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+Project Gutenberg's Etext of Poems, Series 1, by Emily Dickinson
+#1 in our series by Emily Dickinson
+
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+Title:  Poems  [Series 1]
+
+Author:  Emily Dickinson
+
+June, 2001  [Etext #2678]
+
+
+Project Gutenberg's Etext of Poems, Series 1, by Emily Dickinson
+******This file should be named 2678-0.txt or 2678-0.zip******
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+Etext scanned by Jim Tinsley <jtinsley@pobox.com>
+
+
+
+
+
+POEMS
+
+by EMILY DICKINSON
+
+Series One
+
+
+
+
+Edited by two of her friends
+
+MABEL LOOMIS TODD and T.W.HIGGINSON
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+THE verses of Emily Dickinson belong emphatically to what Emerson
+long since called "the Poetry of the Portfolio,"--something produced
+absolutely without the thought of publication, and solely by way of
+expression of the writer's own mind. Such verse must inevitably
+forfeit whatever advantage lies in the discipline of public criticism
+and the enforced conformity to accepted ways. On the other hand, it
+may often gain something through the habit of freedom and the
+unconventional utterance of daring thoughts. In the case of the
+present author, there was absolutely no choice in the matter; she
+must write thus, or not at all. A recluse by temperament and habit,
+literally spending years without setting her foot beyond the
+doorstep, and many more years during which her walks were strictly
+limited to her father's grounds, she habitually concealed her mind,
+like her person, from all but a very few friends; and it was with
+great difficulty that she was persuaded to print, during her
+lifetime, three or four poems.  Yet she wrote verses in great
+abundance; and though brought curiously indifferent to all
+conventional rules, had yet a rigorous literary standard of her own,
+and often altered a word many times to suit an ear which had its own
+tenacious fastidiousness.
+
+Miss Dickinson was born in Amherst, Mass., Dec. 10, 1830, and died
+there May 15, 1886. Her father, Hon. Edward Dickinson, was the
+leading lawyer of Amherst, and was treasurer of the well-known
+college there situated. It was his custom once a year to hold a large
+reception at his house, attended by all the families connected with
+the institution and by the leading people of the town. On these
+occasions his daughter Emily emerged from her wonted retirement and
+did her part as gracious hostess; nor would any one have known from
+her manner, I have been told, that this was not a daily occurrence.
+The annual occasion once past, she withdrew again into her seclusion,
+and except for a very few friends was as invisible to the world as if
+she had dwelt in a nunnery.  For myself, although I had corresponded
+with her for many years, I saw her but twice face to face, and
+brought away the impression of something as unique and remote as
+Undine or Mignon or Thekla.
+
+This selection from her poems is published to meet the desire of her
+personal friends, and especially of her surviving sister. It is
+believed that the thoughtful reader will find in these pages a
+quality more suggestive of the poetry of William Blake than of
+anything to be elsewhere found,--flashes of wholly original and
+profound insight into nature and life; words and phrases exhibiting
+an extraordinary vividness of descriptive and imaginative power, yet
+often set in a seemingly whimsical or even rugged frame. They are
+here published as they were written, with very few and superficial
+changes; although it is fair to say that the titles have been
+assigned, almost invariably, by the editors. In many cases these
+verses will seem to the reader like poetry torn up by the roots, with
+rain and dew and earth still clinging to them, giving a freshness and
+a fragrance not otherwise to be conveyed.  In other cases, as in the
+few poems of shipwreck or of mental conflict, we can only wonder at
+the gift of vivid imagination by which this recluse woman can
+delineate, by a few touches, the very crises of physical or mental
+struggle. And sometimes again we catch glimpses of a lyric strain,
+sustained perhaps but for a line or two at a time, and making the
+reader regret its sudden cessation. But the main quality of these
+poems is that of extraordinary grasp and insight, uttered with an
+uneven vigor sometimes exasperating, seemingly wayward, but really
+unsought and inevitable.  After all, when a thought takes one's
+breath away, a lesson on grammar seems an impertinence. As Ruskin
+wrote in his earlier and better days, "No weight nor mass nor beauty
+of execution can outweigh one grain or fragment of thought."
+
+            ---Thomas Wentworth Higginson
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE
+
+As is well documented, Emily Dickinson's poems were edited in these
+early editions by her friends, better to fit the conventions of the
+times. In particular, her dashes, often small enough to appear
+as dots, became commas and semi-colons.
+
+In the second series of poems published, a facsimile of her
+handwritten poem which her editors titled "Renunciation" is given,
+and I here transcribe that manuscript as faithfully as I can,
+showing _underlined_ words thus.
+
+
+There came a day - at Summer's full -
+Entirely for me -
+I thought that such were for the Saints -
+Where Resurrections - be -
+
+The sun - as common - went abroad -
+The flowers - accustomed - blew,
+As if no soul - that solstice passed -
+Which maketh all things - new -
+
+The time was scarce profaned - by speech -
+The falling of a word
+Was needless - as at Sacrament -
+The _Wardrobe_ - of our Lord!
+
+Each was to each - the sealed church -
+Permitted to commune -  _this_ time -
+Lest we too awkward show
+At Supper of "the Lamb."
+
+The hours slid fast - as hours will -
+Clutched tight - by greedy hands -
+So - faces on two Decks look back -
+Bound to _opposing_ lands.
+
+And so, when all the time had leaked,
+Without external sound,
+Each bound the other's Crucifix -
+We gave no other bond -
+
+Sufficient troth - that we shall _rise_,
+Deposed - at length the Grave -
+To that new marriage -
+_Justified_ - through Calvaries - of Love!
+
+
+From the handwriting, it is not always clear which are dashes,
+which are commas and which are periods, nor it is entirely
+clear which initial letters are capitalized.
+
+However, this transcription may be compared with the edited
+version in the main text to get a flavor of the changes made
+in these early editions.
+
+      ---JT
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+        This is my letter to the world,
+           That never wrote to me, --
+        The simple news that Nature told,
+           With tender majesty.
+
+        Her message is committed
+           To hands I cannot see;
+        For love of her, sweet countrymen,
+           Judge tenderly of me!
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                  I.
+
+
+                 LIFE.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+        I.
