Quotes by Emily Dickinson

And so I always bear the cup If, haply, mine may be the drop Some pilgrim thirst to slake, -- If, haply, any say to me, "Unto the little, unto me," When I at last awake. III. The nearest dream recedes, unrealized. The heaven we chase Like the June bee Before the school-boy Invites the race; Stoops to an easy clover -- Dips -- evades -- teases -- deploys; Then to the royal clouds Lifts his light pinnace Heedless of the boy Staring, bewildered, at the mocking sky. Homesick for steadfast honey, Ah! the bee flies not That brews that rare variety. IV. We play at paste, Till qualified for pearl, Then drop the paste, And deem ourself a fool. The shapes, though, were similar, And our new hands Learned gem-tactics Practising sands. V. I found the phrase to every thought I ever had, but one; And that defies me, -- as a hand Did try to chalk the sun To races nurtured in the dark; -- How would your own begin? Can blaze be done in cochineal, Or noon in mazarin? VI. HOPE. Hope is the thing with feathers That perches in the soul, And sings the tune without the words, And never stops at all, And sweetest in the gale is heard; And sore must be the storm That could abash the little bird That kept so many warm. I 've heard it in the chillest land, And on the strangest sea; Yet, never, in extremity, It asked a crumb of me. VII. THE WHITE HEAT. Dare you see a soul at the white heat? Then crouch within the door. Red is the fire's common tint; But when the vivid ore Has sated flame's conditions, Its quivering substance plays Without a color but the light Of unanointed blaze. Least village boasts its blacksmith, Whose anvil's even din Stands symbol for the finer forge That soundless tugs within, Refining these impatient ores With hammer and with blaze, Until the designated light Repudiate the forge. VIII. TRIUMPHANT. Who never lost, are unprepared A coronet to find; Who never thirsted, flagons And cooling tamarind. Who never climbed the weary league -- Can such a foot explore The purple territories On Pizarro's shore?

Had there been no sharp subtraction From the early sum, Not an acre or a caption Where was once a room, Not a mention, whose small pebble Wrinkled any bay, -- Unto such, were such assembly, 'T were Thanksgiving day. LV. CHILDISH GRIEFS. Softened by Time's consummate plush, How sleek the woe appears That threatened childhood's citadel And undermined the years! Bisected now by bleaker griefs, We envy the despair That devastated childhood's realm, So easy to repair. II. LOVE. I. CONSECRATION. Proud of my broken heart since thou didst break it, Proud of the pain I did not feel till thee, Proud of my night since thou with moons dost slake it, Not to partake thy passion, my humility. II. LOVE'S HUMILITY. My worthiness is all my doubt, His merit all my fear, Contrasting which, my qualities Do lowlier appear; Lest I should insufficient prove For his beloved need, The chiefest apprehension Within my loving creed. So I, the undivine abode Of his elect content, Conform my soul as 't were a church Unto her sacrament. III. LOVE. Love is anterior to life, Posterior to death, Initial of creation, and The exponent of breath. IV. SATISFIED. One blessing had I, than the rest So larger to my eyes That I stopped gauging, satisfied, For this enchanted size. It was the limit of my dream, The focus of my prayer, -- A perfect, paralyzing bliss Contented as despair. I knew no more of want or cold, Phantasms both become, For this new value in the soul, Supremest earthly sum. The heaven below the heaven above Obscured with ruddier hue. Life's latitude leant over-full; The judgment perished, too. Why joys so scantily disburse, Why Paradise defer, Why floods are served to us in bowls, -- I speculate no more. V. WITH A FLOWER. When roses cease to bloom, dear, And violets are done, When bumble-bees in solemn flight Have passed beyond the sun, The hand that paused to gather Upon this summer's day Will idle lie, in Auburn, -- Then take my flower, pray! VI. SONG. Summer for thee grant I may be When summer days are flown!

