Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series, Complete

Third Series

 
It's all I have to bring to-day,
   This, and my heart beside,
This, and my heart, and all the fields,
   And all the meadows wide.
Be sure you count, should I forget, —
   Some one the sum could tell, —
This, and my heart, and all the bees
   Which in the clover dwell.
 

PREFACE

The intellectual activity of Emily Dickinson was so great that a large and characteristic choice is still possible among her literary material, and this third volume of her verses is put forth in response to the repeated wish of the admirers of her peculiar genius. Much of Emily Dickinson's prose was rhythmic, —even rhymed, though frequently not set apart in lines.

Also many verses, written as such, were sent to friends in letters; these were published in 1894, in the volumes of her Letters. It has not been necessary, however, to include them in this Series, and all have been omitted, except three or four exceptionally strong ones, as "A Book," and "With Flowers."

There is internal evidence that many of the poems were simply spontaneous flashes of insight, apparently unrelated to outward circumstance. Others, however, had an obvious personal origin; for example, the verses "I had a Guinea golden," which seem to have been sent to some friend travelling in Europe, as a dainty reminder of letter-writing delinquencies. The surroundings in which any of Emily Dickinson's verses are known to have been written usually serve to explain them clearly; but in general the present volume is full of thoughts needing no interpretation to those who apprehend this scintillating spirit.

M. L. T.

AMHERST, October, 1896.

I. LIFE

I

REAL RICHES

 
'T is little I could care for pearls
   Who own the ample sea;
Or brooches, when the Emperor
   With rubies pelteth me;
 
 
Or gold, who am the Prince of Mines;
   Or diamonds, when I see
A diadem to fit a dome
   Continual crowning me.
 

II

SUPERIORITY TO FATE

 
Superiority to fate
   Is difficult to learn.
'T is not conferred by any,
   But possible to earn
 
 
A pittance at a time,
   Until, to her surprise,
The soul with strict economy
   Subsists till Paradise.
 

III

HOPE

 
Hope is a subtle glutton;
   He feeds upon the fair;
And yet, inspected closely,
   What abstinence is there!
 
 
His is the halcyon table
   That never seats but one,
And whatsoever is consumed
   The same amounts remain.
 

IV

FORBIDDEN FRUIT

I

 
Forbidden fruit a flavor has
   That lawful orchards mocks;
How luscious lies the pea within
   The pod that Duty locks!
 

V

FORBIDDEN FRUIT

II

 
Heaven is what I cannot reach!
   The apple on the tree,
Provided it do hopeless hang,
   That 'heaven' is, to me.
 
 
The color on the cruising cloud,
   The interdicted ground
Behind the hill, the house behind, —
   There Paradise is found!
 

VI

A WORD

 
A word is dead
When it is said,
   Some say.
I say it just
Begins to live
   That day.
 

VII

 
To venerate the simple days
   Which lead the seasons by,
Needs but to remember
   That from you or me
They may take the trifle
   Termed mortality!
 
 
To invest existence with a stately air,
Needs but to remember
   That the acorn there
Is the egg of forests
   For the upper air!
 

VIII

LIFE'S TRADES

 
It's such a little thing to weep,
   So short a thing to sigh;
And yet by trades the size of these
   We men and women die!
 

IX

 
Drowning is not so pitiful
   As the attempt to rise.
Three times, 't is said, a sinking man
   Comes up to face the skies,
And then declines forever
   To that abhorred abode
Where hope and he part company, —
   For he is grasped of God.
The Maker's cordial visage,
   However good to see,
Is shunned, we must admit it,
   Like an adversity.
 

X

 
How still the bells in steeples stand,
   Till, swollen with the sky,
They leap upon their silver feet
   In frantic melody!
 

XI

 
If the foolish call them 'flowers,'
   Need the wiser tell?
If the savans 'classify' them,
   It is just as well!
 
 
Those who read the Revelations
   Must not criticise
Those who read the same edition
   With beclouded eyes!
 
 
Could we stand with that old Moses
   Canaan denied, —
Scan, like him, the stately landscape
   On the other side, —
 
 
Doubtless we should deem superfluous
   Many sciences
Not pursued by learnèd angels
   In scholastic skies!
 
 
Low amid that glad Belles lettres
   Grant that we may stand,
Stars, amid profound Galaxies,
   At that grand 'Right hand'!
 