+
+     SUCCESS.
+
+[Published in "A Masque of Poets"
+at the request of "H.H.," the author's
+fellow-townswoman and friend.]
+
+Success is counted sweetest
+By those who ne'er succeed.
+To comprehend a nectar
+Requires sorest need.
+
+Not one of all the purple host
+Who took the flag to-day
+Can tell the definition,
+So clear, of victory,
+
+As he, defeated, dying,
+On whose forbidden ear
+The distant strains of triumph
+Break, agonized and clear!
+
+
+
+
+        II.
+
+Our share of night to bear,
+Our share of morning,
+Our blank in bliss to fill,
+Our blank in scorning.
+
+Here a star, and there a star,
+Some lose their way.
+Here a mist, and there a mist,
+Afterwards -- day!
+
+
+
+
+        III.
+
+    ROUGE ET NOIR.
+
+Soul, wilt thou toss again?
+By just such a hazard
+Hundreds have lost, indeed,
+But tens have won an all.
+
+Angels' breathless ballot
+Lingers to record thee;
+Imps in eager caucus
+Raffle for my soul.
+
+
+
+
+        IV.
+
+    ROUGE GAGNE.
+
+'T is so much joy! 'T is so much joy!
+If I should fail, what poverty!
+And yet, as poor as I
+Have ventured all upon a throw;
+Have gained! Yes! Hesitated so
+This side the victory!
+
+Life is but life, and death but death!
+Bliss is but bliss, and breath but breath!
+And if, indeed, I fail,
+At least to know the worst is sweet.
+Defeat means nothing but defeat,
+No drearier can prevail!
+
+And if I gain, -- oh, gun at sea,
+Oh, bells that in the steeples be,
+At first repeat it slow!
+For heaven is a different thing
+Conjectured, and waked sudden in,
+And might o'erwhelm me so!
+
+
+
+
+        V.
+
+Glee! The great storm is over!
+Four have recovered the land;
+Forty gone down together
+Into the boiling sand.
+
+Ring, for the scant salvation!
+Toll, for the bonnie souls, --
+Neighbor and friend and bridegroom,
+Spinning upon the shoals!
+
+How they will tell the shipwreck
+When winter shakes the door,
+Till the children ask, "But the forty?
+Did they come back no more?"
+
+Then a silence suffuses the story,
+And a softness the teller's eye;
+And the children no further question,
+And only the waves reply.
+
+
+
+
+        VI.
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+        VII.
+
+      ALMOST!
+
+Within my reach!
+I could have touched!
+I might have chanced that way!
+Soft sauntered through the village,
+Sauntered as soft away!
+So unsuspected violets
+Within the fields lie low,
+Too late for striving fingers
+That passed, an hour ago.
+
+
+
+
+        VIII.
+
+A wounded deer leaps highest,
+I've heard the hunter tell;
+'T is but the ecstasy of death,
+And then the brake is still.
+
+The smitten rock that gushes,
+The trampled steel that springs;
+A cheek is always redder
+Just where the hectic stings!
+
+Mirth is the mail of anguish,
+In which it cautions arm,
+Lest anybody spy the blood
+And "You're hurt" exclaim!
+
+
+
+
+        IX.
+
+The heart asks pleasure first,
+And then, excuse from pain;
+And then, those little anodynes
+That deaden suffering;
+
+And then, to go to sleep;
+And then, if it should be
+The will of its Inquisitor,
+The liberty to die.
+
+
+
+
+        X.
+
+   IN A LIBRARY.
+
+A precious, mouldering pleasure 't is
+To meet an antique book,
+In just the dress his century wore;
+A privilege, I think,
+
+His venerable hand to take,
+And warming in our own,
+A passage back, or two, to make
+To times when he was young.
+
+His quaint opinions to inspect,
+His knowledge to unfold
+On what concerns our mutual mind,
+The literature of old;
+
+What interested scholars most,
+What competitions ran
+When Plato was a certainty.
+And Sophocles a man;
+
+When Sappho was a living girl,
+And Beatrice wore
+The gown that Dante deified.
+Facts, centuries before,
+
+He traverses familiar,
+As one should come to town
+And tell you all your dreams were true;
+He lived where dreams were sown.
+
+His presence is enchantment,
+You beg him not to go;
+Old volumes shake their vellum heads
+And tantalize, just so.
+
+
+
+
+        XI.
+
+Much madness is divinest sense
+To a discerning eye;
+Much sense the starkest madness.
+'T is the majority
+In this, as all, prevails.
+Assent, and you are sane;
+Demur, -- you're straightway dangerous,
+And handled with a chain.
+
+
+
+
+        XII.
+
+I asked no other thing,
+No other was denied.
+I offered Being for it;
+The mighty merchant smiled.
+
+Brazil? He twirled a button,
+Without a glance my way:
+"But, madam, is there nothing else
+That we can show to-day?"
+
+
+
+
+        XIII.
+
+     EXCLUSION.
+
+The soul selects her own society,
+Then shuts the door;
+On her divine majority
+Obtrude no more.
+
+Unmoved, she notes the chariot's pausing
+At her low gate;
+Unmoved, an emperor is kneeling
+Upon her mat.
+
+I've known her from an ample nation
+Choose one;
+Then close the valves of her attention
+Like stone.
+
+
+
+
+        XIV.
+
+     THE SECRET.
+
+Some things that fly there be, --
+Birds, hours, the bumble-bee:
+Of these no elegy.
+
+Some things that stay there be, --
+Grief, hills, eternity:
+Nor this behooveth me.
+
+There are, that resting, rise.
+Can I expound the skies?
+How still the riddle lies!
+
+
+
+
+        XV.
+
+  THE LONELY HOUSE.
+
+I know some lonely houses off the road
+A robber 'd like the look of, --
+Wooden barred,
+And windows hanging low,
+Inviting to
+A portico,
+Where two could creep:
+One hand the tools,
+The other peep
+To make sure all's asleep.
+Old-fashioned eyes,
+Not easy to surprise!
+
+How orderly the kitchen 'd look by night,
+With just a clock, --
+But they could gag the tick,
+And mice won't bark;
+And so the walls don't tell,
+None will.
