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

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

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

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!

XLI

Let down the bars, O Death!

The tired flocks come in

Whose bleating ceases to repeat,

Whose wandering is done.

Thine is the stillest night,

Thine the securest fold;

Too near thou art for seeking thee,

Too tender to be told.

XLII

Going to heaven!

I don’t know when,

Pray do not ask me how,—

Indeed, I’m too astonished

To think of answering you!

Going to heaven!—

How dim it sounds!

And yet it will be done

As sure as flocks go home at night

Unto the shepherd’s arm!

Perhaps you’re going too!

Who knows?

If you should get there first,

Save just a little place for me

Close to the two I lost!

The smallest “robe” will fit me,

And just a bit of “crown”;

For you know we do not mind our dress

When we are going home.

I’m glad I don’t believe it,

For it would stop my breath,

And I’d like to look a little more

At such a curious earth!

I am glad they did believe it

Whom I have never found

Since the mighty autumn afternoon

I left them in the ground.

XLIII

At least to pray is left, is left.

O Jesus! in the air

I know not which thy chamber is,—

I’m knocking everywhere.

Thou stirrest earthquake in the South,

And maelstrom in the sea;

Say, Jesus Christ of Nazareth,

Hast thou no arm for me?

XLIV

Step lightly on this narrow spot!

The broadest land that grows

Is not so ample as the breast

These emerald seams enclose.

Step lofty; for this name is told

As far as cannon dwell,

Or flag subsist, or fame export

Her deathless syllable.

XLV

Morns like these we parted;

Noons like these she rose,

Fluttering first, then firmer,

To her fair repose.

Never did she lisp it,

And ’t was not for me;

She was mute from transport,

I, from agony!

Till the evening, nearing,

One the shutters drew—

Quick! a sharper rustling!

And this linnet flew!

XLVI

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.

XLVII

I read my sentence steadily,

Reviewed it with my eyes,

To see that I made no mistake

In its extremest clause,—

The date, and manner of the shame;

And then the pious form

That “God have mercy” on the soul

The jury voted him.

I made my soul familiar

With her extremity,

That at the last it should not be

A novel agony,

But she and Death, acquainted,

Meet tranquilly as friends,

Salute and pass without a hint—

And there the matter ends.

XLVIII

I have not told my garden yet,

Lest that should conquer me;

I have not quite the strength now

To break it to the bee.

I will not name it in the street,

For shops would stare, that I,

So shy, so very ignorant,

Should have the face to die.

The hillsides must not know it,

Where I have rambled so,

Nor tell the loving forests

The day that I shall go,

Nor lisp it at the table,

Nor heedless by the way

Hint that within the riddle

One will walk to-day!

XLIX

They dropped like flakes, they dropped like stars,

Like petals from a rose,

When suddenly across the June

A wind with fingers goes.

They perished in the seamless grass,—

No eye could find the place;

But God on his repealless list

Can summon every face.

L

The only ghost I ever saw

Was dressed in mechlin,—so;

He wore no sandal on his foot,

And stepped like flakes of snow.

His gait was soundless, like the bird,

But rapid, like the roe;

His fashions quaint, mosaic,

Or, haply, mistletoe.

His conversation seldom,

His laughter like the breeze

That dies away in dimples

Among the pensive trees.

Our interview was transient,—

Of me, himself was shy;

And God forbid I look behind

Since that appalling day!

LI

Some, too fragile for winter winds,

The thoughtful grave encloses,—

Tenderly tucking them in from frost

Before their feet are cold.

Never the treasures in her nest

The cautious grave exposes,

Building where schoolboy dare not look

And sportsman is not bold.

This covert have all the children

Early aged, and often cold,—

Sparrows unnoticed by the Father;

Lambs for whom time had not a fold.

LII

As by the dead we love to sit,

Become so wondrous dear,

As for the lost we grapple,

Though all the rest are here,—

In broken mathematics

We estimate our prize,

Vast, in its fading ratio,

To our penurious eyes!

LIII

Death sets a thing significant

The eye had hurried by,

Except a perished creature

Entreat us tenderly

To ponder little workmanships

In crayon or in wool,

With “This was last her fingers did,”

Industrious until

The thimble weighed too heavy,

The stitches stopped themselves,

And then ’t was put among the dust

Upon the closet shelves.

