Emily Dickinson - Dickinson - The Complete Works

You cannot prick with saw,

Nor rend with scymitar.

Two bodies therefore be;

Bind one, and one will flee.

The eagle of his nest

No easier divest

And gain the sky,

Than mayest thou,

Except thyself may be

Thine enemy;

Captivity is consciousness,

So's liberty.

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I lost a world the other day.

Has anybody found?

You'll know it by the row of stars

Around its forehead bound.

A rich man might not notice it;

Yet to my frugal eye

Of more esteem than ducats.

Oh, find it, sir, for me!

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If I shouldn't be alive

When the robins come,

Give the one in red cravat

A memorial crumb.

If I couldn't thank you,

Being just asleep,

You will know I'm trying

With my granite lip!

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Sleep is supposed to be,

By souls of sanity,

The shutting of the eye.

Sleep is the station grand

Down which on either hand

The hosts of witness stand!

Morn is supposed to be,

By people of degree,

The breaking of the day.

Morning has not occurred!

That shall aurora be

East of eternity;

One with the banner gay,

One in the red array, —

That is the break of day.

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I shall know why, when time is over,

And I have ceased to wonder why;

Christ will explain each separate anguish

In the fair schoolroom of the sky.

He will tell me what Peter promised,

And I, for wonder at his woe,

I shall forget the drop of anguish

That scalds me now, that scalds me now.

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I never lost as much but twice,

And that was in the sod;

Twice have I stood a beggar

Before the door of God!

Angels, twice descending,

Reimbursed my store.

Burglar, banker, father,

I am poor once more!

Table of Contents Table of Contents Poems: First Series Poems: Second Series Poems: Third Series The Single Hound The Life and Letters of Emily Dickinson

PREFACE

BOOK I.—LIFE

I. "I'm nobody! Who are you?"

II. "I bring an unaccustomed wine"

III. "The nearest dream recedes unrealized"

IV. "We play at paste"

V. "I found the phrase to every thought"

VI. Hope

VII. The White Heat

VIII. Triumphant

IX. The Test

X. Escape

XI. Compensation

XII. The Martyrs

XIII. A Prayer

XIV. "The thought beneath so slight a film"

XV. "The soul unto itself"

XVI. "Surgeons must be very careful"

XVII. The Railway Train

XVIII. The Show

XIX. "Delight becomes pictorial"

XX. "A thought went up my mind to-day"

XXI. "Is Heaven a physician?"

XXII. The Return

XXIII. "A poor torn heart, a tattered heart"

XXIV. Too Much

XXV. Shipwreck

XXVI. "Victory comes late"

XXVII. Enough

XXVIII. "Experiment to me"

XXIX. My Country's Wardrobe

XXX. "Faith is a fine invention"

XXXI. "Except the heaven had come so near"

XXXII. "Portraits are to daily faces"

XXXIII. The Duel

XXXIV. "A shady friend for torrid days"

XXXV. The Goal

XXXVI. Sight

XXXVII. "Talk with prudence to a beggar"

XXXVIII. The Preacher

XXXIX. "Good night! which put the candle out?"

XL. "When I hoped I feared"

XLI. Deed

XLII. Time's Lesson

XLIII. Remorse

XLIV. The Shelter

XLV. "Undue significance a starving man attaches"

XLVI. "Heart not so heavy as mine"

XLVII. "I many times thought peace had come"

XLVIII. "Unto my books so good to turn"

XLIX. "This merit hath the worst"

L. Hunger

LI. "I gained it so"

LII. "To learn to transport by the pain"

LIII. Returning

LIV. Prayer

LV. "I know that he exists"

LVI. Melodies Unheard

LVII. Called Back

BOOK II.—LOVE.

I. Choice

II. "I have no life but this"

III. "Your riches taught me poverty"

IV. The Contract

V. The Letter

VI. "The way I read a letter's this"

VII. "Wild nights! Wild nights!"

VIII. At Home

IX. Possession

X. "A charm invests a face"

XI. The Lovers

XII. "In lands I never saw, they say"

XIII. "The moon is distant from the sea"

XIV. "He put the belt around my life"

XV. The Lost Jewel

XVI. "What if I say I shall not wait?"

BOOK III. NATURE.

I. Mother Nature

II. Out of the Morning

III. "At half-past three a single bird"

IV. Day's Parlor

V. The Sun's Wooing

VI. The Robin

VII. The Butterfly's Day

VIII. The Bluebird

IX. April

X. The Sleeping Flowers

XI. My Rose

XII. The Oriole's Secret

XIII. The Oriole

XIV. In Shadow

XV. The Humming-Bird

XVI. Secrets

XVII. "Who robbed the woods?"

XVIII. Two Voyagers

XIX. By the Sea

XX. Old-Fashioned

XXI. A Tempest

XXII. The Sea

XXIII. In the Garden

XXIV. The Snake

XXV. The Mushroom

XXVI. The Storm

XXVII. The Spider

XXVIII. "I know a place where summer strives"

XXIX. "The one that could repeat the summer day"

XXX. The Wind's Visit

XXXI. "Nature rarer uses yellow"

XXXII. Gossip

XXXIII. Simplicity

XXXIV. Storm

XXXV. The Rat

XXXVI. "Frequently the woods are pink"

XXXVII. A Thunder-Storm

XXXVIII. With Flowers

XXXIX. Sunset

XL. "She sweeps with many-colored brooms"

XLI. "Like mighty footlights burned the red"

XLII. Problems

XLIII. The Juggler of Day

XLIV. My Cricket

XLV. "As imperceptibly as grief"

XLVI. "It can't be summer,—that got through"

XLVII. Summer's Obsequies

XLVIII. Fringed Gentian

XLIX. November

L. The Snow

LI. The Blue Jay

BOOK IV. — TIME AND ETERNITY.

I. "Let down the bars, O Death!"

II. "Going to heaven!"

III. "At least to pray is left, is left"

IV. Epitaph

V. "Morns like these we parted"

VI. "A death-blow is a life-blow to some"

VII. "I read my sentence steadily"

VIII. "I have not told my garden yet"

IX. The Battle-Field

X. "The only ghost I ever saw"

XI. "Some, too fragile for winter winds"

XII. "As by the dead we love to sit"

XIII. Memorials

XIV. "I went to heaven"

XV. "Their height in heaven comforts not"

XVI. "There is a shame of nobleness"

XVII. Triumph

XVIII. "Pompless no life can pass away"

XIX. "I noticed people disappeared"

XX. Following

XXI. "If anybody's friend be dead"

XXII. The Journey

XXIII. A Country Burial

XXIV. Going

XXV. "Essential oils are wrung"

XXVI. "I lived on dread; to those who know"

XXVII. "If I should die"

XXVIII. At Length

XXIX. Ghosts

XXX. Vanished

XXXI. Precedence

XXXII. Gone

XXXIII. Requiem

XXXIV. "What inn is this?"

XXXV. "It was not death, for I stood up"

XXXVI. Till the End

XXXVII. Void

XXXVIII. "A throe upon the features"

XXXIX. Saved

XL. "I think just how my shape will rise"

XLI. The Forgotten Grave

XLII. "Lay this laurel on the one"

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The eagerness with which the first volume of Emily Dickinson's poems has been read shows very clearly that all our alleged modern artificiality does not prevent a prompt appreciation of the qualities of directness and simplicity in approaching the greatest themes,—life and love and death. That "irresistible needle-touch," as one of her best critics has called it, piercing at once the very core of a thought, has found a response as wide and sympathetic as it has been unexpected even to those who knew best her compelling power. This second volume, while open to the same criticism as to form with its predecessor, shows also the same shining beauties.