Emily Dickinson

Nature — the Gentlest Mother is,
Impatient of no Child —
The feeblest — or the waywardest —
Her Admonition mild —

In Forest — and the Hill —
By Traveller — be heard —
Restraining Rampant Squirrel —
Or too impetuous Bird —

How fair Her Conversation —
A Summer Afternoon —
Her Household — Her Assembly —
And when the Sun go down —

Her Voice among the Aisles
Incite the timid prayer
Of the minutest Cricket —
The most unworthy Flower

Nature affects to be sedate
Upon occasion, grand
But let our observation shut
Her practices extend

To Necromancy and the Trades
Remote to understand
Behold our spacious Citizen
Unto a Juggler turned –
-Emily Dickinson

Nature and God — I neither knew
Yet Both so well knew me
They startled, like Executors
Of My identity.

Yet Neither told — that I could learn —
My Secret as secure
As Herschel’s private interest
Or Mercury’s affair —
-Emily Dickinson

Nature assigns the Sun —
That — is Astronomy —
Nature cannot enact a Friend —
That — is Astrology.
-Emily Dickinson

Nature can do no more
She has fulfilled her Dyes
Whatever Flower fail to come
Of other Summer days
Her crescent reimburse
If other Summers be
Nature’s imposing negative
Nulls opportunity –
-Emily Dickinson

Nature rarer uses Yellow
Than another Hue.
Saves she all of that for Sunsets
Prodigal of Blue

Spending Scarlet, like a Woman
Yellow she affords
Only scantly and selectly
Like a Lover’s Words.
-Emily Dickinson

Never for Society
He shall seek in vain —
Who His own acquaintance
Cultivate — Of Men
Wiser Men may weary —
But the Man within

Never knew Satiety —
Better entertain
Than could Border Ballad —
Or Biscayan Hymn —
Neither introduction
Need You — unto Him —
-Emily Dickinson

New feet within my garden go —
New fingers stir the sod —
A Troubadour upon the Elm
Betrays the solitude.

New children play upon the green —
New Weary sleep below —
And still the pensive Spring returns —
And still the punctual snow!
-Emily Dickinson

No Autumn’s intercepting Chill
Appalls this Tropic Breast —
But African Exuberance
And Asiatic rest.
-Emily Dickinson

No Bobolink — reverse His Singing
When the only Tree
Ever He minded occupying
By the Farmer be —

Clove to the Root —
His Spacious Future —
Best Horizon — gone —
Whose Music be His
Only Anodyne —
Brave Bobolink —

-Emily Dickinson

No Brigadier throughout the Year
So civic as the Jay —
A Neighbor and a Warrior too
With shrill felicity
Pursuing Winds that censure us
A February Day,
The Brother of the Universe
Was never blown away —
The Snow and he are intimate —
I’ve often seem them play
When Heaven looked upon us all
With such severity
I felt apology were due
To an insulted sky
Whose pompous frown was Nutriment
To their Temerity —
The Pillow of this daring Head
Is pungent

No Crowd that has occurred
Exhibit — I suppose
That General Attendance
That Resurrection — does —

Circumference be full —
The long restricted Grave
Assert her Vital Privilege —
The Dust — connect — and live —

On Atoms — features place —
All Multitudes that were
Efface in the Comparison —
As Suns — dissolve a star —

Solemnity — prevail —
Its Individual Doom
Possess each separate Consciousness —
August — Absorbed — Numb —

What Duplicate — exist —
What Parallel can

No Life can pompless pass away —
The lowliest career
To the same Pageant wends its way
As that exalted here —

How cordial is the mystery!
The hospitable Pall
A “this way” beckons spaciously —
A Miracle for all!
-Emily Dickinson

No Man can compass a Despair —
As round a Goalless Road
No faster than a Mile at once
The Traveller proceed —

Unconscious of the Width —
Unconscious that the Sun
Be setting on His progress —
So accurate the One

At estimating Pain —
Whose own — has just begun —
His ignorance — the Angel
That pilot Him along —
-Emily Dickinson

No Notice gave She, but a Change —
No Message, but a Sigh —
For Whom, the Time did not suffice
That She should specify.

She was not warm, though Summer shone
Nor scrupulous of cold
Though Rime by Rime, the steady Frost
Upon Her Bosom piled —

Of shrinking ways — she did not fright
Though all the Village looked —
But held Her gravity aloft —
And met the gaze — direct —

And when adjusted like a Seed
In

No Other can reduce
Our mortal Consequence
Like the remembering it be nought
A Period from hence
But Contemplation for
Contemporaneous Nought
Our Single Competition
Jehovah’s Estimate.
-Emily Dickinson

No Passenger was known to flee —
That lodged a night in memory —
That wily — subterranean Inn
Contrives that none go out again —
-Emily Dickinson

No Prisoner be —
Where Liberty —
Himself — abide with Thee —
-Emily Dickinson

No Romance sold unto
Could so enthrall a Man
As the perusal of
His Individual One —
‘Tis Fiction’s — When ’tis small enough
To Credit — ‘Tisn’t true!
-Emily Dickinson

Nobody knows this little Rose —
It might a pilgrim be
Did I not take it from the ways
And lift it up to thee.
Only a Bee will miss it —
Only a Butterfly,
Hastening from far journey —
On its breast to lie —
Only a Bird will wonder —
Only a Breeze will sigh —
Ah Little Rose — how easy
For such as thee to die!
-Emily Dickinson

No ladder needs the bird but skies
To situate its wings,
Nor any leader’s grim baton
Arraigns it as it sings.
The implements of bliss are few —
As Jesus says of Him,
“Come unto me” the moiety
That wafts the cherubim.
-Emily Dickinson

No matter where the Saints abide,
They make their Circuit fair
Behold how great a Firmament
Accompanies a Star.
-Emily Dickinson