A book I have, a friend gave,

Whose pencil, here and there,

Had notched the place that pleased him,—

At rest his fingers are.

Now, when I read, I read not,

For interrupting tears

Obliterate the etchings

Too costly for repairs.

LIV

I went to heaven,—

’T was a small town,

Lit with a ruby,

Lathed with down.

Stiller than the fields

At the full dew,

Beautiful as pictures

No man drew.

People like the moth,

Of mechlin, frames,

Duties of gossamer,

And eider names.

Almost contented

I could be

’Mong such unique

Society.

LV

Their height in heaven comforts not,

Their glory nought to me;

’T was best imperfect, as it was;

I’m finite, I can’t see.

The house of supposition,

The glimmering frontier

That skirts the acres of perhaps,

To me shows insecure.

The wealth I had contented me;

If ’t was a meaner size,

Then I had counted it until

It pleased my narrow eyes

Better than larger values,

However true their show;

This timid life of evidence

Keeps pleading, “I don’t know.”

LVI

There is a shame of nobleness

Confronting sudden pelf,—

A finer shame of ecstasy

Convicted of itself.

A best disgrace a brave man feels,

Acknowledged of the brave,—

One more “Ye Blessed” to be told;

But this involves the grave.

LVII

A triumph may be of several kinds.

There’s triumph in the room

When that old imperator, Death,

By faith is overcome.

There’s triumph of the finer mind

When truth, affronted long,

Advances calm to her supreme,

Her God her only throng.

A triumph when temptation’s bribe

Is slowly handed back,

One eye upon the heaven renounced

And one upon the rack.

Severer triumph, by himself

Experienced, who can pass

Acquitted from that naked bar,

Jehovah’s countenance!

LVIII

Pompless no life can pass away;

The lowliest career

To the same pageant wends its way

As that exalted here.

How cordial is the mystery!

The hospitable pall

A “this way” beckons spaciously,—

A miracle for all!

LIX

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!

LX

I had no cause to be awake,

My best was gone to sleep,

And morn a new politeness took

And failed to wake them up,

But called the others clear,

And passed their curtains by.

Sweet morning, when I over-sleep,

Knock, recollect, for me!

I looked at sunrise once,

And then I looked at them,

And wishfulness in me arose

For circumstance the same.

’T was such an ample peace,

It could not hold a sigh,—

’T was Sabbath with the bells divorced,

’T was sunset all the day.

So choosing but a gown

And taking but a prayer,

The only raiment I should need,

I struggled, and was there.

LXI

If anybody’s friend be dead,

It’s sharpest of the theme

The thinking how they walked alive,

At such and such a time.

Their costume, of a Sunday,

Some manner of the hair,—

A prank nobody knew but them,

Lost, in the sepulchre.

How warm they were on such a day:

You almost feel the date,

So short way off it seems; and now,

They’re centuries from that.

How pleased they were at what you said;

You try to touch the smile,

And dip your fingers in the frost:

When was it, can you tell,

You asked the company to tea,

Acquaintance, just a few,

And chatted close with this grand thing

That don’t remember you?

Past bows and invitations,

Past interview, and vow,

Past what ourselves can estimate,—

That makes the quick of woe!

LXII

Our journey had advanced;

Our feet were almost come

To that odd fork in Being’s road,

Eternity by term.

Our pace took sudden awe,

Our feet reluctant led.

Before were cities, but between,

The forest of the dead.

Retreat was out of hope,—

Behind, a sealed route,

Eternity’s white flag before,

And God at every gate.

LXIII

Ample make this bed.

Make this bed with awe;

In it wait till judgment break

Excellent and fair.

Be its mattress straight,

Be its pillow round;

Let no sunrise’ yellow noise

Interrupt this ground.

LXIV

On such a night, or such a night,

Would anybody care

If such a little figure

Slipped quiet from its chair,

So quiet, oh, how quiet!

That nobody might know

But that the little figure

Rocked softer, to and fro?

On such a dawn, or such a dawn,

Would anybody sigh

That such a little figure

Too sound asleep did lie

For chanticleer to wake it,—

Or stirring house below,

Or giddy bird in orchard,

Or early task to do?

There was a little figure plump

For every little knoll,

Busy needles, and spools of thread,

And trudging feet from school.

Playmates, and holidays, and nuts,

And visions vast and small.

Strange that the feet so precious charged

Should reach so small a goal!

