Emily Dickinson

To lose thee — sweeter than to gain
All other hearts I knew.
‘Tis true the drought is destitute,
But then, I had the dew!

The Caspian has its realms of sand,
Its other realm of sea.
Without the sterile perquisite,
No Caspian could be.
-Emily Dickinson

To love thee Year by Year —
May less appear
Than sacrifice, and cease —
However, dear,
Forever might be short, I thought to show —
And so I pieced it, with a flower, now.
-Emily Dickinson

To make One’s Toilette — after Death
Has made the Toilette cool
Of only Taste we cared to please
Is difficult, and still —

That’s easier — than Braid the Hair —
And make the Bodice gay —
When eyes that fondled it are wrenched
By Decalogues — away —
-Emily Dickinson

To make Routine a Stimulus
Remember it can cease —
Capacity to Terminate
Is a Specific Grace —
Of Retrospect the Arrow
That power to repair
Departed with the Torment
Become, alas, more fair —
-Emily Dickinson

To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee,
One clover, and a bee,
And revery.
The revery alone will do,
If bees are few.
-Emily Dickinson

To mend each tattered Faith
There is a needle fair
Though no appearance indicate —
‘Tis threaded in the Air —

And though it do not wear
As if it never Tore
‘Tis very comfortable indeed
And spacious as before —
-Emily Dickinson

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 — begun to tell —
Creation seemed a mighty Crack —
To make me visible —
-Emily Dickinson

To my small Hearth His fire came —
And all my House aglow
Did fan and rock, with sudden light —
‘Twas Sunrise — ’twas the Sky —

Impanelled from no Summer brief —
With limit of Decay —
‘Twas Noon — without the News of Night —
Nay, Nature, it was Day —
-Emily Dickinson

To offer brave assistance
To Lives that stand alone —
When One has failed to stop them —
Is Human — but Divine

To lend an Ample Sinew
Unto a Nameless Man —
Whose Homely Benediction
No other — stopped to earn —
-Emily Dickinson

To One denied the drink
To tell what Water is
Would be acuter, would it not
Than letting Him surmise?

To lead Him to the Well
And let Him hear it drip
Remind Him, would it not, somewhat
Of His condemned lip?
-Emily Dickinson

To own a Susan of my own
Is of itself a Bliss —
Whatever Realm I forfeit, Lord,
Continue me in this!
-Emily Dickinson

To own the Art within the Soul
The Soul to entertain
With Silence as a Company
And Festival maintain

Is an unfurnished Circumstance
Possession is to One
As an Estate perpetual
Or a reduceless Mine.
-Emily Dickinson

To pile like Thunder to its close
Then crumble grand away
While Everything created hid
This — would be Poetry —

Or Love — the two coeval come —
We both and neither prove —
Experience either and consume —
For None see God and live —
-Emily Dickinson

To put this World down, like a Bundle —
And walk steady, away,
Requires Energy — possibly Agony —
‘Tis the Scarlet way

Trodden with straight renunciation
By the Son of God —
Later, his faint Confederates
Justify the Road —

Flavors of that old Crucifixion —
Filaments of Bloom, Pontius Pilate sowed —
Strong Clusters, from Barabbas’ Tomb —

Sacrament, Saints partook before us —
Patent, every drop,
With the Brand of the Gentile Drinker
Who indorsed the Cup —

To see her is a Picture —
To hear her is a Tune —
To know her an Intemperance
As innocent as June —
To know her not — Affliction —
To own her for a Friend
A warmth as near as if the Sun
Were shining in your Hand.
-Emily Dickinson

To see the Summer Sky
Is Poetry, though never in a Book it lie —
True Poems flee —
-Emily Dickinson

To tell the Beauty would decrease
To state the Spell demean —
There is a syllable-less Sea
Of which it is the sign —
My will endeavors for its word
And fails, but entertains
A Rapture as of Legacies —
Of introspective Mines —
-Emily Dickinson

To the bright east she flies,
Brothers of Paradise
Remit her home,
Without a change of wings,
Or Love’s convenient things,
Enticed to come.

Fashioning what she is,
Fathoming what she was,
We deem we dream —
And that dissolves the days
Through which existence strays
Homeless at home.
-Emily Dickinson

To their apartment deep
No ribaldry may creep
Untumbled this abode
By any man but God —
-Emily Dickinson

To the stanch Dust
We safe commit thee —
Tongue if it hath,
Inviolate to thee —
Silence — denote —
And Sanctity — enforce thee —
Passenger — of Infinity —
-Emily Dickinson

To this World she returned.
But with a tinge of that —
A Compound manner,
As a Sod
Espoused a Violet,
That chiefer to the Skies
Than to himself, allied,
Dwelt hesitating, half of Dust,
And half of Day, the Bride.
-Emily Dickinson

To try to speak, and miss the way
And ask it of the Tears,
Is Gratitude’s sweet poverty,
The Tatters that he wears —

A better Coat if he possessed
Would help him to conceal,
Not subjugate, the Mutineer
Whose title is “the Soul.”
-Emily Dickinson

To undertake is to achieve
Be Undertaking blent
With fortitude of obstacle
And toward encouragement

That fine Suspicion, Natures must
Permitted to revere
Departed Standards and the few
Criterion Sources here
-Emily Dickinson

To venerate the simple days
Which lead the seasons by,
Needs but to remember
That from you or I,
They may take the trifle
Termed mortality!
-Emily Dickinson

To wait an Hour — is long —
If Love be just beyond —
To wait Eternity — is short —
If Love reward the end —
-Emily Dickinson