Emily Dickinson
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?
Emily Dickinson
A light exists…
Emily Dickinson
A light exists in spring
Not present on the year
At any other period.
When March is scarcely here
A color stands abroad
On solitary hills
That science cannot overtake,
But human nature feels.
It waits upon the lawn;
It shows the furthest tree
Upon the furthest slope we know;
It almost speaks to me.
Then, as horizons step,
Or noons report away,
Without the formula of sound,
It passes, and we stay:
A quality of loss
Affecting our content,
As trade had suddenly encroached
Upon a sacrament.
It was not death…
Emily Dickinson
It was not death, for I stood up,
And all the dead lie down;
It was not night, for all the bells
Put out their tongues, for noon.
It was not frost, for on my flesh
I felt siroccos crawl,–
Nor fire, for just my marble feet
Could keep a chancel cool.
And yet it tasted like them all;
The figures I have seen
Set orderly, for burial,
Reminded me of mine,
As if my life were shaven
And fitted to a frame,
And could not breathe without a key;
And ‘t was like midnight, some,
When everything that ticked has stopped,
And space stares, all around,
Or grisly frosts, first autumn morns,
Repeal the beating ground.
But most like chaos,–stopless, cool,–
Without a chance or spar,–
Or even a report of land
To justify despair.
I’m nobody!
Emily Dickinson
I’m nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?
Then there’s a pair of us — don’t tell!
They’d advertise — you know!
How dreary to be somebody!
How public like a frog
To tell one’s name the livelong day
To an admiring bog!
I never saw a moor…
Emily Dickinson
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.
I lived on dread…
Emily Dickinson
I lived on dread; to those who know
The stimulus there is
In danger, other impetus
Is numb and vital-less.
As’t were a spur upon the soul,
A fear will urge it where
To go without the spectre’s aid
Were challenging despair.
I held a jewel…
Emily Dickinson
I held a jewel in my fingers
And went to sleep
The day was warm, and winds were prosy;
I said: ” ‘T will keep.”
I woke and chid my honest fingers, —
The gem was gone;
And now an amethyst remembrance
Is all I own.