their commuted Feet
The Torrents of Eternity
Do all but inundate –
– Emily Dickinson

How noteless Men, and Pleiads, stand,
Until a sudden sky
Reveals the fact that One is rapt
Forever from the Eye –

Members of the Invisible,
Existing, while we stare,
In Leagueless Opportunity,
O’ertakenless, as the Air –

Why didn’t we detain Them?
The Heavens with a smile,
Sweep by our disappointed Heads
Without a syllable –
– Emily Dickinson

How ruthless are the gentle –
How cruel are the kind –
God broke his contract to his Lamb
To qualify the Wind –
– Emily Dickinson

How sick – to wait – in any place – but thine –
I knew last night — when someone tried to twine –
Thinking — perhaps — that I looked tired — or alone —
Or breaking — almost — with unspoken pain —

And I turned — ducal –
That right — was thine –
One port — suffices — for a Brig – like mine –

Ours be the tossing — wild though

How slow the Wind –
how slow the sea –
how late their Fathers be!
– Emily Dickinson

How soft a Caterpillar steps –
I fond one on my Hand
From such a velvet world it comes
Such plushes at command
Its soundless travels just arrest
My slow — terrestrial eye
Intent upon its own career
What use has it for me –
– Emily Dickinson

How soft this Prison is
How sweet these sullen bars
No Despot but the King of Down
Invented this repose

Of Fate if this is All
Has he no added Realm
A Dungeon but a Kinsman is
Incarceration – Home.
-Emily Dickinson

How still the Bells in Steeples stand
Till swollen with the Sky
They leap upon their silver Feet
In frantic Melody!
– Emily Dickinson

How the Waters closed above Him
We shall never know –
How He stretched His Anguish to us
That – is covered too –

Spreads the Pond Her Base of Lilies
Bold above the Boy
Whose unclaimed Hat and Jacket
Sum the History –
-Emily Dickinson

How the old Mountains drip with Sunset
How the Hemlocks burn —
How the Dun Brake is draped in Cinder
By the Wizard Sun —

How the old Steeples hand the Scarlet
Till the Ball is full —
Have I the lip of the Flamingo
That I dare to tell?

Then, how the Fire ebbs like Billows —
Touching all the Grass
With a departing — Sapphire — feature —
As a Duchess passed —

How a small Dusk crawls on

How well I knew Her not
Whom not to know has been
A Bounty in prospective, now
Next Door to mine the Pain.
– Emily Dickinson

I am afraid to own a Body —
I am afraid to own a Soul —
Profound — precarious Property —
Possession, not optional —

Double Estate — entailed at pleasure
Upon an unsuspecting Heir —
Duke in a moment of Deathlessness
And God, for a Frontier.
– Emily Dickinson

I am alive — I guess —
The Branches on my Hand
Are full of Morning Glory —
And at my finger’s end —

The Carmine — tingles warm —
And if I hold a Glass
Across my Mouth — it blurs it —
Physician’s — proof of Breath —

I am alive — because
I am not in a Room —
The Parlor — Commonly — it is —
So Visitors may come —

And lean — and view it

I am ashamed — I hide —
What right have I — to be a Bride —
So late a Dowerless Girl —
Nowhere to hide my dazzled Face —
No one to teach me that new Grace —
Nor introduce — my Soul —

Me to adorn — How — tell —
Trinket — to make Me beautiful —
Fabrics of Cashmere —
Never a Gown of Dun — more —
Raiment instead — of Pompadour —
For Me

I asked no other thing —
No other — was denied —
I offered Being — for it —
The Mighty Merchant sneered —

Brazil? He twirled a Button —
Without a glance my way —
“But — Madam — is there nothing else —
That We can show — Today?”
– Emily Dickinson