Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series, Complete

 
 
 
Me! Hear! My foreign ear
The sounds of welcome near!
 
 
The saints shall meet
Our bashful feet.
 
 
My holiday shall be
That they remember me;
 
 
My paradise, the fame
That they pronounce my name.
 

XXVII

INVISIBLE

 
From us she wandered now a year,
   Her tarrying unknown;
If wilderness prevent her feet,
   Or that ethereal zone
 
 
No eye hath seen and lived,
   We ignorant must be.
We only know what time of year
   We took the mystery.
 

XXVIII

 
I wish I knew that woman's name,
   So, when she comes this way,
To hold my life, and hold my ears,
   For fear I hear her say
 
 
She's 'sorry I am dead,' again,
   Just when the grave and I
Have sobbed ourselves almost to sleep, —
   Our only lullaby.
 

XXIX

TRYING TO FORGET

 
Bereaved of all, I went abroad,
   No less bereaved to be
Upon a new peninsula, —
   The grave preceded me,
 
 
Obtained my lodgings ere myself,
   And when I sought my bed,
The grave it was, reposed upon
   The pillow for my head.
 
 
I waked, to find it first awake,
   I rose, – it followed me;
I tried to drop it in the crowd,
   To lose it in the sea,
 
 
In cups of artificial drowse
   To sleep its shape away, —
The grave was finished, but the spade
   Remained in memory.
 

XXX

 
I felt a funeral in my brain,
   And mourners, to and fro,
Kept treading, treading, till it seemed
   That sense was breaking through.
 
 
And when they all were seated,
   A service like a drum
Kept beating, beating, till I thought
   My mind was going numb.
 
 
And then I heard them lift a box,
   And creak across my soul
With those same boots of lead, again.
   Then space began to toll
 
 
As all the heavens were a bell,
   And Being but an ear,
And I and silence some strange race,
   Wrecked, solitary, here.
 

XXXI

 
I meant to find her when I came;
   Death had the same design;
But the success was his, it seems,
   And the discomfit mine.
 
 
I meant to tell her how I longed
   For just this single time;
But Death had told her so the first,
   And she had hearkened him.
 
 
To wander now is my abode;
   To rest, – to rest would be
A privilege of hurricane
   To memory and me.
 

XXXII

WAITING

 
I sing to use the waiting,
   My bonnet but to tie,
And shut the door unto my house;
   No more to do have I,
 
 
Till, his best step approaching,
   We journey to the day,
And tell each other how we sang
   To keep the dark away.
 

XXXIII

 
A sickness of this world it most occasions
   When best men die;
A wishfulness their far condition
   To occupy.
 
 
A chief indifference, as foreign
   A world must be
Themselves forsake contented,
   For Deity.
 

XXXIV

 
Superfluous were the sun
   When excellence is dead;
He were superfluous every day,
   For every day is said
 
 
That syllable whose faith
   Just saves it from despair,
And whose 'I'll meet you' hesitates
   If love inquire, 'Where?'
 
 
Upon his dateless fame
   Our periods may lie,
As stars that drop anonymous
   From an abundant sky.
 

XXXV

 
So proud she was to die
   It made us all ashamed
That what we cherished, so unknown
   To her desire seemed.
 
 
So satisfied to go
   Where none of us should be,
Immediately, that anguish stooped
   Almost to jealousy.
 

XXXVI

FAREWELL

 
Tie the strings to my life, my Lord,
   Then I am ready to go!
Just a look at the horses —
   Rapid! That will do!
 
 
Put me in on the firmest side,
   So I shall never fall;
For we must ride to the Judgment,
   And it's partly down hill.
 
 
But never I mind the bridges,
   And never I mind the sea;
Held fast in everlasting race
   By my own choice and thee.
 
 
Good-by to the life I used to live,
   And the world I used to know;
And kiss the hills for me, just once;
   Now I am ready to go!
 

XXXVII

 
The dying need but little, dear, —
   A glass of water's all,
A flower's unobtrusive face
   To punctuate the wall,
 
 
A fan, perhaps, a friend's regret,
   And certainly that one
No color in the rainbow
   Perceives when you are gone.
 

XXXVIII

DEAD

 
There's something quieter than sleep
   Within this inner room!
It wears a sprig upon its breast,
   And will not tell its name.
 
 
Some touch it and some kiss it,
   Some chafe its idle hand;
It has a simple gravity
   I do not understand!
 
 
While simple-hearted neighbors
   Chat of the 'early dead,'
We, prone to periphrasis,
   Remark that birds have fled!
 

XXXIX

 
The soul should always stand ajar,
   That if the heaven inquire,
He will not be obliged to wait,
   Or shy of troubling her.
 
 
Depart, before the host has slid
   The bolt upon the door,
To seek for the accomplished guest, —
   Her visitor no more.
 

XL

 
Three weeks passed since I had seen her, —
   Some disease had vexed;
'T was with text and village singing
   I beheld her next,
 
 
And a company – our pleasure
   To discourse alone;
Gracious now to me as any,
   Gracious unto none.
 
 
Borne, without dissent of either,
   To the parish night;
Of the separated people
   Which are out of sight?
 