XII

A SYLLABLE

 
Could mortal lip divine
   The undeveloped freight
Of a delivered syllable,
   'T would crumble with the weight.
 

XIII

PARTING

 
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.
 

XIV

ASPIRATION

 
We never know how high we are
   Till we are called to rise;
And then, if we are true to plan,
   Our statures touch the skies.
 
 
The heroism we recite
   Would be a daily thing,
Did not ourselves the cubits warp
   For fear to be a king.
 

XV

THE INEVITABLE

 
While I was fearing it, it came,
   But came with less of fear,
Because that fearing it so long
   Had almost made it dear.
There is a fitting a dismay,
   A fitting a despair.
'Tis harder knowing it is due,
   Than knowing it is here.
The trying on the utmost,
   The morning it is new,
Is terribler than wearing it
   A whole existence through.
 

XVI

A BOOK

 
There is no frigate like a book
   To take us lands away,
Nor any coursers like a page
   Of prancing poetry.
This traverse may the poorest take
   Without oppress of toll;
How frugal is the chariot
   That bears a human soul!
 

XVII

 
Who has not found the heaven below
   Will fail of it above.
God's residence is next to mine,
   His furniture is love.
 

XVIII

A PORTRAIT

 
A face devoid of love or grace,
   A hateful, hard, successful face,
A face with which a stone
   Would feel as thoroughly at ease
As were they old acquaintances, —
   First time together thrown.
 

XIX

I HAD A GUINEA GOLDEN

 
I had a guinea golden;
   I lost it in the sand,
And though the sum was simple,
   And pounds were in the land,
Still had it such a value
   Unto my frugal eye,
That when I could not find it
   I sat me down to sigh.
 
 
I had a crimson robin
   Who sang full many a day,
But when the woods were painted
   He, too, did fly away.
Time brought me other robins, —
   Their ballads were the same, —
Still for my missing troubadour
   I kept the 'house at hame.'
 
 
I had a star in heaven;
   One Pleiad was its name,
And when I was not heeding
   It wandered from the same.
And though the skies are crowded,
   And all the night ashine,
I do not care about it,
   Since none of them are mine.
 
 
My story has a moral:
   I have a missing friend, —
Pleiad its name, and robin,
   And guinea in the sand, —
And when this mournful ditty,
   Accompanied with tear,
Shall meet the eye of traitor
   In country far from here,
Grant that repentance solemn
   May seize upon his mind,
And he no consolation
   Beneath the sun may find.
 

NOTE. – This poem may have had, like many others, a personal origin. It is more than probable that it was sent to some friend travelling in Europe, a dainty reminder of letter-writing delinquencies.

 

XX

SATURDAY AFTERNOON

 
From all the jails the boys and girls
   Ecstatically leap, —
Beloved, only afternoon
   That prison doesn't keep.
 
 
They storm the earth and stun the air,
   A mob of solid bliss.
Alas! that frowns could lie in wait
   For such a foe as this!
 

XXI

 
Few get enough, – enough is one;
   To that ethereal throng
Have not each one of us the right
   To stealthily belong?
 

XXII

 
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!
 

XXIII

THE LOST THOUGHT

 
I felt a clearing in my mind
   As if my brain had split;
I tried to match it, seam by seam,
   But could not make them fit.
 
 
The thought behind I strove to join
   Unto the thought before,
But sequence ravelled out of reach
   Like balls upon a floor.
 

XXIV

RETICENCE

 
The reticent volcano keeps
   His never slumbering plan;
Confided are his projects pink
   To no precarious man.
 
 
If nature will not tell the tale
   Jehovah told to her,
Can human nature not survive
   Without a listener?
 
 
Admonished by her buckled lips
   Let every babbler be.
The only secret people keep
   Is Immortality.
 

XXV

WITH FLOWERS

 
If recollecting were forgetting,
   Then I remember not;
And if forgetting, recollecting,
   How near I had forgot!
And if to miss were merry,
   And if to mourn were gay,
How very blithe the fingers
   That gathered these to-day!
 