+
+A pair of spectacles ajar just stir --
+An almanac's aware.
+Was it the mat winked,
+Or a nervous star?
+The moon slides down the stair
+To see who's there.
+
+There's plunder, -- where?
+Tankard, or spoon,
+Earring, or stone,
+A watch, some ancient brooch
+To match the grandmamma,
+Staid sleeping there.
+
+Day rattles, too,
+Stealth's slow;
+The sun has got as far
+As the third sycamore.
+Screams chanticleer,
+"Who's there?"
+And echoes, trains away,
+Sneer -- "Where?"
+While the old couple, just astir,
+Fancy the sunrise left the door ajar!
+
+
+
+
+        XVI.
+
+To fight aloud is very brave,
+But gallanter, I know,
+Who charge within the bosom,
+The cavalry of woe.
+
+Who win, and nations do not see,
+Who fall, and none observe,
+Whose dying eyes no country
+Regards with patriot love.
+
+We trust, in plumed procession,
+For such the angels go,
+Rank after rank, with even feet
+And uniforms of snow.
+
+
+
+
+        XVII.
+
+        DAWN.
+
+When night is almost done,
+And sunrise grows so near
+That we can touch the spaces,
+It 's time to smooth the hair
+
+And get the dimples ready,
+And wonder we could care
+For that old faded midnight
+That frightened but an hour.
+
+
+
+
+        XVIII.
+
+ THE BOOK OF MARTYRS.
+
+Read, sweet, how others strove,
+Till we are stouter;
+What they renounced,
+Till we are less afraid;
+How many times they bore
+The faithful witness,
+Till we are helped,
+As if a kingdom cared!
+
+Read then of faith
+That shone above the fagot;
+Clear strains of hymn
+The river could not drown;
+Brave names of men
+And celestial women,
+Passed out of record
+Into renown!
+
+
+
+
+        XIX.
+
+ THE MYSTERY OF PAIN.
+
+Pain has an element of blank;
+It cannot recollect
+When it began, or if there were
+A day when it was not.
+
+It has no future but itself,
+Its infinite realms contain
+Its past, enlightened to perceive
+New periods of pain.
+
+
+
+
+        XX.
+
+I taste a liquor never brewed,
+From tankards scooped in pearl;
+Not all the vats upon the Rhine
+Yield such an alcohol!
+
+Inebriate of air am I,
+And debauchee of dew,
+Reeling, through endless summer days,
+From inns of molten blue.
+
+When landlords turn the drunken bee
+Out of the foxglove's door,
+When butterflies renounce their drams,
+I shall but drink the more!
+
+Till seraphs swing their snowy hats,
+And saints to windows run,
+To see the little tippler
+Leaning against the sun!
+
+
+
+
+        XXI.
+
+      A BOOK.
+
+He ate and drank the precious words,
+His spirit grew robust;
+He knew no more that he was poor,
+Nor that his frame was dust.
+He danced along the dingy days,
+And this bequest of wings
+Was but a book. What liberty
+A loosened spirit brings!
+
+
+
+
+        XXII.
+
+I had no time to hate, because
+The grave would hinder me,
+And life was not so ample I
+Could finish enmity.
+
+Nor had I time to love; but since
+Some industry must be,
+The little toil of love, I thought,
+Was large enough for me.
+
+
+
+
+        XXIII.
+
+     UNRETURNING.
+
+'T was such a little, little boat
+That toddled down the bay!
+'T was such a gallant, gallant sea
+That beckoned it away!
+
+'T was such a greedy, greedy wave
+That licked it from the coast;
+Nor ever guessed the stately sails
+My little craft was lost!
+
+
+
+
+        XXIV.
+
+Whether my bark went down at sea,
+Whether she met with gales,
+Whether to isles enchanted
+She bent her docile sails;
+
+By what mystic mooring
+She is held to-day, --
+This is the errand of the eye
+Out upon the bay.
+
+
+
+
+        XXV.
+
+Belshazzar had a letter, --
+He never had but one;
+Belshazzar's correspondent
+Concluded and begun
+In that immortal copy
+The conscience of us all
+Can read without its glasses
+On revelation's wall.
+
+
+
+
+        XXVI.
+
+The brain within its groove
+Runs evenly and true;
+But let a splinter swerve,
+'T were easier for you
+To put the water back
+When floods have slit the hills,
+And scooped a turnpike for themselves,
+And blotted out the mills!
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                 II.
+
+                LOVE.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+        I.
+
+       MINE.
+
+Mine by the right of the white election!
+Mine by the royal seal!
+Mine by the sign in the scarlet prison
+Bars cannot conceal!
+
+Mine, here in vision and in veto!
+Mine, by the grave's repeal
+Titled, confirmed, -- delirious charter!
+Mine, while the ages steal!
+
+
+
+
+        II.
+
+     BEQUEST.
+
+You left me, sweet, two legacies, --
+A legacy of love
+A Heavenly Father would content,
+Had He the offer of;
+
+You left me boundaries of pain
+Capacious as the sea,
+Between eternity and time,
+Your consciousness and me.
+
+
+
+
+        III.
+
+Alter? When the hills do.
+Falter? When the sun
+Question if his glory
+Be the perfect one.
+
+Surfeit? When the daffodil
+Doth of the dew:
+Even as herself, O friend!
+I will of you!
+
+
+
+
+        IV.
+
+     SUSPENSE.
+
+Elysium is as far as to
+The very nearest room,
+If in that room a friend await
+Felicity or doom.
+
+What fortitude the soul contains,
+That it can so endure
+The accent of a coming foot,
+The opening of a door!
+
+
+
+
+        V.
+
+    SURRENDER.
+
+Doubt me, my dim companion!
+Why, God would be content
+With but a fraction of the love
+Poured thee without a stint.
+The whole of me, forever,
+What more the woman can, --
+Say quick, that I may dower thee
+With last delight I own!
+
+It cannot be my spirit,
+For that was thine before;
+I ceded all of dust I knew, --
+What opulence the more
+Had I, a humble maiden,
+Whose farthest of degree
+Was that she might,
+Some distant heaven,
+Dwell timidly with thee!
+
+
+
+
+        VI.