LXV

Essential oils are wrung:

The attar from the rose

Is not expressed by suns alone,

It is the gift of screws.

The general rose decays;

But this, in lady’s drawer,

Makes summer when the lady lies

In ceaseless rosemary.

LXVI

I lived on dread; to those who know

The stimulus there is

In danger, other impetus

Is numb and vital-less.

As ’t were a spur upon the soul,

A fear will urge it where

To go without the spectre’s aid

Were challenging despair.

LXVII

If I should die,

And you should live,

And time should gurgle on,

And morn should beam,

And noon should burn,

As it has usual done;

If birds should build as early,

And bees as bustling go,—

One might depart at option

From enterprise below!

’T is sweet to know that stocks will stand

When we with daisies lie,

That commerce will continue,

And trades as briskly fly.

It makes the parting tranquil

And keeps the soul serene,

That gentlemen so sprightly

Conduct the pleasing scene!

LXVIII

Her final summer was it,

And yet we guessed it not;

If tenderer industriousness

Pervaded her, we thought

A further force of life

Developed from within,—

When Death lit all the shortness up,

And made the hurry plain.

We wondered at our blindness,—

When nothing was to see

But her Carrara guide-post,—

At our stupidity,

When, duller than our dulness,

The busy darling lay,

So busy was she, finishing,

So leisurely were we!

LXIX

One need not be a chamber to be haunted,

One need not be a house,

The brain has corridors surpassing

Material place.

Far safer, of a midnight meeting

External ghost,

Than an interior confronting

That whiter host.

Far safer through an Abbey gallop,

The stones achase,

Than, moonless, one’s own self encounter

In lonesome place.

Ourself, behind ourself concealed,

Should startle most;

Assassin, hid in our apartment,

Be horror’s least.

The prudent carries a revolver,

He bolts the door,

O’erlooking a superior spectre

More near.

LXX

She died,—this was the way she died;

And when her breath was done,

Took up her simple wardrobe

And started for the sun.

Her little figure at the gate

The angels must have spied,

Since I could never find her

Upon the mortal side.

LXXI

Wait till the majesty of Death

Invests so mean a brow!

Almost a powdered footman

Might dare to touch it now!

Wait till in everlasting robes

This democrat is dressed,

Then prate about “preferment”

And “station” and the rest!

Around this quiet courtier

Obsequious angels wait!

Full royal is his retinue,

Full purple is his state!

A lord might dare to lift the hat

To such a modest clay,

Since that my Lord, “the Lord of lords”

Receives unblushingly!

LXXII

Went up a year this evening!

I recollect it well!

Amid no bells nor bravos

The bystanders will tell!

Cheerful, as to the village,

Tranquil, as to repose,

Chastened, as to the chapel,

This humble tourist rose.

Did not talk of returning,

Alluded to no time

When, were the gales propitious,

We might look for him;

Was grateful for the roses

In life’s diverse bouquet,

Talked softly of new species

To pick another day.

Beguiling thus the wonder,

The wondrous nearer drew;

Hands bustled at the moorings—

The crowd respectful grew.

Ascended from our vision

To countenances new!

A difference, a daisy,

Is all the rest I knew!

LXXIII

Taken from men this morning,

Carried by men to-day,

Met by the gods with banners

Who marshalled her away.

One little maid from playmates,

One little mind from school,—

There must be guests in Eden;

All the rooms are full.

Far as the east from even,

Dim as the border star,—

Courtiers quaint, in kingdoms,

Our departed are.

LXXIV

What inn is this

Where for the night

Peculiar traveller comes?

Who is the landlord?

Where the maids?

Behold, what curious rooms!

No ruddy fires on the hearth,

No brimming tankards flow.

Necromancer, landlord,

Who are these below?

LXXV

It was not death, for I stood up,

And all the dead lie down;

It was not night, for all the bells

Put out their tongues, for noon.

It was not frost, for on my flesh

I felt siroccos crawl,—

Nor fire, for just my marble feet

Could keep a chancel cool.

And yet it tasted like them all;

The figures I have seen

Set orderly, for burial,

Reminded me of mine,

As if my life were shaven

And fitted to a frame,

And could not breathe without a key;

And ’t was like midnight, some,

When everything that ticked has stopped

And space stares, all around,

Or grisly frosts, first autumn morns,

Repeal the beating ground.