Hesitated so This side the victory! Life is but life, and death but death! Bliss is but bliss, and breath but breath! And if, indeed, I fail, At least to know the worst is sweet. Defeat means nothing but defeat, No drearier can prevail! And if I gain, -- oh, gun at sea, Oh, bells that in the steeples be, At first repeat it slow! For heaven is a different thing Conjectured, and waked sudden in, And might o'erwhelm me so! V. Glee! The great storm is over! Four have recovered the land; Forty gone down together Into the boiling sand. Ring, for the scant salvation! Toll, for the bonnie souls, -- Neighbor and friend and bridegroom, Spinning upon the shoals! How they will tell the shipwreck When winter shakes the door, Till the children ask, "But the forty? Did they come back no more?" Then a silence suffuses the story, And a softness the teller's eye; And the children no further question, And only the waves reply. VI. 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. VII. ALMOST! Within my reach! I could have touched! I might have chanced that way! Soft sauntered through the village, Sauntered as soft away! So unsuspected violets Within the fields lie low, Too late for striving fingers That passed, an hour ago. VIII. A wounded deer leaps highest, I've heard the hunter tell; 'T is but the ecstasy of death, And then the brake is still. The smitten rock that gushes, The trampled steel that springs; A cheek is always redder Just where the hectic stings! Mirth is the mail of anguish, In which it cautions arm, Lest anybody spy the blood And "You're hurt" exclaim! IX. The heart asks pleasure first, And then, excuse from pain; And then, those little anodynes That deaden suffering; And then, to go to sleep; And then, if it should be The will of its Inquisitor, The liberty to die.

Her life was the normal blossoming of a nature introspective to a high degree, whose best thought could not exist in pretence. Storm, wind, the wild March sky, sunsets and dawns; the birds and bees, butterflies and flowers of her garden, with a few trusted human friends, were sufficient companionship. The coming of the first robin was a jubilee beyond crowning of monarch or birthday of pope; the first red leaf hurrying through "the altered air," an epoch. Immortality was close about her; and while never morbid or melancholy, she lived in its presence. MABEL LOOMIS TODD. AMHERST, MASSACHUSETTS, August, 1891. My nosegays are for captives; Dim, long-expectant eyes, Fingers denied the plucking, Patient till paradise, To such, if they should whisper Of morning and the moor, They bear no other errand, And I, no other prayer. I. LIFE. I. I'm nobody! Who are you? Are you nobody, too? Then there 's a pair of us -- don't tell! They 'd banish us, you know. How dreary to be somebody! How public, like a frog To tell your name the livelong day To an admiring bog! II. I bring an unaccustomed wine To lips long parching, next to mine, And summon them to drink. Crackling with fever, they essay; I turn my brimming eyes away, And come next hour to look. The hands still hug the tardy glass; The lips I would have cooled, alas! Are so superfluous cold, I would as soon attempt to warm The bosoms where the frost has lain Ages beneath the mould. Some other thirsty there may be To whom this would have pointed me Had it remained to speak. And so I always bear the cup If, haply, mine may be the drop Some pilgrim thirst to slake, -- If, haply, any say to me, "Unto the little, unto me," When I at last awake. III. The nearest dream recedes, unrealized. The heaven we chase Like the June bee Before the school-boy Invites the race; Stoops to an easy clover -- Dips -- evades -- teases -- deploys; Then to the royal clouds Lifts his light pinnace Heedless of the boy Staring, bewildered, at the mocking sky.

T were odd I fear a thing That comprehendeth me In one or more existences At Deity's decree. Of resurrection? Is the east Afraid to trust the morn With her fastidious forehead? As soon impeach my crown! XXV. DYING. The sun kept setting, setting still; No hue of afternoon Upon the village I perceived, -- From house to house 't was noon. The dusk kept dropping, dropping still; No dew upon the grass, But only on my forehead stopped, And wandered in my face. My feet kept drowsing, drowsing still, My fingers were awake; Yet why so little sound myself Unto my seeming make? How well I knew the light before! I could not see it now. 'T is dying, I am doing; but I'm not afraid to know. XXVI. Two swimmers wrestled on the spar Until the morning sun, When one turned smiling to the land. O God, the other one! The stray ships passing spied a face Upon the waters borne, With eyes in death still begging raised, And hands beseeching thrown. XXVII. THE CHARIOT. Because I could not stop for Death, He kindly stopped for me; The carriage held but just ourselves And Immortality. We slowly drove, he knew no haste, And I had put away My labor, and my leisure too, For his civility. We passed the school where children played, Their lessons scarcely done; We passed the fields of gazing grain, We passed the setting sun. We paused before a house that seemed A swelling of the ground; The roof was scarcely visible, The cornice but a mound. Since then 't is centuries; but each Feels shorter than the day I first surmised the horses' heads Were toward eternity. XXVIII. She went as quiet as the dew From a familiar flower. Not like the dew did she return At the accustomed hour! She dropt as softly as a star From out my summer's eve; Less skilful than Leverrier It's sorer to believe! XXIX. RESURGAM. 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 are Between our feet and day! XXX.

