Emily Dickinson - Dickinson - The Complete Works

From our gross eyes.

'T is an instant's play,

'T is a fond ambush,

Just to make bliss

Earn her own surprise!

But should the play

Prove piercing earnest,

Should the glee glaze

In death's stiff stare,

Would not the fun

Look too expensive?

Would not the jest

Have crawled too far?

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Musicians wrestle everywhere:

All day, among the crowded air,

I hear the silver strife;

And — waking long before the dawn —

Such transport breaks upon the town

I think it that "new life!"

It is not bird, it has no nest;

Nor band, in brass and scarlet dressed,

Nor tambourine, nor man;

It is not hymn from pulpit read, —

The morning stars the treble led

On time's first afternoon!

Some say it is the spheres at play!

Some say that bright majority

Of vanished dames and men!

Some think it service in the place

Where we, with late, celestial face,

Please God, shall ascertain!

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Just lost when I was saved!

Just felt the world go by!

Just girt me for the onset with eternity,

When breath blew back,

And on the other side

I heard recede the disappointed tide!

Therefore, as one returned, I feel,

Odd secrets of the line to tell!

Some sailor, skirting foreign shores,

Some pale reporter from the awful doors

Before the seal!

Next time, to stay!

Next time, the things to see

By ear unheard,

Unscrutinized by eye.

Next time, to tarry,

While the ages steal, —

Slow tramp the centuries,

And the cycles wheel.

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Of all the souls that stand create

I have elected one.

When sense from spirit files away,

And subterfuge is done;

When that which is and that which was

Apart, intrinsic, stand,

And this brief tragedy of flesh

Is shifted like a sand;

When figures show their royal front

And mists are carved away, —

Behold the atom I preferred

To all the lists of clay!

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I have no life but this,

To lead it here;

Nor any death, but lest

Dispelled from there;

Nor tie to earths to come,

Nor action new,

Except through this extent,

The realm of you.

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Your riches taught me poverty.

Myself a millionnaire

In little wealths, — as girls could boast, —

Till broad as Buenos Ayre,

You drifted your dominions

A different Peru;

And I esteemed all poverty,

For life's estate with you.

Of mines I little know, myself,

But just the names of gems, —

The colors of the commonest;

And scarce of diadems

So much that, did I meet the queen,

Her glory I should know:

But this must be a different wealth,

To miss it beggars so.

I 'm sure 't is India all day

To those who look on you

Without a stint, without a blame, —

Might I but be the Jew!

I 'm sure it is Golconda,

Beyond my power to deem, —

To have a smile for mine each day,

How better than a gem!

At least, it solaces to know

That there exists a gold,

Although I prove it just in time

Its distance to behold!

It 's far, far treasure to surmise,

And estimate the pearl

That slipped my simple fingers through

While just a girl at school!

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I gave myself to him,

And took himself for pay.

The solemn contract of a life

Was ratified this way.

The wealth might disappoint,

Myself a poorer prove

Than this great purchaser suspect,

The daily own of Love

Depreciate the vision;

But, till the merchant buy,

Still fable, in the isles of spice,

The subtle cargoes lie.

At least, 't is mutual risk, —

Some found it mutual gain;

Sweet debt of Life, — each night to owe,

Insolvent, every noon.

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"Going to him! Happy letter! Tell him —

Tell him the page I didn't write;

Tell him I only said the syntax,

And left the verb and the pronoun out.

Tell him just how the fingers hurried,

Then how they waded, slow, slow, slow;

And then you wished you had eyes in your pages,

So you could see what moved them so.

"Tell him it wasn't a practised writer,

You guessed, from the way the sentence toiled;

You could hear the bodice tug, behind you,

As if it held but the might of a child;

You almost pitied it, you, it worked so.

Tell him — No, you may quibble there,

For it would split his heart to know it,

And then you and I were silenter.

"Tell him night finished before we finished,

And the old clock kept neighing 'day!'

And you got sleepy and begged to be ended —

What could it hinder so, to say?

Tell him just how she sealed you, cautious,

But if he ask where you are hid

Until to-morrow, — happy letter!

Gesture, coquette, and shake your head!"

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The way I read a letter 's this:

'T is first I lock the door,

And push it with my fingers next,

For transport it be sure.

And then I go the furthest off

To counteract a knock;

Then draw my little letter forth

And softly pick its lock.

Then, glancing narrow at the wall,

And narrow at the floor,

For firm conviction of a mouse

Not exorcised before,

Peruse how infinite I am

To — no one that you know!

And sigh for lack of heaven, — but not

The heaven the creeds bestow.

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Wild nights! Wild nights!

Were I with thee,

Wild nights should be

Our luxury!

Futile the winds

To a heart in port, —

Done with the compass,

Done with the chart.

Rowing in Eden!

Ah! the sea!

Might I but moor

To-night in thee!

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The night was wide, and furnished scant

With but a single star,

That often as a cloud it met

Blew out itself for fear.

The wind pursued the little bush,

And drove away the leaves

November left; then clambered up

And fretted in the eaves.

No squirrel went abroad;

A dog's belated feet

Like intermittent plush were heard

Adown the empty street.

To feel if blinds be fast,

And closer to the fire

Her little rocking-chair to draw,

And shiver for the poor,

The housewife's gentle task.

"How pleasanter," said she

Unto the sofa opposite,

"The sleet than May — no thee!"

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Did the harebell loose her girdle

To the lover bee,

Would the bee the harebell hallow

Much as formerly?

Did the paradise, persuaded,

Yield her moat of pearl,

Would the Eden be an Eden,

Or the earl an earl?

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A charm invests a face

Imperfectly beheld, —

The lady dare not lift her veil