But most like chaos,—stopless, cool,—

Without a chance or spar,

Or even a report of land

To justify despair.

LXXVI

I should not dare to leave my friend,

Because—because if he should die

While I was gone, and I—too late—

Should reach the heart that wanted me;

If I should disappoint the eyes

That hunted, hunted so, to see,

And could not bear to shut until

They “noticed” me—they noticed me;

If I should stab the patient faith

So sure I’d come—so sure I’d come,

It listening, listening, went to sleep

Telling my tardy name,—

My heart would wish it broke before,

Since breaking then, since breaking then,

Were useless as next morning’s sun,

Where midnight frosts had lain!

LXXVII

Great streets of silence led away

To neighborhoods of pause;

Here was no notice, no dissent,

No universe, no laws.

By clocks ’t was morning, and for night

The bells at distance called;

But epoch had no basis here,

For period exhaled.

LXXVIII

A throe upon the features

A hurry in the breath,

An ecstasy of parting

Denominated “Death”,—

An anguish at the mention,

Which, when to patience grown,

I’ve known permission given

To rejoin its own.

LXXIX

Of tribulation these are they

Denoted by the white;

The spangled gowns, a lesser rank

Of victors designate.

All these did conquer; but the ones

Who overcame most times

Wear nothing commoner than snow,

No ornament but palms.

Surrender is a sort unknown

On this superior soil;

Defeat, an outgrown anguish,

Remembered as the mile

Our panting ankle barely gained

When night devoured the road;

But we stood whispering in the house,

And all we said was “Saved!”

LXXX

I think just how my shape will rise

When I shall be forgiven,

Till hair and eyes and timid head

Are out of sight, in heaven.

I think just how my lips will weigh

With shapeless, quivering prayer

That you, so late, consider me,

The sparrow of your care.

I mind me that of anguish sent,

Some drifts were moved away

Before my simple bosom broke,—

And why not this, if they?

And so, until delirious borne

I con that thing,—"forgiven,"—

Till with long fright and longer trust

I drop my heart, unshriven!

LXXXI

After a hundred years

Nobody knows the place,—

Agony, that enacted there,

Motionless as peace.

Weeds triumphant ranged,

Strangers strolled and spelled

At the lone orthography

Of the elder dead.

Winds of summer fields

Recollect the way,—

Instinct picking up the key

Dropped by memory.

LXXXII

Lay this laurel on the one

Too intrinsic for renown.

Laurel! veil your deathless tree,—

Him you chasten, that is he!

LXXXIII

This world is not conclusion;

A sequel stands beyond,

Invisible, as music,

But positive, as sound.

It beckons and it baffles;

Philosophies don’t know,

And through a riddle, at the last,

Sagacity must go.

To guess it puzzles scholars;

To gain it, men have shown

Contempt of generations,

And crucifixion known.

LXXXIV

We learn in the retreating

How vast an one

Was recently among us.

A perished sun

Endears in the departure

How doubly more

Than all the golden presence

It was before!

LXXXV

They say that “time assuages,”—

Time never did assuage;

An actual suffering strengthens,

As sinews do, with age.

Time is a test of trouble,

But not a remedy.

If such it prove, it prove too

There was no malady.

LXXXVI

We cover thee, sweet face.

Not that we tire of thee,

But that thyself fatigue of us;

Remember, as thou flee,

We follow thee until

Thou notice us no more,

And then, reluctant, turn away

To con thee o’er and o’er,

And blame the scanty love

We were content to show,

Augmented, sweet, a hundred fold

If thou would’st take it now.

LXXXVII

That is solemn we have ended,—

Be it but a play,

Or a glee among the garrets,

Or a holiday,

Or a leaving home; or later,

Parting with a world

We have understood, for better

Still it be unfurled.

LXXXVIII

The stimulus, beyond the grave

His countenance to see,

Supports me like imperial drams

Afforded royally.

LXXXIX

Given in marriage unto thee,

Oh, thou celestial host!

Bride of the Father and the Son,

Bride of the Holy Ghost!

Other betrothal shall dissolve,

Wedlock of will decay;

Only the keeper of this seal

Conquers mortality.

XC

That such have died enables us

The tranquiller to die;

That such have lived, certificate

For immortality.

