61 Poems of Emily Dickinson

'Tis so much joy! 'Tis so much joy!
A light exists in spring
A precious, mouldering pleasure 'tis
A shady friend for torrid days
A word is dead
As children bid the guest good-night
As far from pity as complaint
Because I could not stop for Death
Come slowly, Eden!
Except the heaven had come so near,
For each ecstatic instant
From cocoon forth a butterfly
He ate and drank the precious words,
Heart, we will forget him!
Hope is a subtle glutton
Hope is the thing with feathers
How happy is the little stone
I bring an unaccustomed wine
I dreaded that first robin so
I had no time to hate, because
I hide myself within my flower
I like a look of agony
I never hear the word 'escape'
I noticed people disappeared
I started early, took my dog
I'm nobody! Who are you?
If I can stop one heart from breaking
Is bliss, then, such abyss
Mine enemy is growing old,
Much madness is divinest sense
My life closed twice before its close
Nature rarer uses yellow
Nature, the gentlest mother,
New feet within my garden go
No rack can torture me
Not with a club the heart is broken
On this wondrous sea
Our share of night to bear
Pain has an element of blank;
Some keep the Sabbath going to church
Some things that fly there be
Soul, wilt thou toss again?
South winds jostle them,
Success is counted sweetest
The bustle in a house
The grass so little has to do
The heart asks pleasure first
The moon was but a chin of gold
The morns are meeker than they were
The robin is the one
The sky is low, the clouds are mean
The wind tapped like a tired man
There is no frigate like a book
To fight aloud is very brave
To hear an oriole sing
To learn the transport by the pain
We learn in the retreating
When night is almost done
Who has not found the heaven below
Wild nights! Wild nights!
Within my reach!
........
Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,   _
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,
And sweetest in the gale is heard;   _
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.   _
I've heard it in the chilliest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity   _
It asked a crumb of me.
........
How happy is the little stone
That rambles in the road alone,   _
And doesn't care about careers,
And exigencies never fears;
Whose coat of elemental brown   _
A passing universe put on;
And independent as the sun,
Associates or glows alone,   _
Fulfilling absolute decree
In casual simplicity.
........
I bring an unaccustomed wine
To lips long parching, next to mine,   _
And summon them to drink.
Crackling with fever, they essay;
I turn my brimming eyes away,   _
And come next hour to look.
The hands still hug the tardy glass;
The lips I would have cooled, alas !   _
Are so superfluous cold,
I would as soon attempt to warm
The bosoms where the frost has lain   _
Ages beneath the mould.
Some other thirsty there may be
To whom this would have pointed me   _
Had it remained to speak.
And so I always bear the cup
If, haply, mine may be the drop   _
Some pilgrim thirst to slake,
If, haply, any say to me,
"Unto the little, unto me,"   _
When I at last awake.
........
I dreaded that first robin so
But he is mastered now,   _
And I'm accustomed to him grown,
He hurts a little, though.
I thought if I could only live   _
Till that first shout got by,
Not all pianos in the woods
Had power to mangle me.   _
I dared not meet the daffodils,
For fear their yellow gown
Would pierce me with a fashion   _
So foreign to my own.
I wished the grass would hurry,
So when 'twas time to see,   _
He'd be too tall, the tallest one
Could stretch to look at me,
I could not bear the bees should come,   _
I wished they'd stay away
In those dim countries where they go:
What word had they for me?   _
They're here, though; not a creature failed,
No blossom stayed away
In gentle deference to me,   _
The Queen of Calvary.
Each one salutes me as he goes,
And I my childish plumes   _
Lift, in bereaved acknowledgement
Of their unthinking drums.
........
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.
........
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.
........
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.
........
I never hear the word 'escape'
Without a quicker blood,   _
A sudden expectation,
A flying attitude.
I never hear of prisons broad   _
By soldiers battered down,
But I tug childish at my bars,
Only to fail again!
........
I noticed people disappeared,
When but a little child,   _
Supposed they visited remote,
Or settled regions wild.
Now know I they both visited   _
And settled regions wild,
But did because they died, - a fact
Withheld the little child!
........
I started early, took my dog,
And visited the sea;   _
The mermaids in the basement
Came out to look at me,
And frigates in the upper floor   _
Extended hempen hands,
Presuming me to be a mouse
Aground, upon the sands.   _
But no man moved me till the tide
Went past my simple shoe,
And past my apron and my belt,   _
And past my bodice too,
And made as he would eat me up
As wholly as a dew   _
Upon a dandelion's sleeve
And then I started too.
And he - he followed close behind;   _
I felt his silver heel
Upon my ankle, - then my shoes
Would overflow with pearl.   _
Until we met the solid town,
No man he seemed to know;
And bowing with a mighty look   _
At me, the sea withdrew.
........
I'm nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?   _
Then there's a pair of us - don't tell!
They'd banish us, you know.
How dreary to be somebody!   _
How public, like a frog
To tell your name the livelong day
To an admiring bog!
........
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.
........
Is bliss, then, such abyss
I must not put my foot amiss   _
For fear I spoil my shoe?
I'd rather suit my foot
Than save my boot,   _
For yet to buy another pair
Is possible
At any fair.   _
But bliss is sold just once;
The patent lost
None buy it any more.
........
Mine enemy is growing old,
I have at last revenge.   _
The palate of the hate departs;
If any would avenge,
Let him be quick, the viand flits,   _
It is a faded meat.
Anger as soon as fed is dead;
'Tis starving makes it fat.
........
Much madness is divinest sense
To a discerning eye;   _
Much sense the starkest madness.
'Tis the majority
In this, as all, prevails.   _
Assent, and you are sane;
Demur, - you're straightway dangerous,
And handled with a chain.
........
My life closed twice before its close;
It yet remains to see   _
If Immortality unveil
A third event to me,
So huge, so hopeless to conceive,   _
As these that twice befell.
Parting is all we know of heaven,
And all we need of hell.
........
Nature rarer uses yellow
Than another hue;   _
Saves she all of that for sunsets,
Prodigal of blue,
Spending scarlet like a woman,   _
Yellow she affords
Only scantly and selectly,
Like a lover's words.