sailors say, on yesterday, Just as the dusk was brown, One little boat gave up its strife, And gurgled down and down. But angels say, on yesterday, Just as the dawn was red, One little boat o'erspent with gales Retrimmed its masts, redecked its sails Exultant, onward sped! XLVIII. There's been a death in the opposite house As lately as to-day. I know it by the numb look Such houses have alway. The neighbors rustle in and out, The doctor drives away. A window opens like a pod, Abrupt, mechanically; Somebody flings a mattress out, -- The children hurry by; They wonder if It died on that, -- I used to when a boy. The minister goes stiffly in As if the house were his, And he owned all the mourners now, And little boys besides; And then the milliner, and the man Of the appalling trade, To take the measure of the house. There'll be that dark parade Of tassels and of coaches soon; It's easy as a sign, -- The intuition of the news In just a country town. XLIX. We never know we go, -- when we are going We jest and shut the door; Fate following behind us bolts it, And we accost no more. L. THE SOUL'S STORM. It struck me every day The lightning was as new As if the cloud that instant slit And let the fire through. It burned me in the night, It blistered in my dream; It sickened fresh upon my sight With every morning's beam. I thought that storm was brief, -- The maddest, quickest by; But Nature lost the date of this, And left it in the sky. LI. Water is taught by thirst; Land, by the oceans passed; Transport, by throe; Peace, by its battles told; Love, by memorial mould; Birds, by the snow. LII. THIRST. We thirst at first, -- 't is Nature's act; And later, when we die, A little water supplicate Of fingers going by. It intimates the finer want, Whose adequate supply Is that great water in the west Termed immortality. LIII. A clock stopped -- not the mantel's; Geneva's farthest skill Can't put the puppet bowing That just now dangled still. An awe came on the trinket!

How still the bells in steeples stand, Till, swollen with the sky, They leap upon their silver feet In frantic melody! XI. If the foolish call them 'flowers,' Need the wiser tell? If the savans 'classify' them, It is just as well! Those who read the Revelations Must not criticise Those who read the same edition With beclouded eyes! Could we stand with that old Moses Canaan denied, -- Scan, like him, the stately landscape On the other side, -- Doubtless we should deem superfluous Many sciences Not pursued by learnèd angels In scholastic skies! Low amid that glad _Belles lettres_ Grant that we may stand, Stars, amid profound Galaxies, At that grand 'Right hand'! XII. A SYLLABLE. Could mortal lip divine The undeveloped freight Of a delivered syllable, 'T would crumble with the weight. XIII. PARTING. My life closed twice before its close; It yet remains to see If Immortality unveil A third event to me, So huge, so hopeless to conceive, As these that twice befell. Parting is all we know of heaven, And all we need of hell. XIV. ASPIRATION. We never know how high we are Till we are called to rise; And then, if we are true to plan, Our statures touch the skies. The heroism we recite Would be a daily thing, Did not ourselves the cubits warp For fear to be a king. XV. THE INEVITABLE. While I was fearing it, it came, But came with less of fear, Because that fearing it so long Had almost made it dear. There is a fitting a dismay, A fitting a despair. 'Tis harder knowing it is due, Than knowing it is here. The trying on the utmost, The morning it is new, Is terribler than wearing it A whole existence through. XVI. A BOOK. There is no frigate like a book To take us lands away, Nor any coursers like a page Of prancing poetry. This traverse may the poorest take Without oppress of toll; How frugal is the chariot That bears a human soul! XVII. Who has not found the heaven below Will fail of it above.