XLI

 
I breathed enough to learn the trick,
   And now, removed from air,
I simulate the breath so well,
   That one, to be quite sure
 
 
The lungs are stirless, must descend
   Among the cunning cells,
And touch the pantomime himself.
   How cool the bellows feels!
 

XLII

 
I wonder if the sepulchre
   Is not a lonesome way,
When men and boys, and larks and June
   Go down the fields to hay!
 

XLIII

JOY IN DEATH

 
If tolling bell I ask the cause.
   'A soul has gone to God,'
I'm answered in a lonesome tone;
   Is heaven then so sad?
 
 
That bells should joyful ring to tell
   A soul had gone to heaven,
Would seem to me the proper way
   A good news should be given.
 

XLIV

 
If I may have it when it's dead
   I will contented be;
If just as soon as breath is out
   It shall belong to me,
 
 
Until they lock it in the grave,
   'T is bliss I cannot weigh,
For though they lock thee in the grave,
   Myself can hold the key.
 
 
Think of it, lover! I and thee
   Permitted face to face to be;
After a life, a death we'll say, —
   For death was that, and this is thee.
 

XLV

 
Before the ice is in the pools,
   Before the skaters go,
Or any cheek at nightfall
   Is tarnished by the snow,
 
 
Before the fields have finished,
   Before the Christmas tree,
Wonder upon wonder
   Will arrive to me!
 
 
What we touch the hems of
   On a summer's day;
What is only walking
   Just a bridge away;
 
 
That which sings so, speaks so,
   When there's no one here, —
Will the frock I wept in
   Answer me to wear?
 

XLVI

DYING

 
I heard a fly buzz when I died;
   The stillness round my form
Was like the stillness in the air
   Between the heaves of storm.
 
 
The eyes beside had wrung them dry,
   And breaths were gathering sure
For that last onset, when the king
   Be witnessed in his power.
 
 
I willed my keepsakes, signed away
   What portion of me I
Could make assignable, – and then
   There interposed a fly,
 
 
With blue, uncertain, stumbling buzz,
   Between the light and me;
And then the windows failed, and then
   I could not see to see.
 

XLVII

 
Adrift! A little boat adrift!
   And night is coming down!
Will no one guide a little boat
   Unto the nearest town?
 
 
So 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!
   The figures hunched with pain,
Then quivered out of decimals
   Into degreeless noon.
 
 
It will not stir for doctors,
   This pendulum of snow;
The shopman importunes it,
   While cool, concernless No
 
 
Nods from the gilded pointers,
   Nods from the seconds slim,
Decades of arrogance between
   The dial life and him.
 

LIV

CHARLOTTE BRONTË'S GRAVE

 
All overgrown by cunning moss,
   All interspersed with weed,
The little cage of 'Currer Bell,'
   In quiet Haworth laid.
 
 
This bird, observing others,
   When frosts too sharp became,
Retire to other latitudes,
   Quietly did the same,
 
 
But differed in returning;
   Since Yorkshire hills are green,
Yet not in all the nests I meet
   Can nightingale be seen.
 
 
Gathered from many wanderings,
   Gethsemane can tell
Through what transporting anguish
   She reached the asphodel!
 
 
Soft fall the sounds of Eden
   Upon her puzzled ear;
Oh, what an afternoon for heaven,
   When 'Brontë' entered there!
 

LV

 
A toad can die of light!
Death is the common right
   Of toads and men, —
Of earl and midge
The privilege.
   Why swagger then?
The gnat's supremacy
Is large as thine.
 

LVI

 
Far from love the Heavenly Father
   Leads the chosen child;
Oftener through realm of briar
   Than the meadow mild,
 
 
Oftener by the claw of dragon
   Than the hand of friend,
Guides the little one predestined
   To the native land.
 

LVII

SLEEPING

 
A long, long sleep, a famous sleep
   That makes no show for dawn
By stretch of limb or stir of lid, —
   An independent one.
 
 
Was ever idleness like this?
   Within a hut of stone
To bask the centuries away
   Nor once look up for noon?
 

LVIII

RETROSPECT

 
'T was just this time last year I died.
   I know I heard the corn,
When I was carried by the farms, —
   It had the tassels on.
 
 
I thought how yellow it would look
   When Richard went to mill;
And then I wanted to get out,
   But something held my will.
 
 
I thought just how red apples wedged
   The stubble's joints between;
And carts went stooping round the fields
   To take the pumpkins in.
 
 
I wondered which would miss me least,
   And when Thanksgiving came,
If father'd multiply the plates
   To make an even sum.
 
 
And if my stocking hung too high,
   Would it blur the Christmas glee,
That not a Santa Claus could reach
   The altitude of me?
 
 
But this sort grieved myself, and so
   I thought how it would be
When just this time, some perfect year,
   Themselves should come to me.
 

LIX

ETERNITY

 
On this wondrous sea,
Sailing silently,
   Ho! pilot, ho!
Knowest thou the shore
Where no breakers roar,
   Where the storm is o'er?
 
 
In the silent west
Many sails at rest,
   Their anchors fast;
Thither I pilot thee, —
Land, ho! Eternity!
   Ashore at last!