Allspirit

Category: Emily Dickinson

  • I had no time …

     

    Emily Dickinson

    I had no time to hate, because
    The grave would hinder me,
    And life was not so ample I
    Could finish enmity.

    Nor had I time to love, but since
    Some industry must be,
    The little toil of love, I thought,
    Was large enough for me.

  • I felt a funeral…

     

    Emily Dickinson

    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.

  • Hope is the thing…

     

    Emily Dickinson

    Hope is the thing with feathers
    That perches in the soul,
    And sings the tune without the words,
    And never stops at all,

    And sweetest in the gale is heard;
    And sore must be the storm
    That could abash the little bird
    That kept so many warm.

    I’ve heard it in the chillest land,
    And on the strangest sea;
    Yet, never, in extremity,
    It asked a crumb of me.

  • Heaven is …

     

    Emily Dickinson

    Heaven is what I cannot reach!
    The apple on the tree,
    Provided it do hopeless hang,
    That “heaven” is, to me.

    The color on the cruising cloud,
    The interdicted ground
    Behind the hill, the house behind, —
    There Paradise is found!

  • Good night!

     

    Emily Dickinson

    Good night! which put the candle out?
    A jealous zephyr, not a doubt.
    Ah! friend, you little knew
    How long at that celestial wick
    The angels labored diligent;
    Extinguished, now, for you!

    It might have been the lighthouse spark
    Some sailor, rowing in the dark,
    Had importuned to see!
    It might have been the waning lamp
    That lit the drummer from the camp
    To purer reveille!

  • God permits…

     
    Emily Dickinson

    God permits industrious angels
    Afternoons to play.
    I met one, — forgot my school-mates,
    All, for him, straightaway.

    God calls home the angels promptly
    At the setting sun;
    I missed mine. How dreary marbles,
    After playing Crown!

  • Each life converges …

     

    Emily Dickinson

    Each life converges to some centre
    Expressed or still;
    Exists in every human nature
    A goal,

    Admitted scarcely to itself, it may be,
    Too fair
    For credibility’s temerity
    To dare.

    Adored with caution, as a brittle heaven,
    To reach
    Were hopeless as the rainbow’s raiment
    To touch,

    Yet persevered toward, surer for the distance;
    How high
    Unto the saints’ slow diligence
    The sky!

    Ungained, it may be, by a life’s low venture,
    But then,
    Eternity enables the endeavoring
    Again.