a silence suffuses the story, And a softness the teller's eye; And the children no further question, And only the waves reply. VI. 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. VII. ALMOST! Within my reach! I could have touched! I might have chanced that way! Soft sauntered through the village, Sauntered as soft away! So unsuspected violets Within the fields lie low, Too late for striving fingers That passed, an hour ago. VIII. A wounded deer leaps highest, I've heard the hunter tell; 'T is but the ecstasy of death, And then the brake is still. The smitten rock that gushes, The trampled steel that springs; A cheek is always redder Just where the hectic stings! Mirth is the mail of anguish, In which it cautions arm, Lest anybody spy the blood And "You're hurt" exclaim! IX. The heart asks pleasure first, And then, excuse from pain; And then, those little anodynes That deaden suffering; And then, to go to sleep; And then, if it should be The will of its Inquisitor, The liberty to die. X. IN A LIBRARY. A precious, mouldering pleasure 't is To meet an antique book, In just the dress his century wore; A privilege, I think, His venerable hand to take, And warming in our own, A passage back, or two, to make To times when he was young. His quaint opinions to inspect, His knowledge to unfold On what concerns our mutual mind, The literature of old; What interested scholars most, What competitions ran When Plato was a certainty. And Sophocles a man; When Sappho was a living girl, And Beatrice wore The gown that Dante deified. Facts, centuries before, He traverses familiar, As one should come to town And tell you all your dreams were true; He lived where dreams were sown. His presence is enchantment, You beg him not to go; Old volumes shake their vellum heads And tantalize, just so. XI.

you leave Nature well? Oh, March, come right upstairs with me, I have so much to tell! I got your letter, and the birds'; The maples never knew That you were coming, -- I declare, How red their faces grew! But, March, forgive me -- And all those hills You left for me to hue; There was no purple suitable, You took it all with you. Who knocks? That April! Lock the door! I will not be pursued! He stayed away a year, to call When I am occupied. But trifles look so trivial As soon as you have come, That blame is just as dear as praise And praise as mere as blame. VI. MARCH. We like March, his shoes are purple, He is new and high; Makes he mud for dog and peddler, Makes he forest dry; Knows the adder's tongue his coming, And begets her spot. Stands the sun so close and mighty That our minds are hot. News is he of all the others; Bold it were to die With the blue-birds buccaneering On his British sky. VII. DAWN. Not knowing when the dawn will come I open every door; Or has it feathers like a bird, Or billows like a shore? VIII. A murmur in the trees to note, Not loud enough for wind; A star not far enough to seek, Nor near enough to find; A long, long yellow on the lawn, A hubbub as of feet; Not audible, as ours to us, But dapperer, more sweet; A hurrying home of little men To houses unperceived, -- All this, and more, if I should tell, Would never be believed. Of robins in the trundle bed How many I espy Whose nightgowns could not hide the wings, Although I heard them try! But then I promised ne'er to tell; How could I break my word? So go your way and I'll go mine, -- No fear you'll miss the road. IX. Morning is the place for dew, Corn is made at noon, After dinner light for flowers, Dukes for setting sun! X. To my quick ear the leaves conferred; The bushes they were bells; I could not find a privacy From Nature's sentinels. In cave if I presumed to hide, The walls began to tell; Creation seemed a mighty crack To make me visible.

'T is little I could care for pearls Who own the ample sea; Or brooches, when the Emperor With rubies pelteth me; Or gold, who am the Prince of Mines; Or diamonds, when I see A diadem to fit a dome Continual crowning me. II. SUPERIORITY TO FATE. Superiority to fate Is difficult to learn. 'T is not conferred by any, But possible to earn A pittance at a time, Until, to her surprise, The soul with strict economy Subsists till Paradise. III. HOPE. Hope is a subtle glutton; He feeds upon the fair; And yet, inspected closely, What abstinence is there! His is the halcyon table That never seats but one, And whatsoever is consumed The same amounts remain. IV. FORBIDDEN FRUIT. I. Forbidden fruit a flavor has That lawful orchards mocks; How luscious lies the pea within The pod that Duty locks! V. FORBIDDEN FRUIT. II. Heaven is what I cannot reach! The apple on the tree, Provided it do hopeless hang, That 'heaven' is, to me. The color on the cruising cloud, The interdicted ground Behind the hill, the house behind, -- There Paradise is found! VI. A WORD. A word is dead When it is said, Some say. I say it just Begins to live That day. VII. To venerate the simple days Which lead the seasons by, Needs but to remember That from you or me They may take the trifle Termed mortality! To invest existence with a stately air, Needs but to remember That the acorn there Is the egg of forests For the upper air! VIII. LIFE'S TRADES. It's such a little thing to weep, So short a thing to sigh; And yet by trades the size of these We men and women die! IX. Drowning is not so pitiful As the attempt to rise. Three times, 't is said, a sinking man Comes up to face the skies, And then declines forever To that abhorred abode Where hope and he part company, -- For he is grasped of God. The Maker's cordial visage, However good to see, Is shunned, we must admit it, Like an adversity. X. How still the bells in steeples stand, Till, swollen with the sky, They leap upon their silver feet In frantic melody! XI.

