Emily Dickinson

Artists wrestled here!
Lo, a tint Cashmere!
Lo, a Rose!
Student of the Year!
For the easel here
Say Repose!
-Emily Dickinson

As Children bid the Guest “Good Night”
And then reluctant turn —
My flowers raise their pretty lips —
Then put their nightgowns on.

As children caper when they wake
Merry that it is Morn —
My flowers from a hundred cribs
Will peep, and prance again.
-Emily Dickinson

As Everywhere of Silver
With Ropes of Sand
To keep it from effacing
The Track called Land.
-Emily Dickinson

As Frost is best conceived
By force of its Result —
Affliction is inferred
By subsequent effect —

If when the sun reveal,
The Garden keep the Gash —
If as the Days resume
The wilted countenance

Cannot correct the crease
Or counteract the stain —
Presumption is Vitality
Was somewhere put in twain.
-Emily Dickinson

As One does Sickness over
In convalescent Mind,
His scrutiny of Chances
By blessed Health obscured –

As One rewalks a Precipice
And whittles at the Twig
That held Him from Perdition
Sown sidewise in the Crag

A Custom of the Soul
Far after suffering
Identity to question
For evidence’t has been –
-Emily Dickinson

As Sleigh Bells seem in summer
Or Bees, at Christmas show —
So fairy — so fictitious
The individuals do
Repealed from observation —
A Party that we knew —
More distant in an instant
Than Dawn in Timbuctoo.
-Emily Dickinson

As Summer into Autumn slips
And yet we sooner say
“The Summer” than “the Autumn,” lest
We turn the sun away,

And almost count it an Affront
The presence to concede
Of one however lovely, not
The one that we have loved —

So we evade the charge of Years
On one attempting shy
The Circumvention of the Shaft
Of Life’s Declivity.
-Emily Dickinson

As Watchers hang upon the East,
As Beggars revel at a feast
By savory Fancy spread —
As brooks in deserts babble sweet
On ear too far for the delight,
Heaven beguiles the tired.

As that same watcher, when the East
Opens the lid of Amethyst
And lets the morning go —
That Beggar, when an honored Guest,
Those thirsty lips to flagons pressed,
Heaven to us, if true.
-Emily Dickinson

As by the dead we love to sit,
Become so wondrous dear —
As for the lost we grapple
Tho’ all the rest are here —

In broken mathematics
We estimate our prize
Vast — in its fading ration
To our penurious eyes!
-Emily Dickinson

As far from pity, as complaint —
As cool to speech — as stone —
As numb to Revelation
As if my Trade were Bone —

As far from time — as History —
As near yourself — Today —
As Children, to the Rainbow’s scarf —
Or Sunset’s Yellow play

To eyelids in the Sepulchre —
How dumb the Dancer lies —
While Color’s Revelations break —
And blaze — the Butterflies!
-Emily Dickinson

As from the earth the light Balloon
Asks nothing but release —
Ascension that for which it was,
Its soaring Residence.
The spirit looks upon the Dust
That fastened it so long
With indignation,
As a Bird
Defrauded of its song.
-Emily Dickinson

As if I asked a common Alms,
And in my wondering hand
A Stranger pressed a Kingdom,
And I, bewildered, stand —
As if I asked the Orient
Had it for me a Morn —
And it should lift its purple Dikes,
And shatter me with Dawn!
-Emily Dickinson

As if some little Arctic flower
Upon the polar hem —
Went wandering down the Latitudes
Until it puzzled came
To continents of summer —
To firmaments of sun —
To strange, bright crowds of flowers —
And birds, of foreign tongue!
I say, As if this little flower
To Eden, wandered in —
What then? Why nothing,
Only, your inference therefrom!
-Emily Dickinson

As if the Sea should part
And show a further Sea —
And that — a further — and the Three
But a presumption be –

Of Periods of Seas —
Unvisited of Shores —
Themselves the Verge of Seas to be —
Eternity — is Those –
-Emily Dickinson

As imperceptibly as Grief
The Summer lapsed away —
Too imperceptible at last
To seem like Perfidy —
A Quietness distilled
As Twilight long begun,
Or Nature spending with herself
Sequestered Afternoon —
The Dusk drew earlier in —
The Morning foreign shone —
A courteous, yet harrowing Grace,
As Guest, that would be gone —
And thus, without a Wing
Or service of a Keel
Our Summer made her light escape
Into the Beautiful.
-Emily Dickinson

As old as Woe —
How old is that?
Some eighteen thousand years —
As old as Bliss
How old is that
They are of equal years

Together chiefest they ard found
But seldom side by side
From neither of them tho’ he try
Can Human nature hide
-Emily Dickinson

As plan for Noon and plan for Night
So differ Life and Death
In positive Prospective —
The Foot upon the Earth

At Distance, and Achievement, strains,
The Foot upon the Grave
Makes effort at conclusion
Assisted faint of Love.
-Emily Dickinson

As subtle as tomorrow
That never came,
A warrant, a conviction,
Yet but a name.
-Emily Dickinson

As the Starved Maelstrom laps the Navies
As the Vulture teased
Forces the Broods in lonely Valleys
As the Tiger eased

By but a Crumb of Blood, fasts Scarlet
Till he meet a Man
Dainty adorned with Veins and Tissues
And partakes — his Tongue

Cooled by the Morsel for a moment
Grows a fiercer thing
Till he esteem his Dates and Cocoa
A Nutrition mean

I, of a finer Famine
Deem my Supper dry
For but a Berry of Domingo
And a Torrid

As we pass Houses musing slow
If they be occupied
So minds pass minds
If they be occupied
-Emily Dickinson

As willing lid o’er weary eye
The Evening on the Day leans
Till of all our nature’s House
Remains but Balcony
-Emily Dickinson

Ashes denote that Fire was —
Revere the Grayest Pile
For the Departed Creature’s sake
That hovered there awhile —

Fire exists the first in light
And then consolidates
Only the Chemist can disclose
Into what Carbonates.
-Emily Dickinson

At Half past Three, a single Bird
Unto a silent Sky
Propounded but a single term
Of cautious melody.

At Half past Four, Experiment
Had subjugated test
And lo, Her silver Principle
Supplanted all the rest.

At Half past Seven, Element
Nor Implement, be seen —
And Place was where the Presence was
Circumference between.
-Emily Dickinson

At last, to be identified!
At last, the lamps upon thy side
The rest of Life to see!

Past Midnight! Past the Morning Star!
Past Sunrise!
Ah, What leagues there were
Between our feet, and Day!
-Emily Dickinson

At least — to pray — is left — is left —
Oh Jesus — in the Air —
I know not which thy chamber is —
I’m knocking — everywhere —

Thou settest Earthquake in the South —
And Maelstrom, in the Sea —
Say, Jesus Christ of Nazareth —
Hast thou no Arm for Me?
-Emily Dickinson