XCI

They won’t frown always,—some sweet day

When I forget to tease,

They’ll recollect how cold I looked,

And how I just said “please.”

Then they will hasten to the door

To call the little child,

Who cannot thank them, for the ice

That on her lisping piled.

XCII

’T is an honorable thought,

And makes one lift one’s hat,

As one encountered gentlefolk

Upon a daily street,

That we’ve immortal place,

Though pyramids decay,

And kingdoms, like the orchard,

Flit russetly away.

XCIII

The distance that the dead have gone

Does not at first appear;

Their coming back seems possible

For many an ardent year.

And then, that we have followed them

We more than half suspect,

So intimate have we become

With their dear retrospect.

XCIV

How dare the robins sing,

When men and women hear

Who since they went to their account

Have settled with the year!—

Paid all that life had earned

In one consummate bill,

And now, what life or death can do

Is immaterial.

Insulting is the sun

To him whose mortal light,

Beguiled of immortality,

Bequeaths him to the night.

In deference to him

Extinct be every hum,

Whose garden wrestles with the dew,

At daybreak overcome!

XCV

Death is like the insect

Menacing the tree,

Competent to kill it,

But decoyed may be.

Bait it with the balsam,

Seek it with the knife,

Baffle, if it cost you

Everything in life.

Then, if it have burrowed

Out of reach of skill,

Ring the tree and leave it,—

’T is the vermin’s will.

XCVI

’T is sunrise, little maid, hast thou

No station in the day?

’T was not thy wont to hinder so,—

Retrieve thine industry.

’T is noon, my little maid, alas!

And art thou sleeping yet?

The lily waiting to be wed,

The bee, dost thou forget?

My little maid, ’t is night; alas,

That night should be to thee

Instead of morning! Hadst thou broached

Thy little plan to me,

Dissuade thee if I could not, sweet,

I might have aided thee.

XCVII

Each that we lose takes part of us;

A crescent still abides,

Which like the moon, some turbid night,

Is summoned by the tides.

XCVIII

Not any higher stands the grave

For heroes than for men;

Not any nearer for the child

Than numb three-score and ten.

This latest leisure equal lulls

The beggar and his queen;

Propitiate this democrat

By summer’s gracious mien.

XCIX

As far from pity as complaint,

As cool to speech as stone,

As numb to revelation

As if my trade were bone.

As far from time as history,

As near yourself to-day

As children to the rainbow’s scarf,

Or sunset’s yellow play

To eyelids in the sepulchre.

How still the dancer lies,

While color’s revelations break,

And blaze the butterflies!

C

’T is whiter than an Indian pipe,

’T is dimmer than a lace;

No stature has it, like a fog,

When you approach the place.

Not any voice denotes it here,

Or intimates it there;

A spirit, how doth it accost?

What customs hath the air?

This limitless hyperbole

Each one of us shall be;

’T is drama, if (hypothesis)

It be not tragedy!

CI

She laid her docile crescent down,

And this mechanic stone

Still states, to dates that have forgot,

The news that she is gone.

So constant to its stolid trust,

The shaft that never knew,

It shames the constancy that fled

Before its emblem flew.

CII

Bless God, he went as soldiers,

His musket on his breast;

Grant, God, he charge the bravest

Of all the martial blest.

Please God, might I behold him

In epauletted white,

I should not fear the foe then,

I should not fear the fight.

CIII

Immortal is an ample word

When what we need is by,

But when it leaves us for a time,

’T is a necessity.

Of heaven above the firmest proof

We fundamental know,

Except for its marauding hand,

It had been heaven below.

CIV

Where every bird is bold to go,

And bees abashless play,

The foreigner before he knocks

Must thrust the tears away.

CV

The grave my little cottage is,

Where, keeping house for thee,

I make my parlor orderly,

And lay the marble tea,

For two divided, briefly,

A cycle, it may be,

Till everlasting life unite

In strong society.

CVI

This was in the white of the year,

That was in the green,

Drifts were as difficult then to think

As daisies now to be seen.

Looking back is best that is left,

Or if it be before,

Retrospection is prospect’s half,

Sometimes almost more.

CVII

Sweet hours have perished here;

This is a mighty room;

Within its precincts hopes have played,—

Now shadows in the tomb.

CVIII

Me! Come! My dazzled face

In such a shining place!

Me! Hear! My foreign ear

The sounds of welcome near!

