Emily Dickinson

I’ve nothing else – to bring, You know –
So I keep bringing These –
Just as the Night keeps fetching Stars
To our familiar eyes –

Maybe, we shouldn’t mind them –
Unless they didn’t come –
Then – maybe, it would puzzle us
To find our way Home –
-Emily Dickinson

I’ve seen a Dying Eye
Run round and round a Room —
In search of Something — as it seemed —
Then Cloudier become —
And then — obscure with Fog —
And then — be soldered down
Without disclosing what it be
‘Twere blessed to have seen —
-Emily Dickinson

Ideals are the Fairly Oil
With which we help the Wheel
But when the Vital Axle turns
The Eye rejects the Oil.
-Emily Dickinson

If Blame be my side – forfeit Me –
But doom me not to forfeit Thee –
To forfeit Thee? The very name
Is sentence from Belief – and House –
-Emily Dickinson

If He dissolve — then —
there is nothing — more —
Eclipse — at Midnight —
It was dark — before —

Sunset — at Easter —
Blindness — on the Dawn —
Faint Star of Bethlehem —
Gone down!

Would but some God — inform Him —
Or it be too late!
Say — that the pulse just lisps —
The Chariots wait —

Say — that a little life — for His —
Is leaking — red —
His little

If He were living — dare I ask —
And how if He be dead —
And so around the Words I went —
Of meeting them — afraid —

I hinted Changes — Lapse of Time —
The Surfaces of Years —
I touched with Caution — lest they crack —
And show me to my fears —

Reverted to adjoining Lives —
Adroitly turning out
Wherever I suspected Graves —
‘Twas prudenter — I thought —

And He —

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.
-Emily Dickinson

If I could bribe them by a Rose
I’d bring them every flower that grows
From Amherst to Cashmere!
I would not stop for night, or storm —
Or frost, or death, or anyone —
My business were so dear!

If they would linger for a Bird
My Tambourin were soonest heard
Among the April Woods!
Unwearied, all the summer long,
Only to break in wilder song
When Winter shook the boughs!

What if they hear me!
Who shall say
That such an

If I could tell how glad I was
I should not be so glad –
But when I cannot make the Force,
Nor mould it into Word,
I know it is a sign
That new Dilemna be
From mathematics further off
Than for Eternity.
-Emily Dickinson

If I may have it, when it’s dead,
I’ll be contented — so —
If just as soon as Breath is out
It shall belong to me —

Until they lock it in the Grave,
‘Tis Bliss I cannot weigh —
For tho’ they lock Thee in the Grave,
Myself — can own the key —

Think of it Lover! I and Thee
Permitted — face to face to be —
After a Life — a Death — We’ll

If I’m lost — now
That I was found —
Shall still my transport be —
That once — on me — those Jasper Gates
Blazed open — suddenly —

That in my awkward — gazing — face —
The Angels — softly peered —
And touched me with their fleeces,
Almost as if they cared —
I’m banished — now — you know it —
How foreign that can be —
You’ll know — Sir — when the Savior’s

If I should cease to bring a Rose
Upon a festal day,
‘Twill be because beyond the Rose
I have been called away –

If I should cease to take the names
My buds commemorate –
‘Twill be because Death’s finger
Claps my murmuring lip!
-Emily Dickinson

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 fast asleep,
You will know I’m trying
Why my Granite lip!
-Emily Dickinson

If Nature smiles – the Mother must
I’m sure, at many a whim
Of Her eccentric Family –
Is She so much to blame?
-Emily Dickinson

If What we could — were what we would —
Criterion — be small —
It is the Ultimate of Talk —
The Impotence to Tell —
-Emily Dickinson

If all the griefs I am to have
Would only come today,
I am so happy I believe
They’d laugh and run away.

If all the joys I am to have
Would only come today,
They could not be so big as this
That happens to me now.
-Emily Dickinson

If anybody’s friend be dead
It’s sharpest of the theme
The thinking how they walked alive —
At such and such a time —

Their costume, of a Sunday,
Some manner of the Hair —
A prank nobody knew but them
Lost, in the Sepulchre —

How warm, they were, on such a day,
You almost feel the date —
So short way off it seems —
And now — they’re Centuries from that —

How pleased they were, at what

If any sink, assure that this, now standing —
Failed like Themselves — and conscious that it rose —
Grew by the Fact, and not the Understanding
How Weakness passed — or Force — arose —

Tell that the Worst, is easy in a Moment —
Dread, but the Whizzing, before the Ball —
When the Ball enters, enters Silence —
Dying — annuls the power to kill.
-Emily Dickinson

If ever the lid gets off my head
And lets the brain away
The fellow will go where he belonged —
Without a hint from me,

And the world — if the world be looking on —
Will see how far from home
It is possible for sense to live
The soul there — all the time.
-Emily Dickinson

If it had no pencil
Would it try mine —
Worn — now — and dull — sweet,
Writing much to thee.
If it had no word,
Would it make the Daisy,
Most as big as I was,
When it plucked me?
-Emily Dickinson

If my Bark sink
‘Tis to another sea –
Mortality’s Ground Floor
Is Immortality –
-Emily Dickinson

If pain for peace prepares
Lo, what “Augustan” years
Our feet await!

If springs from winter rise,
Can the Anemones
Be reckoned up?

If night stands fast — then noon
To gird us for the sun,
What gaze!

When from a thousand skies
On our developed eyes
Noons blaze!
-Emily Dickinson

If recollecting were forgetting,
Then I remember not.
And if forgetting, recollecting,
How near I had forgot.
And if to miss, were merry,
And to mourn, were gay,
How very blithe the fingers
That gathered this, Today!
-Emily Dickinson

If she had been the Mistletoe
And I had been the Rose —
How gay upon your table
My velvet life to close —
Since I am of the Druid,
And she is of the dew —
I’ll deck Tradition’s buttonhole —
And send the Rose to you.
-Emily Dickinson