And so, when all the time had leaked, Without external sound, Each bound the other's Crucifix - We gave no other bond - Sufficient troth - that we shall _rise_, Deposed - at length the Grave - To that new marriage - _Justified_ - through Calvaries - of Love! From the handwriting, it is not always clear which are dashes, which are commas and which are periods, nor it is entirely clear which initial letters are capitalized. However, this transcription may be compared with the edited version in the main text to get a flavor of the changes made in these early editions. ---JT This is my letter to the world, That never wrote to me, -- The simple news that Nature told, With tender majesty. Her message is committed To hands I cannot see; For love of her, sweet countrymen, Judge tenderly of me! I. LIFE. I. SUCCESS. [Published in "A Masque of Poets" at the request of "H.H.," the author's fellow-townswoman and friend.] Success is counted sweetest By those who ne'er succeed. To comprehend a nectar Requires sorest need. Not one of all the purple host Who took the flag to-day Can tell the definition, So clear, of victory, As he, defeated, dying, On whose forbidden ear The distant strains of triumph Break, agonized and clear! II. Our share of night to bear, Our share of morning, Our blank in bliss to fill, Our blank in scorning. Here a star, and there a star, Some lose their way. Here a mist, and there a mist, Afterwards -- day! III. ROUGE ET NOIR. Soul, wilt thou toss again? By just such a hazard Hundreds have lost, indeed, But tens have won an all. Angels' breathless ballot Lingers to record thee; Imps in eager caucus Raffle for my soul. IV. ROUGE GAGNE. 'T is so much joy! 'T is so much joy! If I should fail, what poverty! And yet, as poor as I Have ventured all upon a throw; Have gained! Yes! Hesitated so This side the victory! Life is but life, and death but death!

A door just opened on a street -- I, lost, was passing by -- An instant's width of warmth disclosed, And wealth, and company. The door as sudden shut, and I, I, lost, was passing by, -- Lost doubly, but by contrast most, Enlightening misery. XXIX. FRIENDS. Are friends delight or pain? Could bounty but remain Riches were good. But if they only stay Bolder to fly away, Riches are sad. XXX. FIRE. Ashes denote that fire was; Respect 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. XXXI. A MAN. Fate slew him, but he did not drop; She felled -- he did not fall -- Impaled him on her fiercest stakes -- He neutralized them all. She stung him, sapped his firm advance, But, when her worst was done, And he, unmoved, regarded her, Acknowledged him a man. XXXII. VENTURES. Finite to fail, but infinite to venture. For the one ship that struts the shore Many's the gallant, overwhelmed creature Nodding in navies nevermore. XXXIII. GRIEFS. I measure every grief I meet With analytic eyes; I wonder if it weighs like mine, Or has an easier size. I wonder if they bore it long, Or did it just begin? I could not tell the date of mine, It feels so old a pain. I wonder if it hurts to live, And if they have to try, And whether, could they choose between, They would not rather die. I wonder if when years have piled -- Some thousands -- on the cause Of early hurt, if such a lapse Could give them any pause; Or would they go on aching still Through centuries above, Enlightened to a larger pain By contrast with the love. The grieved are many, I am told; The reason deeper lies, -- Death is but one and comes but once, And only nails the eyes. There's grief of want, and grief of cold, -- A sort they call 'despair;' There's banishment from native eyes, In sight of native air.