+
+If you were coming in the fall,
+I'd brush the summer by
+With half a smile and half a spurn,
+As housewives do a fly.
+
+If I could see you in a year,
+I'd wind the months in balls,
+And put them each in separate drawers,
+Until their time befalls.
+
+If only centuries delayed,
+I'd count them on my hand,
+Subtracting till my fingers dropped
+Into Van Diemen's land.
+
+If certain, when this life was out,
+That yours and mine should be,
+I'd toss it yonder like a rind,
+And taste eternity.
+
+But now, all ignorant of the length
+Of time's uncertain wing,
+It goads me, like the goblin bee,
+That will not state its sting.
+
+
+
+
+        VII.
+
+   WITH A FLOWER.
+
+I hide myself within my flower,
+That wearing on your breast,
+You, unsuspecting, wear me too --
+And angels know the rest.
+
+I hide myself within my flower,
+That, fading from your vase,
+You, unsuspecting, feel for me
+Almost a loneliness.
+
+
+
+
+        VIII.
+
+        PROOF.
+
+That I did always love,
+I bring thee proof:
+That till I loved
+I did not love enough.
+
+That I shall love alway,
+I offer thee
+That love is life,
+And life hath immortality.
+
+This, dost thou doubt, sweet?
+Then have I
+Nothing to show
+But Calvary.
+
+
+
+
+        IX.
+
+Have you got a brook in your little heart,
+Where bashful flowers blow,
+And blushing birds go down to drink,
+And shadows tremble so?
+
+And nobody knows, so still it flows,
+That any brook is there;
+And yet your little draught of life
+Is daily drunken there.
+
+Then look out for the little brook in March,
+When the rivers overflow,
+And the snows come hurrying from the hills,
+And the bridges often go.
+
+And later, in August it may be,
+When the meadows parching lie,
+Beware, lest this little brook of life
+Some burning noon go dry!
+
+
+
+
+        X.
+
+   TRANSPLANTED.
+
+As if some little Arctic flower,
+Upon the polar hem,
+Went wandering down the latitudes,
+Until it puzzled came
+To continents of summer,
+To firmaments of sun,
+To strange, bright crowds of flowers,
+And birds of foreign tongue!
+I say, as if this little flower
+To Eden wandered in --
+What then? Why, nothing, only,
+Your inference therefrom!
+
+
+
+
+        XI.
+
+    THE OUTLET.
+
+My river runs to thee:
+Blue sea, wilt welcome me?
+
+My river waits reply.
+Oh sea, look graciously!
+
+I'll fetch thee brooks
+From spotted nooks, --
+
+Say, sea,
+Take me!
+
+
+
+
+        XII.
+
+      IN VAIN.
+
+I cannot live with you,
+It would be life,
+And life is over there
+Behind the shelf
+
+The sexton keeps the key to,
+Putting up
+Our life, his porcelain,
+Like a cup
+
+Discarded of the housewife,
+Quaint or broken;
+A newer Sevres pleases,
+Old ones crack.
+
+I could not die with you,
+For one must wait
+To shut the other's gaze down, --
+You could not.
+
+And I, could I stand by
+And see you freeze,
+Without my right of frost,
+Death's privilege?
+
+Nor could I rise with you,
+Because your face
+Would put out Jesus',
+That new grace
+
+Glow plain and foreign
+On my homesick eye,
+Except that you, than he
+Shone closer by.
+
+They'd judge us -- how?
+For you served Heaven, you know,
+Or sought to;
+I could not,
+
+Because you saturated sight,
+And I had no more eyes
+For sordid excellence
+As Paradise.
+
+And were you lost, I would be,
+Though my name
+Rang loudest
+On the heavenly fame.
+
+And were you saved,
+And I condemned to be
+Where you were not,
+That self were hell to me.
+
+So we must keep apart,
+You there, I here,
+With just the door ajar
+That oceans are,
+And prayer,
+And that pale sustenance,
+Despair!
+
+
+
+
+        XIII.
+
+    RENUNCIATION.
+
+There came a day at summer's full
+Entirely for me;
+I thought that such were for the saints,
+Where revelations be.
+
+The sun, as common, went abroad,
+The flowers, accustomed, blew,
+As if no soul the solstice passed
+That maketh all things new.
+
+The time was scarce profaned by speech;
+The symbol of a word
+Was needless, as at sacrament
+The wardrobe of our Lord.
+
+Each was to each the sealed church,
+Permitted to commune this time,
+Lest we too awkward show
+At supper of the Lamb.
+
+The hours slid fast, as hours will,
+Clutched tight by greedy hands;
+So faces on two decks look back,
+Bound to opposing lands.
+
+And so, when all the time had failed,
+Without external sound,
+Each bound the other's crucifix,
+We gave no other bond.
+
+Sufficient troth that we shall rise --
+Deposed, at length, the grave --
+To that new marriage, justified
+Through Calvaries of Love!
+
+
+
+
+        XIV.
+
+   LOVE'S BAPTISM.
+
+I'm ceded, I've stopped being theirs;
+The name they dropped upon my face
+With water, in the country church,
+Is finished using now,
+And they can put it with my dolls,
+My childhood, and the string of spools
+I've finished threading too.
+
+Baptized before without the choice,
+But this time consciously, of grace
+Unto supremest name,
+Called to my full, the crescent dropped,
+Existence's whole arc filled up
+With one small diadem.
+
+My second rank, too small the first,
+Crowned, crowing on my father's breast,
+A half unconscious queen;
+But this time, adequate, erect,
+With will to choose or to reject.
+And I choose -- just a throne.
+
+
+
+
+        XV.
+
+   RESURRECTION.
+
+'T was a long parting, but the time
+For interview had come;
+Before the judgment-seat of God,
+The last and second time
+
+These fleshless lovers met,
+A heaven in a gaze,
+A heaven of heavens, the privilege
+Of one another's eyes.
+
+No lifetime set on them,
+Apparelled as the new
+Unborn, except they had beheld,
+Born everlasting now.
+
+Was bridal e'er like this?
+A paradise, the host,
+And cherubim and seraphim
+The most familiar guest.
+
+
+
+
+        XVI.
+
+    APOCALYPSE.
