Emily Dickinson

Till Death — is narrow Loving —
The scantest Heart extant
Will hold you till your privilege
Of Finiteness — be spent —

But He whose loss procures you
Such Destitution that
Your Life too abject for itself
Thenceforward imitate —

Until — Resemblance perfect —
Yourself, for His pursuit
Delight of Nature — abdicate —
Exhibit Love — somewhat —

-Emily Dickinson

Time does go on —
I tell it gay to those who suffer now —
They shall survive —
There is a sun —
They don’t believe it now —
-Emily Dickinson

Time feels so vast that were it not
For an Eternity —
I fear me this Circumference
Engross my Finity —

To His exclusion, who prepare
By Processes of Size
For the Stupendous Vision
Of his diameters —
-Emily Dickinson

Time’s wily Chargers will not wait
At any Gate but Woe’s —
But there — so gloat to hesitate
They will not stir for blows —
-Emily Dickinson

Title divine — is mine!
The Wife — without the Sign!
Acute Degree — conferred on me —
Empress of Calvary!
Royal — all but the Crown!
Betrothed — without the swoon
God sends us Women —
When you — hold — Garnet to Garnet —
Gold — to Gold —
Born — Bridalled — Shrouded —
In a Day —
Tri Victory
“My Husband” — women say —
Stroking the Melody —
Is this — the way?

To be alive — is Power —
Existence — in itself —
Without a further function —
Omnipotence — Enough —

To be alive — and Will!
‘Tis able as a God —
The Maker — of Ourselves — be what —
Such being Finitude!
-Emily Dickinson

To be forgot by thee
Surpasses Memory
Of other minds
The Heart cannot forget
Unless it contemplate
What it declines
I was regarded then
Raised from oblivion
A single time
To be remembered what —
Worthy to be forgot
Is my renown
-Emily Dickinson

To break so vast a Heart
Required a Blow as vast —
No Zephyr felled this Cedar straight —
‘Twas undeserved Blast —
-Emily Dickinson

To die — takes just a little while —
They say it doesn’t hurt —
It’s only fainter — by degrees —
And then — it’s out of sight —

A darker Ribbon — for a Day —
A Crape upon the Hat —
And then the pretty sunshine comes —
And helps us to forget —

The absent — mystic — creature —
That but for love of us —
Had gone to sleep — that soundest time

To die — without the Dying
And live — without the Life
This is the hardest Miracle
Propounded to Belief.
-Emily Dickinson

To disappear enhances —
The Man that runs away
Is tinctured for an instant
With Immortality

But yesterday a Vagrant —
Today in Memory lain
With superstitious value
We tamper with “Again”

But “Never” far as Honor
Withdraws the Worthless thing
And impotent to cherish
We hasten to adorn —

Of Death the sternest function
That just as we discern
The Excellence defies us —
Securest gathered then

The Fruit perverse to plucking,
But leaning to the Sight
With the ecstatic limit
Of unobtained Delight —

To do a magnanimous thing
And take oneself by surprise
If oneself is not in the habit of him
Is precisely the finest of Joys —

Not to do a magnanimous thing
Notwithstanding it never be known
Notwithstanding it cost us existence once
Is Rapture herself spurn —
-Emily Dickinson

To earn it by disdaining it
Is Fame’s consummate Fee —
He loves what spurns him —
Look behind — He is pursuing thee.

So let us gather — every Day —
The Aggregate of
Life’s Bouquet
Be Honor and not shame —
-Emily Dickinson

To fight aloud, is very brave —
But gallanter, I know
Who charge within the bosom
The Cavalry of Woe —

Who win, and nations do not see —
Who fall — and none observe —
Whose dying eyes, no Country
Regards with patriot love —

We trust, in plumed procession
For such, the Angels go —
Rank after Rank, with even feet —
And Uniforms of Snow.

To fill a Gap
Insert the Thing that caused it —
Block it up
With Other — and ’twill yawn the more —
You cannot solder an Abyss
With Air.
-Emily Dickinson

To flee from memory
Had we the Wings
Many would fly
Inured to slower things
Birds with surprise
Would scan the cowering Van
Of men escaping
From the mind of man
-Emily Dickinson

To hang our head — ostensibly —
And subsequent, to find
That such was not the posture
Of our immortal mind —

Affords the sly presumption
That in so dense a fuzz —
You — too — take Cobweb attitudes
Upon a plane of Gauze!
-Emily Dickinson

To hear an Oriole sing
May be a common thing —
Or only a divine.

It is not of the Bird
Who sings the same, unheard,
As unto Crowd —

The Fashion of the Ear
Attireth that it hear
In Dun, or fair —

So whether it be Rune,
Or whether it be none
Is of within.

The “Tune is in the Tree –”
The Skeptic — showeth me —
“No Sir! In Thee!”

To help our Bleaker Parts
Salubrious Hours are given
Which if they do not fit for Earth
Drill silently for Heaven

To her derided Home
A Weed of Summer came —
She did not know her station low
Nor Ignominy’s Name —
Bestowed a summer long
Upon a frameless flower —
Then swept as lightly from disdain
As Lady from her Bower —

Of Bliss the Codes are few —
As Jesus cites of Him —
“Come unto me” the moiety
That wafts the Seraphim —

To his simplicity
To die — was little Fate —
If Duty live — contented
But her Confederate.
-Emily Dickinson

To interrupt His Yellow Plan
The Sun does not allow
Caprices of the Atmosphere —
And even when the Snow

Heaves Balls of Specks, like Vicious Boy
Directly in His Eye —
Does not so much as turn His Head
Busy with Majesty —

‘Tis His to stimulate the Earth —
And magnetize the Sea —
And bind Astronomy, in place,
Yet Any passing by

Would deem Ourselves — the busier
As the Minutest Bee
That rides — emits a Thunder —
A Bomb

To know just how He suffered — would be dear —
To know if any Human eyes were near
To whom He could entrust His wavering gaze —
Until it settle broad — 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 —

To learn the Transport by the Pain
As Blind Men learn the sun!
To die of thirst — suspecting
That Brooks in Meadows run!

To stay the homesick — homesick feet
Upon a foreign shore —
Haunted by native lands, the while —
And blue — beloved air!

This is the Sovereign Anguish!
This — the signal woe!
These are the patient “Laureates”
Whose voices — trained — below —

Ascend in ceaseless Carol —
Inaudible, indeed,
To us — the duller scholars
Of

To lose one’s faith — surpass
The loss of an Estate —
Because Estates can be
Replenished — faith cannot —

Inherited with Life —
Belief — but once — can be —
Annihilate a single clause —
And Being’s — Beggary —
-Emily Dickinson