If I should die, And you should live, And time should gurgle on, And morn should beam, And noon should burn, As it has usual done; If birds should build as early, And bees as bustling go, -- One might depart at option From enterprise below! 'T is sweet to know that stocks will stand When we with daisies lie, That commerce will continue, And trades as briskly fly. It makes the parting tranquil And keeps the soul serene, That gentlemen so sprightly Conduct the pleasing scene! XXVIII. AT LENGTH. Her final summer was it, And yet we guessed it not; If tenderer industriousness Pervaded her, we thought A further force of life Developed from within, -- When Death lit all the shortness up, And made the hurry plain. We wondered at our blindness, -- When nothing was to see But her Carrara guide-post, -- At our stupidity, When, duller than our dulness, The busy darling lay, So busy was she, finishing, So leisurely were we! XXIX. GHOSTS. One need not be a chamber to be haunted, One need not be a house; The brain has corridors surpassing Material place. Far safer, of a midnight meeting External ghost, Than an interior confronting That whiter host. Far safer through an Abbey gallop, The stones achase, Than, moonless, one's own self encounter In lonesome place. Ourself, behind ourself concealed, Should startle most; Assassin, hid in our apartment, Be horror's least. The prudent carries a revolver, He bolts the door, O'erlooking a superior spectre More near. XXX. VANISHED. She died, -- this was the way she died; And when her breath was done, Took up her simple wardrobe And started for the sun. Her little figure at the gate The angels must have spied, Since I could never find her Upon the mortal side. XXXI. PRECEDENCE. Wait till the majesty of Death Invests so mean a brow! Almost a powdered footman Might dare to touch it now! Wait till in everlasting robes This democrat is dressed, Then prate about "preferment" And "station" and the rest! Around this quiet courtier Obsequious angels wait!

That short, potential stir That each can make but once, That bustle so illustrious 'T is almost consequence, Is the eclat of death. Oh, thou unknown renown That not a beggar would accept, Had he the power to spurn! XIV. I went to thank her, But she slept; Her bed a funnelled stone, With nosegays at the head and foot, That travellers had thrown, Who went to thank her; But she slept. 'T was short to cross the sea To look upon her like, alive, But turning back 't was slow. XV. 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, 'T were blessed to have seen. XVI. REFUGE. The clouds their backs together laid, The north begun to push, The forests galloped till they fell, The lightning skipped like mice; The thunder crumbled like a stuff -- How good to be safe in tombs, Where nature's temper cannot reach, Nor vengeance ever comes! XVII. I never saw a moor, I never saw the sea; Yet know I how the heather looks, And what a wave must be. I never spoke with God, Nor visited in heaven; Yet certain am I of the spot As if the chart were given. XVIII. PLAYMATES. God permits industrious angels Afternoons to play. I met one, -- forgot my school-mates, All, for him, straightway. God calls home the angels promptly At the setting sun; I missed mine. How dreary marbles, After playing Crown! XIX. To know just how he suffered would be dear; To know if any human eyes were near To whom he could intrust his wavering gaze, Until it settled firm on Paradise. To know if he was patient, part content, Was dying as he thought, or different; Was it a pleasant day to die, And did the sunshine face his way? What was his furthest mind, of home, or God, Or what the distant say At news that he ceased human nature On such a day? And wishes, had he any? Just his sigh, accented, Had been legible to me. And was he confident until Ill fluttered out in everlasting well? And if he spoke, what name was best, What first, What one broke off with At the drowsiest? Was he afraid, or tranquil?

friend, you little knew How long at that celestial wick The angels labored diligent; Extinguished, now, for you! It might have been the lighthouse spark Some sailor, rowing in the dark, Had importuned to see! It might have been the waning lamp That lit the drummer from the camp To purer reveille! XL. When I hoped I feared, Since I hoped I dared; Everywhere alone As a church remain; Spectre cannot harm, Serpent cannot charm; He deposes doom, Who hath suffered him. XLI. DEED. A deed knocks first at thought, And then it knocks at will. That is the manufacturing spot, And will at home and well. It then goes out an act, Or is entombed so still That only to the ear of God Its doom is audible. XLII. TIME'S LESSON. Mine enemy is growing old, -- I have at last revenge. The palate of the hate departs; If any would avenge, -- Let him be quick, the viand flits, It is a faded meat. Anger as soon as fed is dead; 'T is starving makes it fat. XLIII. REMORSE. Remorse is memory awake, Her companies astir, -- A presence of departed acts At window and at door. It's past set down before the soul, And lighted with a match, Perusal to facilitate Of its condensed despatch. Remorse is cureless, -- the disease Not even God can heal; For 't is his institution, -- The complement of hell. XLIV. THE SHELTER. The body grows outside, -- The more convenient way, -- That if the spirit like to hide, Its temple stands alway Ajar, secure, inviting; It never did betray The soul that asked its shelter In timid honesty. XLV. Undue significance a starving man attaches To food Far off; he sighs, and therefore hopeless, And therefore good. Partaken, it relieves indeed, but proves us That spices fly In the receipt. It was the distance Was savory. XLVI. Heart not so heavy as mine, Wending late home, As it passed my window Whistled itself a tune, -- A careless snatch, a ballad, A ditty of the street; Yet to my irritated ear An anodyne so sweet, It was as if a bobolink, Sauntering this way, Carolled and mused and carolled, Then bubbled slow away.