+
+I'm wife; I've finished that,
+That other state;
+I'm Czar, I'm woman now:
+It's safer so.
+
+How odd the girl's life looks
+Behind this soft eclipse!
+I think that earth seems so
+To those in heaven now.
+
+This being comfort, then
+That other kind was pain;
+But why compare?
+I'm wife! stop there!
+
+
+
+
+        XVII.
+
+      THE WIFE.
+
+She rose to his requirement, dropped
+The playthings of her life
+To take the honorable work
+Of woman and of wife.
+
+If aught she missed in her new day
+Of amplitude, or awe,
+Or first prospective, or the gold
+In using wore away,
+
+It lay unmentioned, as the sea
+Develops pearl and weed,
+But only to himself is known
+The fathoms they abide.
+
+
+
+
+        XVIII.
+
+      APOTHEOSIS.
+
+Come slowly, Eden!
+Lips unused to thee,
+Bashful, sip thy jasmines,
+As the fainting bee,
+
+Reaching late his flower,
+Round her chamber hums,
+Counts his nectars -- enters,
+And is lost in balms!
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                 III.
+
+                NATURE.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+        I.
+
+New feet within my garden go,
+New fingers stir the sod;
+A troubadour upon the elm
+Betrays the solitude.
+
+New children play upon the green,
+New weary sleep below;
+And still the pensive spring returns,
+And still the punctual snow!
+
+
+
+
+        II.
+
+   MAY-FLOWER.
+
+Pink, small, and punctual,
+Aromatic, low,
+Covert in April,
+Candid in May,
+
+Dear to the moss,
+Known by the knoll,
+Next to the robin
+In every human soul.
+
+Bold little beauty,
+Bedecked with thee,
+Nature forswears
+Antiquity.
+
+
+
+
+        III.
+
+        WHY?
+
+The murmur of a bee
+A witchcraft yieldeth me.
+If any ask me why,
+'T were easier to die
+Than tell.
+
+The red upon the hill
+Taketh away my will;
+If anybody sneer,
+Take care, for God is here,
+That's all.
+
+The breaking of the day
+Addeth to my degree;
+If any ask me how,
+Artist, who drew me so,
+Must tell!
+
+
+
+
+        IV.
+
+Perhaps you'd like to buy a flower?
+But I could never sell.
+If you would like to borrow
+Until the daffodil
+
+Unties her yellow bonnet
+Beneath the village door,
+Until the bees, from clover rows
+Their hock and sherry draw,
+
+Why, I will lend until just then,
+But not an hour more!
+
+
+
+
+        V.
+
+The pedigree of honey
+Does not concern the bee;
+A clover, any time, to him
+Is aristocracy.
+
+
+
+
+        VI.
+
+  A SERVICE OF SONG.
+
+Some keep the Sabbath going to church;
+I keep it staying at home,
+With a bobolink for a chorister,
+And an orchard for a dome.
+
+Some keep the Sabbath in surplice;
+I just wear my wings,
+And instead of tolling the bell for church,
+Our little sexton sings.
+
+God preaches, -- a noted clergyman, --
+And the sermon is never long;
+So instead of getting to heaven at last,
+I'm going all along!
+
+
+
+
+        VII.
+
+The bee is not afraid of me,
+I know the butterfly;
+The pretty people in the woods
+Receive me cordially.
+
+The brooks laugh louder when I come,
+The breezes madder play.
+Wherefore, mine eyes, thy silver mists?
+Wherefore, O summer's day?
+
+
+
+
+        VIII.
+
+   SUMMER'S ARMIES.
+
+Some rainbow coming from the fair!
+Some vision of the world Cashmere
+I confidently see!
+Or else a peacock's purple train,
+Feather by feather, on the plain
+Fritters itself away!
+
+The dreamy butterflies bestir,
+Lethargic pools resume the whir
+Of last year's sundered tune.
+From some old fortress on the sun
+Baronial bees march, one by one,
+In murmuring platoon!
+
+The robins stand as thick to-day
+As flakes of snow stood yesterday,
+On fence and roof and twig.
+The orchis binds her feather on
+For her old lover, Don the Sun,
+Revisiting the bog!
+
+Without commander, countless, still,
+The regiment of wood and hill
+In bright detachment stand.
+Behold! Whose multitudes are these?
+The children of whose turbaned seas,
+Or what Circassian land?
+
+
+
+
+        IX.
+
+     THE GRASS.
+
+The grass so little has to do, --
+A sphere of simple green,
+With only butterflies to brood,
+And bees to entertain,
+
+And stir all day to pretty tunes
+The breezes fetch along,
+And hold the sunshine in its lap
+And bow to everything;
+
+And thread the dews all night, like pearls,
+And make itself so fine, --
+A duchess were too common
+For such a noticing.
+
+And even when it dies, to pass
+In odors so divine,
+As lowly spices gone to sleep,
+Or amulets of pine.
+
+And then to dwell in sovereign barns,
+And dream the days away, --
+The grass so little has to do,
+I wish I were the hay!
+
+
+
+
+        X.
+
+A little road not made of man,
+Enabled of the eye,
+Accessible to thill of bee,
+Or cart of butterfly.
+
+If town it have, beyond itself,
+'T is that I cannot say;
+I only sigh, -- no vehicle
+Bears me along that way.
+
+
+
+
+        XI.
+
+  SUMMER SHOWER.
+
+A drop fell on the apple tree,
+Another on the roof;
+A half a dozen kissed the eaves,
+And made the gables laugh.
+
+A few went out to help the brook,
+That went to help the sea.
+Myself conjectured, Were they pearls,
+What necklaces could be!
+
+The dust replaced in hoisted roads,
+The birds jocoser sung;
+The sunshine threw his hat away,
+The orchards spangles hung.
+
+The breezes brought dejected lutes,
+And bathed them in the glee;
+The East put out a single flag,
+And signed the fete away.
+
+
+
+
+        XII.
+
+  PSALM OF THE DAY.
+
+A something in a summer's day,
+As slow her flambeaux burn away,
+Which solemnizes me.
+
+A something in a summer's noon, --
+An azure depth, a wordless tune,
+Transcending ecstasy.
