Emily Dickinson - Dickinson - The Complete Works

For fear it be dispelled.

But peers beyond her mesh,

And wishes, and denies, —

Lest interview annul a want

That image satisfies.

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The rose did caper on her cheek,

Her bodice rose and fell,

Her pretty speech, like drunken men,

Did stagger pitiful.

Her fingers fumbled at her work, —

Her needle would not go;

What ailed so smart a little maid

It puzzled me to know,

Till opposite I spied a cheek

That bore another rose;

Just opposite, another speech

That like the drunkard goes;

A vest that, like the bodice, danced

To the immortal tune, —

Till those two troubled little clocks

Ticked softly into one.

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In lands I never saw, they say,

Immortal Alps look down,

Whose bonnets touch the firmament,

Whose sandals touch the town, —

Meek at whose everlasting feet

A myriad daisies play.

Which, sir, are you, and which am I,

Upon an August day?

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The moon is distant from the sea,

And yet with amber hands

She leads him, docile as a boy,

Along appointed sands.

He never misses a degree;

Obedient to her eye,

He comes just so far toward the town,

Just so far goes away.

Oh, Signor, thine the amber hand,

And mine the distant sea, —

Obedient to the least command

Thine eyes impose on me.

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He put the belt around my life, —

I heard the buckle snap,

And turned away, imperial,

My lifetime folding up

Deliberate, as a duke would do

A kingdom's title-deed, —

Henceforth a dedicated sort,

A member of the cloud.

Yet not too far to come at call,

And do the little toils

That make the circuit of the rest,

And deal occasional smiles

To lives that stoop to notice mine

And kindly ask it in, —

Whose invitation, knew you not

For whom I must decline?

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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.

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What if I say I shall not wait?

What if I burst the fleshly gate

And pass, escaped, to thee?

What if I file this mortal off,

See where it hurt me, — that 's enough, —

And wade in liberty?

They cannot take us any more, —

Dungeons may call, and guns implore;

Unmeaning now, to me,

As laughter was an hour ago,

Or laces, or a travelling show,

Or who died yesterday!

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Nature, the gentlest mother,

Impatient of no child,

The feeblest or the waywardest, —

Her admonition mild

In forest and the hill

By traveller is heard,

Restraining rampant squirrel

Or too impetuous bird.

How fair her conversation,

A summer afternoon, —

Her household, her assembly;

And when the sun goes down

Her voice among the aisles

Incites the timid prayer

Of the minutest cricket,

The most unworthy flower.

When all the children sleep

She turns as long away

As will suffice to light her lamps;

Then, bending from the sky

With infinite affection

And infiniter care,

Her golden finger on her lip,

Wills silence everywhere.

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Will there really be a morning?

Is there such a thing as day?

Could I see it from the mountains

If I were as tall as they?

Has it feet like water-lilies?

Has it feathers like a bird?

Is it brought from famous countries

Of which I have never heard?

Oh, some scholar! Oh, some sailor!

Oh, some wise man from the skies!

Please to tell a little pilgrim

Where the place called morning lies!

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At half-past three a single bird

Unto a silent sky

Propounded but a single term

Of cautious melody.

At half-past four, experiment

Had subjugated test,

And lo! her silver principle

Supplanted all the rest.

At half-past seven, element

Nor implement was seen,

And place was where the presence was,

Circumference between.

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The day came slow, till five o'clock,

Then sprang before the hills

Like hindered rubies, or the light

A sudden musket spills.

The purple could not keep the east,

The sunrise shook from fold,

Like breadths of topaz, packed a night,

The lady just unrolled.

The happy winds their timbrels took;

The birds, in docile rows,

Arranged themselves around their prince

(The wind is prince of those).

The orchard sparkled like a Jew, —

How mighty 't was, to stay

A guest in this stupendous place,

The parlor of the day!

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The sun just touched the morning;

The morning, happy thing,

Supposed that he had come to dwell,

And life would be all spring.

She felt herself supremer, —

A raised, ethereal thing;

Henceforth for her what holiday!

Meanwhile, her wheeling king

Trailed slow along the orchards

His haughty, spangled hems,

Leaving a new necessity, —

The want of diadems!

The morning fluttered, staggered,

Felt feebly for her crown, —

Her unanointed forehead

Henceforth her only one.

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The robin is the one

That interrupts the morn

With hurried, few, express reports

When March is scarcely on.

The robin is the one

That overflows the noon

With her cherubic quantity,

An April but begun.

The robin is the one

That speechless from her nest

Submits that home and certainty

And sanctity are best.

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From cocoon forth a butterfly

As lady from her door

Emerged — a summer afternoon —

Repairing everywhere,

Without design, that I could trace,

Except to stray abroad

On miscellaneous enterprise

The clovers understood.

Her pretty parasol was seen

Contracting in a field

Where men made hay, then struggling hard

With an opposing cloud,

Where parties, phantom as herself,

To Nowhere seemed to go

In purposeless circumference,

As 't were a tropic show.

And notwithstanding bee that worked,

And flower that zealous blew,

This audience of idleness

Disdained them, from the sky,

Till sundown crept, a steady tide,

And men that made the hay,

And afternoon, and butterfly,

Extinguished in its sea.

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Before you thought of spring,

Except as a surmise,

You see, God bless his suddenness,