The heart asks pleasure first, And then, excuse from pain; And then, those little anodynes That deaden suffering; And then, to go to sleep; And then, if it should be The will of its Inquisitor, The liberty to die. X. IN A LIBRARY. A precious, mouldering pleasure 't is To meet an antique book, In just the dress his century wore; A privilege, I think, His venerable hand to take, And warming in our own, A passage back, or two, to make To times when he was young. His quaint opinions to inspect, His knowledge to unfold On what concerns our mutual mind, The literature of old; What interested scholars most, What competitions ran When Plato was a certainty. And Sophocles a man; When Sappho was a living girl, And Beatrice wore The gown that Dante deified. Facts, centuries before, He traverses familiar, As one should come to town And tell you all your dreams were true; He lived where dreams were sown. His presence is enchantment, You beg him not to go; Old volumes shake their vellum heads And tantalize, just so. XI. Much madness is divinest sense To a discerning eye; Much sense the starkest madness. 'T is the majority In this, as all, prevails. Assent, and you are sane; Demur, -- you're straightway dangerous, And handled with a chain. XII. I asked no other thing, No other was denied. I offered Being for it; The mighty merchant smiled. Brazil? He twirled a button, Without a glance my way: "But, madam, is there nothing else That we can show to-day?" XIII. EXCLUSION. The soul selects her own society, Then shuts the door; On her divine majority Obtrude no more. Unmoved, she notes the chariot's pausing At her low gate; Unmoved, an emperor is kneeling Upon her mat. I've known her from an ample nation Choose one; Then close the valves of her attention Like stone. XIV. THE SECRET. Some things that fly there be, -- Birds, hours, the bumble-bee: Of these no elegy. Some things that stay there be, -- Grief, hills, eternity: Nor this behooveth me. There are, that resting, rise. Can I expound the skies?

Hesitated so This side the victory! Life is but life, and death but death! Bliss is but bliss, and breath but breath! And if, indeed, I fail, At least to know the worst is sweet. Defeat means nothing but defeat, No drearier can prevail! And if I gain, -- oh, gun at sea, Oh, bells that in the steeples be, At first repeat it slow! For heaven is a different thing Conjectured, and waked sudden in, And might o'erwhelm me so! V. Glee! The great storm is over! Four have recovered the land; Forty gone down together Into the boiling sand. Ring, for the scant salvation! Toll, for the bonnie souls, -- Neighbor and friend and bridegroom, Spinning upon the shoals! How they will tell the shipwreck When winter shakes the door, Till the children ask, "But the forty? Did they come back no more?" Then a silence suffuses the story, And a softness the teller's eye; And the children no further question, And only the waves reply. VI. 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. VII. ALMOST! Within my reach! I could have touched! I might have chanced that way! Soft sauntered through the village, Sauntered as soft away! So unsuspected violets Within the fields lie low, Too late for striving fingers That passed, an hour ago. VIII. A wounded deer leaps highest, I've heard the hunter tell; 'T is but the ecstasy of death, And then the brake is still. The smitten rock that gushes, The trampled steel that springs; A cheek is always redder Just where the hectic stings! Mirth is the mail of anguish, In which it cautions arm, Lest anybody spy the blood And "You're hurt" exclaim! IX. The heart asks pleasure first, And then, excuse from pain; And then, those little anodynes That deaden suffering; And then, to go to sleep; And then, if it should be The will of its Inquisitor, The liberty to die.

If you were coming in the fall, I'd brush the summer by With half a smile and half a spurn, As housewives do a fly. If I could see you in a year, I'd wind the months in balls, And put them each in separate drawers, Until their time befalls. If only centuries delayed, I'd count them on my hand, Subtracting till my fingers dropped Into Van Diemen's land. If certain, when this life was out, That yours and mine should be, I'd toss it yonder like a rind, And taste eternity. But now, all ignorant of the length Of time's uncertain wing, It goads me, like the goblin bee, That will not state its sting. VII. WITH A FLOWER. I hide myself within my flower, That wearing on your breast, You, unsuspecting, wear me too -- And angels know the rest. I hide myself within my flower, That, fading from your vase, You, unsuspecting, feel for me Almost a loneliness. VIII. PROOF. That I did always love, I bring thee proof: That till I loved I did not love enough. That I shall love alway, I offer thee That love is life, And life hath immortality. This, dost thou doubt, sweet? Then have I Nothing to show But Calvary. IX. Have you got a brook in your little heart, Where bashful flowers blow, And blushing birds go down to drink, And shadows tremble so? And nobody knows, so still it flows, That any brook is there; And yet your little draught of life Is daily drunken there. Then look out for the little brook in March, When the rivers overflow, And the snows come hurrying from the hills, And the bridges often go. And later, in August it may be, When the meadows parching lie, Beware, lest this little brook of life Some burning noon go dry! X. TRANSPLANTED. 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!