+
+And still within a summer's night
+A something so transporting bright,
+I clap my hands to see;
+
+Then veil my too inspecting face,
+Lest such a subtle, shimmering grace
+Flutter too far for me.
+
+The wizard-fingers never rest,
+The purple brook within the breast
+Still chafes its narrow bed;
+
+Still rears the East her amber flag,
+Guides still the sun along the crag
+His caravan of red,
+
+Like flowers that heard the tale of dews,
+But never deemed the dripping prize
+Awaited their low brows;
+
+Or bees, that thought the summer's name
+Some rumor of delirium
+No summer could for them;
+
+Or Arctic creature, dimly stirred
+By tropic hint, -- some travelled bird
+Imported to the wood;
+
+Or wind's bright signal to the ear,
+Making that homely and severe,
+Contented, known, before
+
+The heaven unexpected came,
+To lives that thought their worshipping
+A too presumptuous psalm.
+
+
+
+
+        XIII.
+
+  THE SEA OF SUNSET.
+
+This is the land the sunset washes,
+These are the banks of the Yellow Sea;
+Where it rose, or whither it rushes,
+These are the western mystery!
+
+Night after night her purple traffic
+Strews the landing with opal bales;
+Merchantmen poise upon horizons,
+Dip, and vanish with fairy sails.
+
+
+
+
+        XIV.
+
+   PURPLE CLOVER.
+
+There is a flower that bees prefer,
+And butterflies desire;
+To gain the purple democrat
+The humming-birds aspire.
+
+And whatsoever insect pass,
+A honey bears away
+Proportioned to his several dearth
+And her capacity.
+
+Her face is rounder than the moon,
+And ruddier than the gown
+Of orchis in the pasture,
+Or rhododendron worn.
+
+She doth not wait for June;
+Before the world is green
+Her sturdy little countenance
+Against the wind is seen,
+
+Contending with the grass,
+Near kinsman to herself,
+For privilege of sod and sun,
+Sweet litigants for life.
+
+And when the hills are full,
+And newer fashions blow,
+Doth not retract a single spice
+For pang of jealousy.
+
+Her public is the noon,
+Her providence the sun,
+Her progress by the bee proclaimed
+In sovereign, swerveless tune.
+
+The bravest of the host,
+Surrendering the last,
+Nor even of defeat aware
+When cancelled by the frost.
+
+
+
+
+        XV.
+
+     THE BEE.
+
+Like trains of cars on tracks of plush
+I hear the level bee:
+A jar across the flowers goes,
+Their velvet masonry
+
+Withstands until the sweet assault
+Their chivalry consumes,
+While he, victorious, tilts away
+To vanquish other blooms.
+
+His feet are shod with gauze,
+His helmet is of gold;
+His breast, a single onyx
+With chrysoprase, inlaid.
+
+His labor is a chant,
+His idleness a tune;
+Oh, for a bee's experience
+Of clovers and of noon!
+
+
+
+
+        XVI.
+
+Presentiment is that long shadow on the lawn
+Indicative that suns go down;
+The notice to the startled grass
+That darkness is about to pass.
+
+
+
+
+        XVII.
+
+As children bid the guest good-night,
+And then reluctant turn,
+My flowers raise their pretty lips,
+Then put their nightgowns on.
+
+As children caper when they wake,
+Merry that it is morn,
+My flowers from a hundred cribs
+Will peep, and prance again.
+
+
+
+
+        XVIII.
+
+Angels in the early morning
+May be seen the dews among,
+Stooping, plucking, smiling, flying:
+Do the buds to them belong?
+
+Angels when the sun is hottest
+May be seen the sands among,
+Stooping, plucking, sighing, flying;
+Parched the flowers they bear along.
+
+
+
+
+        XIX.
+
+So bashful when I spied her,
+So pretty, so ashamed!
+So hidden in her leaflets,
+Lest anybody find;
+
+So breathless till I passed her,
+So helpless when I turned
+And bore her, struggling, blushing,
+Her simple haunts beyond!
+
+For whom I robbed the dingle,
+For whom betrayed the dell,
+Many will doubtless ask me,
+But I shall never tell!
+
+
+
+
+        XX.
+
+    TWO WORLDS.
+
+It makes no difference abroad,
+The seasons fit the same,
+The mornings blossom into noons,
+And split their pods of flame.
+
+Wild-flowers kindle in the woods,
+The brooks brag all the day;
+No blackbird bates his jargoning
+For passing Calvary.
+
+Auto-da-fe and judgment
+Are nothing to the bee;
+His separation from his rose
+To him seems misery.
+
+
+
+
+        XXI.
+
+   THE MOUNTAIN.
+
+The mountain sat upon the plain
+In his eternal chair,
+His observation omnifold,
+His inquest everywhere.
+
+The seasons prayed around his knees,
+Like children round a sire:
+Grandfather of the days is he,
+Of dawn the ancestor.
+
+
+
+
+        XXII.
+
+       A DAY.
+
+I'll tell you how the sun rose, --
+A ribbon at a time.
+The steeples swam in amethyst,
+The news like squirrels ran.
+
+The hills untied their bonnets,
+The bobolinks begun.
+Then I said softly to myself,
+"That must have been the sun!"
+
+        *  *  *
+
+But how he set, I know not.
+There seemed a purple stile
+Which little yellow boys and girls
+Were climbing all the while
+
+Till when they reached the other side,
+A dominie in gray
+Put gently up the evening bars,
+And led the flock away.
+
+
+
+
+        XXIII.
+
+The butterfly's assumption-gown,
+In chrysoprase apartments hung,
+  This afternoon put on.
+
+
+How condescending to descend,
+And be of buttercups the friend
+  In a New England town!
+
+
+
+
+        XXIV.
+
+      THE WIND.
+
+Of all the sounds despatched abroad,
+There's not a charge to me
+Like that old measure in the boughs,
+That phraseless melody
+
+The wind does, working like a hand
+Whose fingers brush the sky,
+Then quiver down, with tufts of tune
+Permitted gods and me.
