Emily Dickinson (1830 – 1886)
American poet.
THE FACE we choose to miss,
Be it but for a day—
As absent as a hundred years
When it has rode away.
UPON the gallows hung a wretch,
Too sullied for the hell
To which the law entitled him.
As nature’s curtain fell
The one who bore him tottered in,
For this was woman’s son.
“’T was all I had,” she stricken gasped;
Oh, what a livid boon!
IMMORTAL is an ample word
When what we need is by,
But when it leaves us for a time,
’T is a necessity.
NATURE is what we see,
The Hill, the Afternoon—
Squirrel, Eclipse, the Bumble-bee,
Nay—Nature is Heaven.
HEART, we will forget him!
You and I, to-night!
You may forget the warmth he gave,
I will forget the light.
IT makes no difference abroad,
The seasons fit the same,
The mornings blossom into noons,
And split their pods of flame.
IF I can stop one heart from breaking,
I shall not live in vain;
If I can ease one life the aching,
Or cool one pain,
Or help one fainting robin
Unto his nest again,
I shall not live in vain.
Success is counted sweetest
By those who ne'er succeed.
To comprehend a nectar
Requires a sorest need.
God preaches, a noted Clergyman —
And the sermon is never long,
So instead of getting to Heaven, at last—
I’m going, all along.
NO rack can torture me,
My soul ’s at liberty.
Behind this mortal bone
There knits a bolder one
WHO has not found the heaven below
Will fail of it above.
God’s residence is next to mine,
His furniture is love.
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.
IT tossed and tossed,—
A little brig I knew,—
O’ertook by blast,
It spun and spun,
And groped delirious, for morn.
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.