Emily Dickinson - Dickinson - The Complete Works

A fellow in the skies

Of independent hues,

A little weather-worn,

Inspiriting habiliments

Of indigo and brown.

With specimens of song,

As if for you to choose,

Discretion in the interval,

With gay delays he goes

To some superior tree

Without a single leaf,

And shouts for joy to nobody

But his seraphic self!

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An altered look about the hills;

A Tyrian light the village fills;

A wider sunrise in the dawn;

A deeper twilight on the lawn;

A print of a vermilion foot;

A purple finger on the slope;

A flippant fly upon the pane;

A spider at his trade again;

An added strut in chanticleer;

A flower expected everywhere;

An axe shrill singing in the woods;

Fern-odors on untravelled roads, —

All this, and more I cannot tell,

A furtive look you know as well,

And Nicodemus' mystery

Receives its annual reply.

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"Whose are the little beds," I asked,

"Which in the valleys lie?"

Some shook their heads, and others smiled,

And no one made reply.

"Perhaps they did not hear," I said;

"I will inquire again.

Whose are the beds, the tiny beds

So thick upon the plain?"

"'T is daisy in the shortest;

A little farther on,

Nearest the door to wake the first,

Little leontodon.

"'T is iris, sir, and aster,

Anemone and bell,

Batschia in the blanket red,

And chubby daffodil."

Meanwhile at many cradles

Her busy foot she plied,

Humming the quaintest lullaby

That ever rocked a child.

"Hush! Epigea wakens! —

The crocus stirs her lids,

Rhodora's cheek is crimson, —

She's dreaming of the woods."

Then, turning from them, reverent,

"Their bed-time 't is," she said;

"The bumble-bees will wake them

When April woods are red."

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Pigmy seraphs gone astray,

Velvet people from Vevay,

Belles from some lost summer day,

Bees' exclusive coterie.

Paris could not lay the fold

Belted down with emerald;

Venice could not show a cheek

Of a tint so lustrous meek.

Never such an ambuscade

As of brier and leaf displayed

For my little damask maid.

I had rather wear her grace

Than an earl's distinguished face;

I had rather dwell like her

Than be Duke of Exeter

Royalty enough for me

To subdue the bumble-bee!

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To hear an oriole sing

May be a common thing,

Or only a divine.

It is not of the bird

Who sings the same, unheard,

As unto crowd.

The fashion of the ear

Attireth that it hear

In dun or fair.

So whether it be rune,

Or whether it be none,

Is of within;

The "tune is in the tree,"

The sceptic showeth me;

"No, sir! In thee!"

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One of the ones that Midas touched,

Who failed to touch us all,

Was that confiding prodigal,

The blissful oriole.

So drunk, he disavows it

With badinage divine;

So dazzling, we mistake him

For an alighting mine.

A pleader, a dissembler,

An epicure, a thief, —

Betimes an oratorio,

An ecstasy in chief;

The Jesuit of orchards,

He cheats as he enchants

Of an entire attar

For his decamping wants.

The splendor of a Burmah,

The meteor of birds,

Departing like a pageant

Of ballads and of bards.

I never thought that Jason sought

For any golden fleece;

But then I am a rural man,

With thoughts that make for peace.

But if there were a Jason,

Tradition suffer me

Behold his lost emolument

Upon the apple-tree.

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I dreaded that first robin so,

But he is mastered now,

And I 'm accustomed to him grown, —

He hurts a little, though.

I thought if I could only live

Till that first shout got by,

Not all pianos in the woods

Had power to mangle me.

I dared not meet the daffodils,

For fear their yellow gown

Would pierce me with a fashion

So foreign to my own.

I wished the grass would hurry,

So when 't was time to see,

He 'd be too tall, the tallest one

Could stretch to look at me.

I could not bear the bees should come,

I wished they 'd stay away

In those dim countries where they go:

What word had they for me?

They 're here, though; not a creature failed,

No blossom stayed away

In gentle deference to me,

The Queen of Calvary.

Each one salutes me as he goes,

And I my childish plumes

Lift, in bereaved acknowledgment

Of their unthinking drums.

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A route of evanescence

With a revolving wheel;

A resonance of emerald,

A rush of cochineal;

And every blossom on the bush

Adjusts its tumbled head, —

The mail from Tunis, probably,

An easy morning's ride.

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The skies can't keep their secret!

They tell it to the hills —

The hills just tell the orchards —

And they the daffodils!

A bird, by chance, that goes that way

Soft overheard the whole.

If I should bribe the little bird,

Who knows but she would tell?

I think I won't, however,

It's finer not to know;

If summer were an axiom,

What sorcery had snow?

So keep your secret, Father!

I would not, if I could,

Know what the sapphire fellows do,

In your new-fashioned world!

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Who robbed the woods,

The trusting woods?

The unsuspecting trees

Brought out their burrs and mosses

His fantasy to please.

He scanned their trinkets, curious,

He grasped, he bore away.

What will the solemn hemlock,

What will the fir-tree say?

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Two butterflies went out at noon

And waltzed above a stream,

Then stepped straight through the firmament

And rested on a beam;

And then together bore away

Upon a shining sea, —

Though never yet, in any port,

Their coming mentioned be.

If spoken by the distant bird,

If met in ether sea

By frigate or by merchantman,

Report was not to me.

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I started early, took my dog,

And visited the sea;

The mermaids in the basement

Came out to look at me,

And frigates in the upper floor

Extended hempen hands,

Presuming me to be a mouse

Aground, upon the sands.

But no man moved me till the tide

Went past my simple shoe,

And past my apron and my belt,

And past my bodice too,

And made as he would eat me up

As wholly as a dew

Upon a dandelion's sleeve —

And then I started too.

And he — he followed close behind;

I felt his silver heel

Upon my ankle, — then my shoes

Would overflow with pearl.

Until we met the solid town,

No man he seemed to know;

And bowing with a mighty look

At me, the sea withdrew.

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