+
+When winds go round and round in bands,
+And thrum upon the door,
+And birds take places overhead,
+To bear them orchestra,
+
+I crave him grace, of summer boughs,
+If such an outcast be,
+He never heard that fleshless chant
+Rise solemn in the tree,
+
+As if some caravan of sound
+On deserts, in the sky,
+Had broken rank,
+Then knit, and passed
+In seamless company.
+
+
+
+
+        XXV.
+
+   DEATH AND LIFE.
+
+Apparently with no surprise
+To any happy flower,
+The frost beheads it at its play
+In accidental power.
+The blond assassin passes on,
+The sun proceeds unmoved
+To measure off another day
+For an approving God.
+
+
+
+
+        XXVI.
+
+'T was later when the summer went
+Than when the cricket came,
+And yet we knew that gentle clock
+Meant nought but going home.
+
+'T was sooner when the cricket went
+Than when the winter came,
+Yet that pathetic pendulum
+Keeps esoteric time.
+
+
+
+
+        XXVII.
+
+    INDIAN SUMMER.
+
+These are the days when birds come back,
+A very few, a bird or two,
+To take a backward look.
+
+These are the days when skies put on
+The old, old sophistries of June, --
+A blue and gold mistake.
+
+Oh, fraud that cannot cheat the bee,
+Almost thy plausibility
+Induces my belief,
+
+Till ranks of seeds their witness bear,
+And softly through the altered air
+Hurries a timid leaf!
+
+Oh, sacrament of summer days,
+Oh, last communion in the haze,
+Permit a child to join,
+
+Thy sacred emblems to partake,
+Thy consecrated bread to break,
+Taste thine immortal wine!
+
+
+
+
+        XXVIII.
+
+        AUTUMN.
+
+The morns are meeker than they were,
+The nuts are getting brown;
+The berry's cheek is plumper,
+The rose is out of town.
+
+The maple wears a gayer scarf,
+The field a scarlet gown.
+Lest I should be old-fashioned,
+I'll put a trinket on.
+
+
+
+
+        XXIX.
+
+      BECLOUDED.
+
+The sky is low, the clouds are mean,
+A travelling flake of snow
+Across a barn or through a rut
+Debates if it will go.
+
+A narrow wind complains all day
+How some one treated him;
+Nature, like us, is sometimes caught
+Without her diadem.
+
+
+
+
+        XXX.
+
+    THE HEMLOCK.
+
+I think the hemlock likes to stand
+Upon a marge of snow;
+It suits his own austerity,
+And satisfies an awe
+
+That men must slake in wilderness,
+Or in the desert cloy, --
+An instinct for the hoar, the bald,
+Lapland's necessity.
+
+The hemlock's nature thrives on cold;
+The gnash of northern winds
+Is sweetest nutriment to him,
+His best Norwegian wines.
+
+To satin races he is nought;
+But children on the Don
+Beneath his tabernacles play,
+And Dnieper wrestlers run.
+
+
+
+
+        XXXI.
+
+There's a certain slant of light,
+On winter afternoons,
+That oppresses, like the weight
+Of cathedral tunes.
+
+Heavenly hurt it gives us;
+We can find no scar,
+But internal difference
+Where the meanings are.
+
+None may teach it anything,
+' T is the seal, despair, --
+An imperial affliction
+Sent us of the air.
+
+When it comes, the landscape listens,
+Shadows hold their breath;
+When it goes, 't is like the distance
+On the look of death.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                    IV.
+
+             TIME AND ETERNITY.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+        I.
+
+One dignity delays for all,
+One mitred afternoon.
+None can avoid this purple,
+None evade this crown.
+
+Coach it insures, and footmen,
+Chamber and state and throng;
+Bells, also, in the village,
+As we ride grand along.
+
+What dignified attendants,
+What service when we pause!
+How loyally at parting
+Their hundred hats they raise!
+
+How pomp surpassing ermine,
+When simple you and I
+Present our meek escutcheon,
+And claim the rank to die!
+
+
+
+
+        II.
+
+     TOO LATE.
+
+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!
+
+
+
+
+        III.
+
+   ASTRA CASTRA.
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+        IV.
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+        V.
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+        VI.
+
+ FROM THE CHRYSALIS.
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+        VII.
+
+    SETTING SAIL.
+
+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?
+
+
+
+
+        VIII.
+
+Look back on time with kindly eyes,
+He doubtless did his best;
+How softly sinks his trembling sun
+In human nature's west!
+
+
+
+
+        IX.
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+        X.
+
+I died for beauty, but was scarce
+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.
+
+
+
+
+        XI.
+
+ "TROUBLED ABOUT MANY THINGS."
+
+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!
+
+
+
+
+        XII.
+
+       REAL.
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+        XIII.
+
+    THE FUNERAL.
+
+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!
+
+
+
+
+        XIV.
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+        XV.
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+        XVI.
+
+      REFUGE.
+
+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!
+
+
+
+
+        XVII.
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+        XVIII.
+
+      PLAYMATES.
+
+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!
+
+
+
+
+        XIX.
+
+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
+Ill fluttered out in everlasting well?
+
+And if he spoke, what name was best,
+What first,
+What one broke off with
+At the drowsiest?
+
+Was he afraid, or tranquil?
+Might he know
+How conscious consciousness could grow,
+Till love that was, and love too blest to be,
+Meet -- and the junction be Eternity?
+
+
+
+
+        XX.
+
+The last night that she lived,
+It was a common night,
+Except the dying; this to us
+Made nature different.
+
+We noticed smallest things, --
+Things overlooked before,
+By this great light upon our minds
+Italicized, as 't were.
+
+That others could exist
+While she must finish quite,
+A jealousy for her arose
+So nearly infinite.
+
+We waited while she passed;
+It was a narrow time,
+Too jostled were our souls to speak,
+At length the notice came.
+
+She mentioned, and forgot;
+Then lightly as a reed
+Bent to the water, shivered scarce,
+Consented, and was dead.
+
+And we, we placed the hair,
+And drew the head erect;
+And then an awful leisure was,
+Our faith to regulate.
+
+
+
+
+        XXI.
+
+  THE FIRST LESSON.
+
+Not in this world to see his face
+Sounds long, until I read the place
+Where this is said to be
+But just the primer to a life
+Unopened, rare, upon the shelf,
+Clasped yet to him and me.
