Emily Dickinson - Dickinson - The Complete Works

It sifts from leaden sieves,

It powders all the wood,

It fills with alabaster wool

The wrinkles of the road.

It makes an even face

Of mountain and of plain, —

Unbroken forehead from the east

Unto the east again.

It reaches to the fence,

It wraps it, rail by rail,

Till it is lost in fleeces;

It flings a crystal veil

On stump and stack and stem, —

The summer's empty room,

Acres of seams where harvests were,

Recordless, but for them.

It ruffles wrists of posts,

As ankles of a queen, —

Then stills its artisans like ghosts,

Denying they have been.

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No brigadier throughout the year

So civic as the jay.

A neighbor and a warrior too,

With shrill felicity

Pursuing winds that censure us

A February day,

The brother of the universe

Was never blown away.

The snow and he are intimate;

I 've often seen them play

When heaven looked upon us all

With such severity,

I felt apology were due

To an insulted sky,

Whose pompous frown was nutriment

To their temerity.

The pillow of this daring head

Is pungent evergreens;

His larder — terse and militant —

Unknown, refreshing things;

His character a tonic,

His future a dispute;

Unfair an immortality

That leaves this neighbor out.

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The tired flocks come in

Whose bleating ceases to repeat,

Whose wandering is done.

Thine is the stillest night,

Thine the securest fold;

Too near thou art for seeking thee,

Too tender to be told.

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Going to heaven!

I don't know when,

Pray do not ask me how, —

Indeed, I 'm too astonished

To think of answering you!

Going to heaven! —

How dim it sounds!

And yet it will be done

As sure as flocks go home at night

Unto the shepherd's arm!

Perhaps you 're going too!

Who knows?

If you should get there first,

Save just a little place for me

Close to the two I lost!

The smallest "robe" will fit me,

And just a bit of "crown;"

For you know we do not mind our dress

When we are going home.

I 'm glad I don't believe it,

For it would stop my breath,

And I 'd like to look a little more

At such a curious earth!

I am glad they did believe it

Whom I have never found

Since the mighty autumn afternoon

I left them in the ground.

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At least to pray is left, is left.

O Jesus! in the air

I know not which thy chamber is, —

I 'm knocking everywhere.

Thou stirrest earthquake in the South,

And maelstrom in the sea;

Say, Jesus Christ of Nazareth,

Hast thou no arm for me?

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Step lightly on this narrow spot!

The broadest land that grows

Is not so ample as the breast

These emerald seams enclose.

Step lofty; for this name is told

As far as cannon dwell,

Or flag subsist, or fame export

Her deathless syllable.

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Morns like these we parted;

Noons like these she rose,

Fluttering first, then firmer,

To her fair repose.

Never did she lisp it,

And 't was not for me;

She was mute from transport,

I, from agony!

Till the evening, nearing,

One the shutters drew —

Quick! a sharper rustling!

And this linnet flew!

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A death-blow is a life-blow to some

Who, till they died, did not alive become;

Who, had they lived, had died, but when

They died, vitality begun.

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I read my sentence steadily,

Reviewed it with my eyes,

To see that I made no mistake

In its extremest clause, —

The date, and manner of the shame;

And then the pious form

That "God have mercy" on the soul

The jury voted him.

I made my soul familiar

With her extremity,

That at the last it should not be

A novel agony,

But she and Death, acquainted,

Meet tranquilly as friends,

Salute and pass without a hint —

And there the matter ends.

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I have not told my garden yet,

Lest that should conquer me;

I have not quite the strength now

To break it to the bee.

I will not name it in the street,

For shops would stare, that I,

So shy, so very ignorant,

Should have the face to die.

The hillsides must not know it,

Where I have rambled so,

Nor tell the loving forests

The day that I shall go,

Nor lisp it at the table,

Nor heedless by the way

Hint that within the riddle

One will walk to-day!

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They dropped like flakes, they dropped like stars,

Like petals from a rose,

When suddenly across the June

A wind with fingers goes.

They perished in the seamless grass, —

No eye could find the place;

But God on his repealless list

Can summon every face.

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The only ghost I ever saw

Was dressed in mechlin, — so;

He wore no sandal on his foot,

And stepped like flakes of snow.

His gait was soundless, like the bird,

But rapid, like the roe;

His fashions quaint, mosaic,

Or, haply, mistletoe.

His conversation seldom,

His laughter like the breeze

That dies away in dimples

Among the pensive trees.

Our interview was transient,—

Of me, himself was shy;

And God forbid I look behind

Since that appalling day!

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Some, too fragile for winter winds,

The thoughtful grave encloses, —

Tenderly tucking them in from frost

Before their feet are cold.

Never the treasures in her nest

The cautious grave exposes,

Building where schoolboy dare not look

And sportsman is not bold.

This covert have all the children

Early aged, and often cold, —

Sparrows unnoticed by the Father;

Lambs for whom time had not a fold.

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As by the dead we love to sit,

Become so wondrous dear,

As for the lost we grapple,

Though all the rest are here, —

In broken mathematics

We estimate our prize,

Vast, in its fading ratio,

To our penurious eyes!

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Death sets a thing significant

The eye had hurried by,

Except a perished creature

Entreat us tenderly

To ponder little workmanships

In crayon or in wool,

With "This was last her fingers did,"

Industrious until

The thimble weighed too heavy,

The stitches stopped themselves,

And then 't was put among the dust

Upon the closet shelves.