XXVI

 
The farthest thunder that I heard
   Was nearer than the sky,
And rumbles still, though torrid noons
   Have lain their missiles by.
The lightning that preceded it
   Struck no one but myself,
But I would not exchange the bolt
   For all the rest of life.
Indebtedness to oxygen
   The chemist may repay,
But not the obligation
   To electricity.
It founds the homes and decks the days,
   And every clamor bright
Is but the gleam concomitant
   Of that waylaying light.
The thought is quiet as a flake, —
   A crash without a sound;
How life's reverberation
   Its explanation found!
 

XXVII

 
On the bleakness of my lot
   Bloom I strove to raise.
Late, my acre of a rock
   Yielded grape and maize.
 
 
Soil of flint if steadfast tilled
   Will reward the hand;
Seed of palm by Lybian sun
   Fructified in sand.
 

XXVIII

CONTRAST

 
A door just opened on a street —
   I, lost, was passing by —
An instant's width of warmth disclosed,
   And wealth, and company.
 
 
The door as sudden shut, and I,
   I, lost, was passing by, —
Lost doubly, but by contrast most,
   Enlightening misery.
 

XXIX

FRIENDS

 
Are friends delight or pain?
   Could bounty but remain
Riches were good.
 
 
But if they only stay
Bolder to fly away,
   Riches are sad.
 

XXX

FIRE

 
Ashes denote that fire was;
   Respect the grayest pile
For the departed creature's sake
   That hovered there awhile.
 
 
Fire exists the first in light,
   And then consolidates, —
Only the chemist can disclose
   Into what carbonates.
 

XXXI

A MAN

 
Fate slew him, but he did not drop;
   She felled – he did not fall —
Impaled him on her fiercest stakes —
   He neutralized them all.
 
 
She stung him, sapped his firm advance,
   But, when her worst was done,
And he, unmoved, regarded her,
   Acknowledged him a man.
 

XXXII

VENTURES

 
Finite to fail, but infinite to venture.
   For the one ship that struts the shore
Many's the gallant, overwhelmed creature
   Nodding in navies nevermore.
 

XXXIII

GRIEFS

 
I measure every grief I meet
   With analytic eyes;
I wonder if it weighs like mine,
   Or has an easier size.
 
 
I wonder if they bore it long,
   Or did it just begin?
I could not tell the date of mine,
   It feels so old a pain.
 
 
I wonder if it hurts to live,
   And if they have to try,
And whether, could they choose between,
   They would not rather die.
 
 
I wonder if when years have piled —
   Some thousands – on the cause
Of early hurt, if such a lapse
   Could give them any pause;
 
 
Or would they go on aching still
   Through centuries above,
Enlightened to a larger pain
   By contrast with the love.
 
 
The grieved are many, I am told;
   The reason deeper lies, —
Death is but one and comes but once,
   And only nails the eyes.
 
 
There's grief of want, and grief of cold, —
   A sort they call 'despair;'
There's banishment from native eyes,
   In sight of native air.
 
 
And though I may not guess the kind
   Correctly, yet to me
A piercing comfort it affords
   In passing Calvary,
 
 
To note the fashions of the cross,
   Of those that stand alone,
Still fascinated to presume
   That some are like my own.
 

XXXIV

 
I have a king who does not speak;
So, wondering, thro' the hours meek
   I trudge the day away,—
Half glad when it is night and sleep,
If, haply, thro' a dream to peep
   In parlors shut by day.
 
 
And if I do, when morning comes,
It is as if a hundred drums
   Did round my pillow roll,
And shouts fill all my childish sky,
And bells keep saying 'victory'
   From steeples in my soul!
 
 
And if I don't, the little Bird
Within the Orchard is not heard,
   And I omit to pray,
'Father, thy will be done' to-day,
For my will goes the other way,
   And it were perjury!
 

XXXV

DISENCHANTMENT

 
It dropped so low in my regard
   I heard it hit the ground,
And go to pieces on the stones
   At bottom of my mind;
 
 
Yet blamed the fate that fractured, less
   Than I reviled myself
For entertaining plated wares
   Upon my silver shelf.
 

XXXVI

LOST FAITH

 
To lose one's faith surpasses
   The loss of an estate,
Because estates can be
   Replenished, – faith cannot.
 
 
Inherited with life,
   Belief but once can be;
Annihilate a single clause,
   And Being's beggary.
 

XXXVII

LOST JOY

 
I had a daily bliss
   I half indifferent viewed,
Till sudden I perceived it stir, —
   It grew as I pursued,
 
 
Till when, around a crag,
   It wasted from my sight,
Enlarged beyond my utmost scope,
   I learned its sweetness right.
 