+
+And yet, my primer suits me so
+I would not choose a book to know
+Than that, be sweeter wise;
+Might some one else so learned be,
+And leave me just my A B C,
+Himself could have the skies.
+
+
+
+
+        XXII.
+
+The bustle in a house
+The morning after death
+Is solemnest of industries
+Enacted upon earth, --
+
+The sweeping up the heart,
+And putting love away
+We shall not want to use again
+Until eternity.
+
+
+
+
+        XXIII.
+
+I reason, earth is short,
+And anguish absolute,
+And many hurt;
+But what of that?
+
+I reason, we could die:
+The best vitality
+Cannot excel decay;
+But what of that?
+
+I reason that in heaven
+Somehow, it will be even,
+Some new equation given;
+But what of that?
+
+
+
+
+        XXIV.
+
+Afraid? Of whom am I afraid?
+Not death; for who is he?
+The porter of my father's lodge
+As much abasheth me.
+
+Of life? 'T were odd I fear a thing
+That comprehendeth me
+In one or more existences
+At Deity's decree.
+
+Of resurrection? Is the east
+Afraid to trust the morn
+With her fastidious forehead?
+As soon impeach my crown!
+
+
+
+
+        XXV.
+
+       DYING.
+
+The sun kept setting, setting still;
+No hue of afternoon
+Upon the village I perceived, --
+From house to house 't was noon.
+
+The dusk kept dropping, dropping still;
+No dew upon the grass,
+But only on my forehead stopped,
+And wandered in my face.
+
+My feet kept drowsing, drowsing still,
+My fingers were awake;
+Yet why so little sound myself
+Unto my seeming make?
+
+How well I knew the light before!
+I could not see it now.
+'T is dying, I am doing; but
+I'm not afraid to know.
+
+
+
+
+        XXVI.
+
+Two swimmers wrestled on the spar
+Until the morning sun,
+When one turned smiling to the land.
+O God, the other one!
+
+The stray ships passing spied a face
+Upon the waters borne,
+With eyes in death still begging raised,
+And hands beseeching thrown.
+
+
+
+
+        XXVII.
+
+    THE CHARIOT.
+
+Because I could not stop for Death,
+He kindly stopped for me;
+The carriage held but just ourselves
+And Immortality.
+
+We slowly drove, he knew no haste,
+And I had put away
+My labor, and my leisure too,
+For his civility.
+
+We passed the school where children played,
+Their lessons scarcely done;
+We passed the fields of gazing grain,
+We passed the setting sun.
+
+We paused before a house that seemed
+A swelling of the ground;
+The roof was scarcely visible,
+The cornice but a mound.
+
+Since then 't is centuries; but each
+Feels shorter than the day
+I first surmised the horses' heads
+Were toward eternity.
+
+
+
+
+        XXVIII.
+
+She went as quiet as the dew
+From a familiar flower.
+Not like the dew did she return
+At the accustomed hour!
+
+She dropt as softly as a star
+From out my summer's eve;
+Less skilful than Leverrier
+It's sorer to believe!
+
+
+
+
+        XXIX.
+
+      RESURGAM.
+
+At last to be identified!
+At last, the lamps upon thy side,
+The rest of life to see!
+Past midnight, past the morning star!
+Past sunrise! Ah! what leagues there are
+Between our feet and day!
+
+
+
+
+        XXX.
+
+Except to heaven, she is nought;
+Except for angels, lone;
+Except to some wide-wandering bee,
+A flower superfluous blown;
+
+Except for winds, provincial;
+Except by butterflies,
+Unnoticed as a single dew
+That on the acre lies.
+
+The smallest housewife in the grass,
+Yet take her from the lawn,
+And somebody has lost the face
+That made existence home!
+
+
+
+
+        XXXI.
+
+Death is a dialogue between
+The spirit and the dust.
+"Dissolve," says Death. The Spirit, "Sir,
+I have another trust."
+
+
+Death doubts it, argues from the ground.
+The Spirit turns away,
+Just laying off, for evidence,
+An overcoat of clay.
+
+
+
+
+        XXXII.
+
+It was too late for man,
+But early yet for God;
+Creation impotent to help,
+But prayer remained our side.
+
+How excellent the heaven,
+When earth cannot be had;
+How hospitable, then, the face
+Of our old neighbor, God!
+
+
+
+
+        XXXIII.
+
+  ALONG THE POTOMAC.
+
+When I was small, a woman died.
+To-day her only boy
+Went up from the Potomac,
+His face all victory,
+
+To look at her; how slowly
+The seasons must have turned
+Till bullets clipt an angle,
+And he passed quickly round!
+
+If pride shall be in Paradise
+I never can decide;
+Of their imperial conduct,
+No person testified.
+
+But proud in apparition,
+That woman and her boy
+Pass back and forth before my brain,
+As ever in the sky.
+
+
+
+
+        XXXIV.
+
+The daisy follows soft the sun,
+And when his golden walk is done,
+   Sits shyly at his feet.
+He, waking, finds the flower near.
+"Wherefore, marauder, art thou here?"
+   "Because, sir, love is sweet!"
+
+We are the flower, Thou the sun!
+Forgive us, if as days decline,
+   We nearer steal to Thee, --
+Enamoured of the parting west,
+The peace, the flight, the amethyst,
+   Night's possibility!
+
+
+
+
+        XXXV.
+
+    EMANCIPATION.
+
+No rack can torture me,
+My soul's at liberty
+Behind this mortal bone
+There knits a bolder one
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+        XXXVI.
+
+        LOST.
+
+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!
+
+
+
+
+        XXXVII.
+
+If I should n't be alive
+When the robins come,
+Give the one in red cravat
+A memorial crumb.
+
+If I could n't thank you,
+Being just asleep,
+You will know I'm trying
+With my granite lip!
+
+
+
+
+        XXXVIII.
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+        XXXIX.
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+        XL.
+
+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!
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Etext of Poems, Series 1, by Emily Dickinson
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+status under the laws that apply to them.
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
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@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #2678 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2678)
diff --git a/old/2001-06_2678.zip b/old/2001-06_2678.zip
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+++ b/old/2001-06_2678.zip