Emily Dickinson - Dickinson - The Complete Works

I ever had, but one;

And that defies me, — as a hand

Did try to chalk the sun

To races nurtured in the dark; —

How would your own begin?

Can blaze be done in cochineal,

Or noon in mazarin?

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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.

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Dare you see a soul at the white heat?

Then crouch within the door.

Red is the fire's common tint;

But when the vivid ore

Has sated flame's conditions,

Its quivering substance plays

Without a color but the light

Of unanointed blaze.

Least village boasts its blacksmith,

Whose anvil's even din

Stands symbol for the finer forge

That soundless tugs within,

Refining these impatient ores

With hammer and with blaze,

Until the designated light

Repudiate the forge.

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Who never lost, are unprepared

A coronet to find;

Who never thirsted, flagons

And cooling tamarind.

Who never climbed the weary league —

Can such a foot explore

The purple territories

On Pizarro's shore?

How many legions overcome?

The emperor will say.

How many colors taken

On Revolution Day?

How many bullets bearest?

The royal scar hast thou?

Angels, write "Promoted"

On this soldier's brow!

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I can wade grief,

Whole pools of it, —

I 'm used to that.

But the least push of joy

Breaks up my feet,

And I tip — drunken.

Let no pebble smile,

'T was the new liquor, —

That was all!

Power is only pain,

Stranded, through discipline,

Till weights will hang.

Give balm to giants,

And they 'll wilt, like men.

Give Himmaleh, —

They 'll carry him!

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I never hear the word "escape"

Without a quicker blood,

A sudden expectation,

A flying attitude.

I never hear of prisons broad

By soldiers battered down,

But I tug childish at my bars, —

Only to fail again!

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For each ecstatic instant

We must an anguish pay

In keen and quivering ratio

To the ecstasy.

For each beloved hour

Sharp pittances of years,

Bitter contested farthings

And coffers heaped with tears.

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Through the straight pass of suffering

The martyrs even trod,

Their feet upon temptation,

Their faces upon God.

A stately, shriven company;

Convulsion playing round,

Harmless as streaks of meteor

Upon a planet's bound.

Their faith the everlasting troth;

Their expectation fair;

The needle to the north degree

Wades so, through polar air.

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I meant to have but modest needs,

Such as content, and heaven;

Within my income these could lie,

And life and I keep even.

But since the last included both,

It would suffice my prayer

But just for one to stipulate,

And grace would grant the pair.

And so, upon this wise I prayed, —

Great Spirit, give to me

A heaven not so large as yours,

But large enough for me.

A smile suffused Jehovah's face;

The cherubim withdrew;

Grave saints stole out to look at me,

And showed their dimples, too.

I left the place with all my might, —

My prayer away I threw;

The quiet ages picked it up,

And Judgment twinkled, too,

That one so honest be extant

As take the tale for true

That "Whatsoever you shall ask,

Itself be given you."

But I, grown shrewder, scan the skies

With a suspicious air, —

As children, swindled for the first,

All swindlers be, infer.

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The thought beneath so slight a film

Is more distinctly seen, —

As laces just reveal the surge,

Or mists the Apennine.

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The soul unto itself

Is an imperial friend, —

Or the most agonizing spy

An enemy could send.

Secure against its own,

No treason it can fear;

Itself its sovereign, of itself

The soul should stand in awe.

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Surgeons must be very careful

When they take the knife!

Underneath their fine incisions

Stirs the culprit, — Life!

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I like to see it lap the miles,

And lick the valleys up,

And stop to feed itself at tanks;

And then, prodigious, step

Around a pile of mountains,

And, supercilious, peer

In shanties by the sides of roads;

And then a quarry pare

To fit its sides, and crawl between,

Complaining all the while

In horrid, hooting stanza;

Then chase itself down hill

And neigh like Boanerges;

Then, punctual as a star,

Stop — docile and omnipotent —

At its own stable door.

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The show is not the show,

But they that go.

Menagerie to me

My neighbor be.

Fair play —

Both went to see.

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Delight becomes pictorial

When viewed through pain, —

More fair, because impossible

That any gain.

The mountain at a given distance

In amber lies;

Approached, the amber flits a little, —

And that 's the skies!

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A thought went up my mind to-day

That I have had before,

But did not finish, — some way back,

I could not fix the year,

Nor where it went, nor why it came

The second time to me,

Nor definitely what it was,

Have I the art to say.

But somewhere in my soul, I know

I 've met the thing before;

It just reminded me — 't was all —

And came my way no more.

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Is Heaven a physician?

They say that He can heal,

But medicine posthumous

Is unavailable.

Is Heaven an exchequer?

They speak of what we owe;

But that negotiation

I 'm not a party to.

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Though I get home how late, how late!

So I get home, 't will compensate.

Better will be the ecstasy

That they have done expecting me,

When, night descending, dumb and dark,

They hear my unexpected knock.

Transporting must the moment be,

Brewed from decades of agony!

To think just how the fire will burn,

Just how long-cheated eyes will turn

To wonder what myself will say,