Vanquished, my soul will know, By but a simple arrow Sped by an archer's bow. XII. THE MASTER. He fumbles at your spirit As players at the keys Before they drop full music on; He stuns you by degrees, Prepares your brittle substance For the ethereal blow, By fainter hammers, further heard, Then nearer, then so slow Your breath has time to straighten, Your brain to bubble cool, -- Deals one imperial thunderbolt That scalps your naked soul. XIII. Heart, we will forget him! You and I, to-night! You may forget the warmth he gave, I will forget the light. When you have done, pray tell me, That I my thoughts may dim; Haste! lest while you're lagging, I may remember him! XIV. Father, I bring thee not myself, -- That were the little load; I bring thee the imperial heart I had not strength to hold. The heart I cherished in my own Till mine too heavy grew, Yet strangest, heavier since it went, Is it too large for you? XV. We outgrow love like other things And put it in the drawer, Till it an antique fashion shows Like costumes grandsires wore. XVI. Not with a club the heart is broken, Nor with a stone; A whip, so small you could not see it. I've known To lash the magic creature Till it fell, Yet that whip's name too noble Then to tell. Magnanimous of bird By boy descried, To sing unto the stone Of which it died. XVII. WHO? My friend must be a bird, Because it flies! Mortal my friend must be, Because it dies! Barbs has it, like a bee. Ah, curious friend, Thou puzzlest me! XVIII. He touched me, so I live to know That such a day, permitted so, I groped upon his breast. It was a boundless place to me, And silenced, as the awful sea Puts minor streams to rest. And now, I'm different from before, As if I breathed superior air, Or brushed a royal gown; My feet, too, that had wandered so, My gypsy face transfigured now To tenderer renown. XIX. DREAMS. Let me not mar that perfect dream By an auroral stain, But so adjust my daily night That it will come again.

And so I always bear the cup If, haply, mine may be the drop Some pilgrim thirst to slake, -- If, haply, any say to me, "Unto the little, unto me," When I at last awake. III. The nearest dream recedes, unrealized. The heaven we chase Like the June bee Before the school-boy Invites the race; Stoops to an easy clover -- Dips -- evades -- teases -- deploys; Then to the royal clouds Lifts his light pinnace Heedless of the boy Staring, bewildered, at the mocking sky. Homesick for steadfast honey, Ah! the bee flies not That brews that rare variety. IV. We play at paste, Till qualified for pearl, Then drop the paste, And deem ourself a fool. The shapes, though, were similar, And our new hands Learned gem-tactics Practising sands. V. I found the phrase to every thought I ever had, but one; And that defies me, -- as a hand Did try to chalk the sun To races nurtured in the dark; -- How would your own begin? Can blaze be done in cochineal, Or noon in mazarin? VI. HOPE. Hope is the thing with feathers That perches in the soul, And sings the tune without the words, And never stops at all, And sweetest in the gale is heard; And sore must be the storm That could abash the little bird That kept so many warm. I 've heard it in the chillest land, And on the strangest sea; Yet, never, in extremity, It asked a crumb of me. VII. THE WHITE HEAT. Dare you see a soul at the white heat? Then crouch within the door. Red is the fire's common tint; But when the vivid ore Has sated flame's conditions, Its quivering substance plays Without a color but the light Of unanointed blaze. Least village boasts its blacksmith, Whose anvil's even din Stands symbol for the finer forge That soundless tugs within, Refining these impatient ores With hammer and with blaze, Until the designated light Repudiate the forge. VIII. TRIUMPHANT. Who never lost, are unprepared A coronet to find; Who never thirsted, flagons And cooling tamarind. Who never climbed the weary league -- Can such a foot explore The purple territories On Pizarro's shore?