XXXVIII

 
I worked for chaff, and earning wheat
   Was haughty and betrayed.
What right had fields to arbitrate
   In matters ratified?
 
 
I tasted wheat, – and hated chaff,
   And thanked the ample friend;
Wisdom is more becoming viewed
   At distance than at hand.
 

XXXIX

 
Life, and Death, and Giants
   Such as these, are still.
Minor apparatus, hopper of the mill,
Beetle at the candle,
   Or a fife's small fame,
Maintain by accident
   That they proclaim.
 

XL

ALPINE GLOW

 
Our lives are Swiss, —
   So still, so cool,
   Till, some odd afternoon,
The Alps neglect their curtains,
   And we look farther on.
 
 
Italy stands the other side,
   While, like a guard between,
The solemn Alps,
The siren Alps,
   Forever intervene!
 

XLI

REMEMBRANCE

 
Remembrance has a rear and front, —
   'T is something like a house;
It has a garret also
   For refuse and the mouse,
 
 
Besides, the deepest cellar
   That ever mason hewed;
Look to it, by its fathoms
   Ourselves be not pursued.
 

XLII

 
To hang our head ostensibly,
   And subsequent to find
That such was not the posture
   Of our immortal mind,
 
 
Affords the sly presumption
   That, in so dense a fuzz,
You, too, take cobweb attitudes
   Upon a plane of gauze!
 

XLIII

THE BRAIN

 
The brain is wider than the sky,
   For, put them side by side,
The one the other will include
   With ease, and you beside.
 
 
The brain is deeper than the sea,
   For, hold them, blue to blue,
The one the other will absorb,
   As sponges, buckets do.
 
 
The brain is just the weight of God,
   For, lift them, pound for pound,
And they will differ, if they do,
   As syllable from sound.
 

XLIV

 
The bone that has no marrow;
   What ultimate for that?
It is not fit for table,
   For beggar, or for cat.
 
 
A bone has obligations,
   A being has the same;
A marrowless assembly
   Is culpabler than shame.
 
 
But how shall finished creatures
   A function fresh obtain? —
Old Nicodemus' phantom
   Confronting us again!
 

XLV

THE PAST

 
The past is such a curious creature,
   To look her in the face
A transport may reward us,
   Or a disgrace.
 
 
Unarmed if any meet her,
   I charge him, fly!
Her rusty ammunition
   Might yet reply!
 

XLVI

 
To help our bleaker parts
   Salubrious hours are given,
Which if they do not fit for earth
   Drill silently for heaven.
 

XLVII

 
What soft, cherubic creatures
   These gentlewomen are!
One would as soon assault a plush
   Or violate a star.
 
 
Such dimity convictions,
   A horror so refined
Of freckled human nature,
   Of Deity ashamed, —
 
 
It's such a common glory,
   A fisherman's degree!
Redemption, brittle lady,
   Be so, ashamed of thee.
 

XLVIII

DESIRE

 
Who never wanted, – maddest joy
   Remains to him unknown:
The banquet of abstemiousness
   Surpasses that of wine.
 
 
Within its hope, though yet ungrasped
   Desire's perfect goal,
No nearer, lest reality
   Should disenthrall thy soul.
 

XLIX

PHILOSOPHY

 
It might be easier
   To fail with land in sight,
Than gain my blue peninsula
   To perish of delight.
 

L

POWER

 
You cannot put a fire out;
   A thing that can ignite
Can go, itself, without a fan
   Upon the slowest night.
 
 
You cannot fold a flood
   And put it in a drawer, —
Because the winds would find it out,
   And tell your cedar floor.
 

LI

 
A modest lot, a fame petite,
   A brief campaign of sting and sweet
   Is plenty! Is enough!
A sailor's business is the shore,
   A soldier's – balls. Who asketh more
Must seek the neighboring life!
 

LII

 
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.
 

LIII

EXPERIENCE

 
I stepped from plank to plank
   So slow and cautiously;
The stars about my head I felt,
   About my feet the sea.
 
 
I knew not but the next
   Would be my final inch, —
This gave me that precarious gait
   Some call experience.
 

LIV

THANKSGIVING DAY

 
One day is there of the series
   Termed Thanksgiving day,
Celebrated part at table,
   Part in memory.
 
