Emily Dickinson

“Red Sea,” indeed! Talk not to me
Of purple Pharaoh —
I have a Navy in the West
Would pierce his Columns thro’ —
Guileless, yet of such Glory fine
That all along the Line
Is it, or is it not, divine —
The Eye inquires with a sigh
That Earth sh’d be so big —
What Exultation in the Woe —
What Wine in the fatigue!

Read — Sweet — how others — strove —
Till we — are stouter —
What they — renounced —
Till we — are less afraid —
How many times they — bore the faithful witness —
Till we — are helped —
As if a Kingdom — cared!

Read then — of faith —
That shone above the fagot —
Clear strains of Hymn
The River could not drown —
Brave names of Men —
And Celestial Women —
Passed out

Rearrange a “Wife’s” affection!
When they dislocate my Brain!
Amputate my freckled Bosom!
Make me bearded like a man!

Blush, my spirit, in thy Fastness —
Blush, my unacknowledged clay —
Seven years of troth have taught thee
More than Wifehood every may!

Love that never leaped its socket —
Trust entrenched in narrow pain —
Constancy thro’ fire — awarded —
Anguish — bare of anodyne!

Burden — borne so far triumphant —
None suspect me of the crown,
For I

Recollect the Face of me
When in thy Felicity,
Due in Paradise today
Guest of mine assuredly —

Other Courtesies have been —
Other Courtesy may be —
We commend ourselves to thee
Paragon of Chivalry.
-Emily Dickinson

Rehearsal to Ourselves
Of a Withdrawn Delight —
Affords a Bliss like Murder —
Omnipotent — Acute —

We will not drop the Dirk —
Because We love the Wound
The Dirk Commemorate — Itself
Remind Us that we died.
-Emily Dickinson

Remembrance has a Rear and Front —
‘Tis something like a House —
It has a Garret also
For Refuse and the Mouse.

Besides the deepest Cellar
That ever Mason laid —
Look to it by its Fathoms
Ourselves be not pursued —
-Emily Dickinson

Remorse — is Memory — awake —
Her Parties all astir —
A Presence of Departed Acts —
At window — and at Door —

Its Past — set down before the Soul
And lighted with a Match —
Perusal — to facilitate —
And help Belief to stretch —

Remorse is cureless — the Disease
Not even God — can heal —
For ’tis His institution — and
The Adequate of Hell —

Removed from Accident of Loss
By Accident of Gain
Befalling not my simple Days —
Myself had just to earn —

Of Riches — as unconscious
As is the Brown Malay
Of Pearls in Eastern Waters,
Marked His — What Holiday
Would stir his slow conception —
Had he the power to dream
That put the Dower’s fraction —
Awaited even — Him —
-Emily Dickinson

Renunciation — is a piercing Virtue —
The letting go
A Presence — for an Expectation —
Not now —
The putting out of Eyes —
Just Sunrise —
Lest Day —
Day’s Great Progenitor —
Outvie
Renunciation — is the Choosing
Against itself —
Itself to justify
Unto itself —
When larger function —
Make that appear —
Smaller — that Covered Vision — Here —
-Emily Dickinson

Reportless Subjects, to the Quick
Continual addressed —
But foreign as the Dialect
Of Danes, unto the rest.

Reportless Measures, to the Ear
Susceptive — stimulus —
But like an Oriental Tale
To others, fabulous —
-Emily Dickinson

Rest at Night
The Sun from shining,
Nature — and some Men —
Rest at Noon — some Men —
While Nature
And the Sun — go on —
-Emily Dickinson

Reverse cannot befall
That fine Prosperity
Whose Sources are interior —
As soon — Adversity

A Diamond — overtake
In far — Bolivian Ground —
Misfortune hath no implement
Could mar it — if it found —
-Emily Dickinson

Revolution is the Pod
Systems rattle from
When the Winds of Will are stirred
Excellent is Bloom

But except its Russet Base
Every Summer be
The Entomber of itself,
So of Liberty —

