Emily Dickinson - Dickinson - The Complete Works

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Delayed till she had ceased to know,

Delayed till in its vest of snow

Her loving bosom lay.

An hour behind the fleeting breath,

Later by just an hour than death, —

Oh, lagging yesterday!

Could she have guessed that it would be;

Could but a crier of the glee

Have climbed the distant hill;

Had not the bliss so slow a pace, —

Who knows but this surrendered face

Were undefeated still?

Oh, if there may departing be

Any forgot by victory

In her imperial round,

Show them this meek apparelled thing,

That could not stop to be a king,

Doubtful if it be crowned!

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Departed to the judgment,

A mighty afternoon;

Great clouds like ushers leaning,

Creation looking on.

The flesh surrendered, cancelled,

The bodiless begun;

Two worlds, like audiences, disperse

And leave the soul alone.

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Safe in their alabaster chambers,

Untouched by morning and untouched by noon,

Sleep the meek members of the resurrection,

Rafter of satin, and roof of stone.

Light laughs the breeze in her castle of sunshine;

Babbles the bee in a stolid ear;

Pipe the sweet birds in ignorant cadence, —

Ah, what sagacity perished here!

Grand go the years in the crescent above them;

Worlds scoop their arcs, and firmaments row,

Diadems drop and Doges surrender,

Soundless as dots on a disk of snow.

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On this long storm the rainbow rose,

On this late morn the sun;

The clouds, like listless elephants,

Horizons straggled down.

The birds rose smiling in their nests,

The gales indeed were done;

Alas! how heedless were the eyes

On whom the summer shone!

The quiet nonchalance of death

No daybreak can bestir;

The slow archangel's syllables

Must awaken her.

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My cocoon tightens, colors tease,

I'm feeling for the air;

A dim capacity for wings

Degrades the dress I wear.

A power of butterfly must be

The aptitude to fly,

Meadows of majesty concedes

And easy sweeps of sky.

So I must baffle at the hint

And cipher at the sign,

And make much blunder, if at last

I take the clew divine.

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Exultation is the going

Of an inland soul to sea, —

Past the houses, past the headlands,

Into deep eternity!

Bred as we, among the mountains,

Can the sailor understand

The divine intoxication

Of the first league out from land?

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Look back on time with kindly eyes,

He doubtless did his best;

How softly sinks his trembling sun

In human nature's west!

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A train went through a burial gate,

A bird broke forth and sang,

And trilled, and quivered, and shook his throat

Till all the churchyard rang;

And then adjusted his little notes,

And bowed and sang again.

Doubtless, he thought it meet of him

To say good-by to men.

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Adjusted in the tomb,

When one who died for truth was lain

In an adjoining room.

He questioned softly why I failed?

"For beauty," I replied.

"And I for truth, — the two are one;

We brethren are," he said.

And so, as kinsmen met a night,

We talked between the rooms,

Until the moss had reached our lips,

And covered up our names.

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How many times these low feet staggered,

Only the soldered mouth can tell;

Try! can you stir the awful rivet?

Try! can you lift the hasps of steel?

Stroke the cool forehead, hot so often,

Lift, if you can, the listless hair;

Handle the adamantine fingers

Never a thimble more shall wear.

Buzz the dull flies on the chamber window;

Brave shines the sun through the freckled pane;

Fearless the cobweb swings from the ceiling —

Indolent housewife, in daisies lain!

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I like a look of agony,

Because I know it 's true;

Men do not sham convulsion,

Nor simulate a throe.

The eyes glaze once, and that is death.

Impossible to feign

The beads upon the forehead

By homely anguish strung.

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That short, potential stir

That each can make but once,

That bustle so illustrious

'T is almost consequence,

Is the eclat of death.

Oh, thou unknown renown

That not a beggar would accept,

Had he the power to spurn!

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I went to thank her,

But she slept;

Her bed a funnelled stone,

With nosegays at the head and foot,

That travellers had thrown,

Who went to thank her;

But she slept.

'T was short to cross the sea

To look upon her like, alive,

But turning back 't was slow.

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I've seen a dying eye

Run round and round a room

In search of something, as it seemed,

Then cloudier become;

And then, obscure with fog,

And then be soldered down,

Without disclosing what it be,

'T were blessed to have seen.

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The clouds their backs together laid,

The north begun to push,

The forests galloped till they fell,

The lightning skipped like mice;

The thunder crumbled like a stuff —

How good to be safe in tombs,

Where nature's temper cannot reach,

Nor vengeance ever comes!

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I never saw a moor,

I never saw the sea;

Yet know I how the heather looks,

And what a wave must be.

I never spoke with God,

Nor visited in heaven;

Yet certain am I of the spot

As if the chart were given.

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God permits industrious angels

Afternoons to play.

I met one, — forgot my school-mates,

All, for him, straightway.

God calls home the angels promptly

At the setting sun;

I missed mine. How dreary marbles,

After playing Crown!

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To know just how he suffered would be dear;

To know if any human eyes were near

To whom he could intrust his wavering gaze,

Until it settled firm on Paradise.

To know if he was patient, part content,

Was dying as he thought, or different;

Was it a pleasant day to die,

And did the sunshine face his way?

What was his furthest mind, of home, or God,

Or what the distant say

At news that he ceased human nature

On such a day?

And wishes, had he any?

Just his sigh, accented,

Had been legible to me.

And was he confident until