 
Neither patriarch nor pussy,
   I dissect the play;
Seems it, to my hooded thinking,
   Reflex holiday.
 
 
Had there been no sharp subtraction
   From the early sum,
Not an acre or a caption
   Where was once a room,
 
 
Not a mention, whose small pebble
   Wrinkled any bay, —
Unto such, were such assembly,
   'T were Thanksgiving day.
 

LV

CHILDISH GRIEFS

 
Softened by Time's consummate plush,
   How sleek the woe appears
That threatened childhood's citadel
   And undermined the years!
 
 
Bisected now by bleaker griefs,
   We envy the despair
That devastated childhood's realm,
   So easy to repair.
 

II. LOVE

I

CONSECRATION

 
Proud of my broken heart since thou didst break it,
   Proud of the pain I did not feel till thee,
Proud of my night since thou with moons dost slake it,
   Not to partake thy passion, my humility.
 

II

LOVE'S HUMILITY

 
My worthiness is all my doubt,
   His merit all my fear,
Contrasting which, my qualities
   Do lowlier appear;
 
 
Lest I should insufficient prove
   For his beloved need,
The chiefest apprehension
   Within my loving creed.
 
 
So I, the undivine abode
   Of his elect content,
Conform my soul as 't were a church
   Unto her sacrament.
 

III

LOVE

 
Love is anterior to life,
   Posterior to death,
Initial of creation, and
   The exponent of breath.
 

IV

SATISFIED

 
One blessing had I, than the rest
   So larger to my eyes
That I stopped gauging, satisfied,
   For this enchanted size.
 
 
It was the limit of my dream,
   The focus of my prayer, —
A perfect, paralyzing bliss
   Contented as despair.
 
 
I knew no more of want or cold,
   Phantasms both become,
For this new value in the soul,
   Supremest earthly sum.
 
 
The heaven below the heaven above
   Obscured with ruddier hue.
Life's latitude leant over-full;
   The judgment perished, too.
 
 
Why joys so scantily disburse,
   Why Paradise defer,
Why floods are served to us in bowls, —
   I speculate no more.
 

V

WITH A FLOWER

 
When roses cease to bloom, dear,
   And violets are done,
When bumble-bees in solemn flight
   Have passed beyond the sun,
 
 
The hand that paused to gather
   Upon this summer's day
Will idle lie, in Auburn, —
   Then take my flower, pray!
 

VI

SONG

 
Summer for thee grant I may be
   When summer days are flown!
Thy music still when whippoorwill
   And oriole are done!
 
 
For thee to bloom, I'll skip the tomb
   And sow my blossoms o'er!
Pray gather me, Anemone,
   Thy flower forevermore!
 

VII

LOYALTY

 
Split the lark and you'll find the music,
   Bulb after bulb, in silver rolled,
Scantily dealt to the summer morning,
   Saved for your ear when lutes be old.
 
 
Loose the flood, you shall find it patent,
   Gush after gush, reserved for you;
Scarlet experiment! sceptic Thomas,
   Now, do you doubt that your bird was true?
 

VIII

 
To lose thee, sweeter than to gain
   All other hearts I knew.
'T is true the drought is destitute,
   But then I had the dew!
 
 
The Caspian has its realms of sand,
   Its other realm of sea;
Without the sterile perquisite
   No Caspian could be.
 

IX

 
   Poor little heart!
   Did they forget thee?
Then dinna care! Then dinna care!
 
 
   Proud little heart!
   Did they forsake thee?
Be debonair! Be debonair!
 
 
   Frail little heart!
   I would not break thee:
Could'st credit me? Could'st credit me?
 
 
   Gay little heart!
   Like morning glory
Thou'll wilted be; thou'll wilted be!
 

X

FORGOTTEN

 
There is a word
   Which bears a sword
   Can pierce an armed man.
It hurls its barbed syllables,—
   At once is mute again.
But where it fell
The saved will tell
   On patriotic day,
Some epauletted brother
   Gave his breath away.
 
 
Wherever runs the breathless sun,
   Wherever roams the day,
There is its noiseless onset,
   There is its victory!
 
 
Behold the keenest marksman!
   The most accomplished shot!
Time's sublimest target
   Is a soul 'forgot'!
 

XI

 
I've got an arrow here;
   Loving the hand that sent it,