Left inactive on the Stalk
All its Purple fled
Revolution shakes it for
Test if it be dead.
-Emily Dickinson

Ribbons of the Year —
Multitude Brocade —
Worn to Nature’s Party once

Then, as flung aside
As a faded Bead
Or a Wrinkled Pearl
Who shall charge the Vanity
Of the Maker’s Girl?
-Emily Dickinson

Risk is the Hair that holds the Tun
Seductive in the Air —
That Tun is hollow — but the Tun —
With Hundred Weights — to spare —

Too ponderous to suspect the snare
Espies that fickle chair
And seats itself to be let go
By that perfidious Hair —

The “foolish Tun” the Critics say —
While that delusive Hair
Persuasive as Perdition,
Decoys its Traveller.

Robbed by Death — but that was easy —
To the failing Eye
I could hold the latest Glowing —
Robbed by Liberty

For Her Jugular Defences —
This, too, I endured —
Hint of Glory — it afforded —
For the Brave Beloved —

Fraud of Distance — Fraud of Danger,
Fraud of Death — to bear —
It is Bounty — to Suspense’s
Vague Calamity —

Stalking our entire Possession
On a Hair’s result —
Then — seesawing — coolly —

Safe Despair it is that raves —
Agony is frugal.
Puts itself severe away
For its own perusal.

Garrisoned no Soul can be
In the Front of Trouble —
Love is one, not aggregate —
Nor is Dying double —
-Emily Dickinson

Safe in their Alabaster Chambers —
Untouched my Morning
And untouched by Noon —
Sleep the meek members of the Resurrection —
Rafter of satin,
And Roof of stone.

Light laughs the breeze
In her Castle above them —
Babbles the Bee in a stolid Ear,
Pipe the Sweet Birds in ignorant cadence —
Ah, what sagacity perished here!
-Emily Dickinson

Said Death to Passion
“Give of thine an Acre unto me.”
Said Passion, through contracting Breaths
“A Thousand Times Thee Nay.”

Bore Death from Passion
All His East
He — sovereign as the Sun
Resituated in the West
And the Debate was done.
-Emily Dickinson

Sang from the Heart, Sire,
Dipped my Beak in it,
If the Tune drip too much
Have a tint too Red

Pardon the Cochineal —
Suffer the Vermillion —
Death is the Wealth
Of the Poorest Bird.

Bear with the Ballad —
Awkward — faltering —
Death twists the strings —
‘Twasn’t my blame —

Pause in your Liturgies —
Wait your Chorals —
While I repeat your
Hallowed name —

Satisfaction — is the Agent
Of Satiety —
Want — a quiet Commissary
For Infinity.

To possess, is past the instant
We achieve the Joy —
Immortality contented
Were Anomaly.
-Emily Dickinson

Savior! I’ve no one else to tell —
And so I trouble thee.
I am the one forgot thee so —
Dost thou remember me?
Nor, for myself, I came so far —
That were the little load —
I brought thee the imperial Heart
I had not strength to hold —
The Heart I carried in my own —
Till mine too heavy grew —
Yet — strangest — heavier since it went —
Is it too large for

September’s Baccalaureate
A combination is
Of Crickets — Crows — and Retrospects
And a dissembling Breeze

That hints without assuming —
An Innuendo sear
That makes the Heart put up its Fun
And turn Philosopher.
-Emily Dickinson

Severer Service of myself
I — hastened to demand
To fill the awful Vacuum
Your life had left behind —

I worried Nature with my Wheels
When Hers had ceased to run —
When she had put away Her Work
My own had just begun.

I strove to weary Brain and Bone —
To harass to fatigue
The glittering Retinue of nerves —
Vitality to clog

To some dull comfort Those obtain
Who put a Head away
They knew the Hair to —
And

Sexton! My Master’s sleeping here.
Pray lead me to his bed!
I came to build the Bird’s nest,
And sow the Early seed –

That when the snow creeps slowly
From off his chamber door –
Daisies point the way there –
And the Troubadour.
-Emily Dickinson