The saints shall meet

Our bashful feet.

My holiday shall be

That they remember me;

My paradise, the fame

CIX

From us she wandered now a year,

Her tarrying unknown;

If wilderness prevent her feet,

Or that ethereal zone

No eye hath seen and lived,

We ignorant must be.

We only know what time of year

We took the mystery.

CX

I wish I knew that woman’s name,

So, when she comes this way,

To hold my life, and hold my ears,

For fear I hear her say

She’s “sorry I am dead”, again,

Just when the grave and I

Have sobbed ourselves almost to sleep,—

Our only lullaby.

CXI

Bereaved of all, I went abroad,

No less bereaved to be

Upon a new peninsula,—

The grave preceded me,

Obtained my lodgings ere myself,

And when I sought my bed,

The grave it was, reposed upon

The pillow for my head.

I waked, to find it first awake,

I rose,—it followed me;

I tried to drop it in the crowd,

To lose it in the sea,

In cups of artificial drowse

To sleep its shape away,—

The grave was finished, but the spade

Remained in memory.

I felt a funeral in my brain,

And mourners, to and fro

Kept treading, treading, till it seemed

That sense was breaking through.

And when they all were seated,

A service like a drum

Kept beating, beating, till I thought

My mind was going numb.

And then I heard them lift a box,

And creak across my soul

With those same boots of lead, again.

Then space began to toll

As all the heavens were a bell,

And Being but an ear,

And I and silence some strange race,

Wrecked, solitary, here.

CXIII

I meant to find her when I came;

Death had the same design;

But the success was his, it seems,

And the discomfit mine.

I meant to tell her how I longed

For just this single time;

But Death had told her so the first,

And she had hearkened him.

To wander now is my abode;

To rest,—to rest would be

A privilege of hurricane

To memory and me.

CXIV

I sing to use the waiting,

My bonnet but to tie,

And shut the door unto my house;

No more to do have I,

Till, his best step approaching,

We journey to the day,

And tell each other how we sang

To keep the dark away.

CXV

A sickness of this world it most occasions

When best men die;

A wishfulness their far condition

To occupy.

A chief indifference, as foreign

A world must be

Themselves forsake contented,

For Deity.

CXVI

Superfluous were the sun

When excellence is dead;

He were superfluous every day,

For every day is said

That syllable whose faith

Just saves it from despair,

And whose “I’ll meet you” hesitates—

If love inquire, “Where?”

Upon his dateless fame

Our periods may lie,

As stars that drop anonymous

From an abundant sky.

CXVII

So proud she was to die

It made us all ashamed

That what we cherished, so unknown

To her desire seemed.

So satisfied to go

Where none of us should be,

Immediately, that anguish stooped

Almost to jealousy.

CXVIII

Tie the strings to my life, my Lord,

Then I am ready to go!

Just a look at the horses—

Rapid! That will do!

Put me in on the firmest side,

So I shall never fall;

For we must ride to the Judgment,

And it’s partly down hill.

But never I mind the bridges,

And never I mind the sea;

Held fast in everlasting race

By my own choice and thee.

Good-by to the life I used to live,

And the world I used to know;

And kiss the hills for me, just once;

Now I am ready to go!

CXIX

The dying need but little, dear,—

A glass of water’s all,

A flower’s unobtrusive face

To punctuate the wall,

A fan, perhaps, a friend’s regret,

And certainly that one

No color in the rainbow

Perceives when you are gone.

CXX

There’s something quieter than sleep

Within this inner room!

It wears a sprig upon its breast,

And will not tell its name.

Some touch it and some kiss it,

Some chafe its idle hand;

It has a simple gravity

I do not understand!

While simple-hearted neighbors

Chat of the “early dead”,

We, prone to periphrasis,

Remark that birds have fled!

CXXI

The soul should always stand ajar.

That if the heaven inquire,

He will not be obliged to wait,

Or shy of troubling her.

Depart, before the host has slid

The bolt upon the door,

To seek for the accomplished guest—

Her visitor no more.

CXXII

Three weeks passed since I had seen her,—

Some disease had vexed;

’T was with text and village singing

I beheld her next,

And a company—our pleasure

To discourse alone;

Gracious now to me as any,

Gracious unto none.

Borne, without dissent of either,

To the parish night;

Of the separated people

Which are out of sight?

CXXIII

I breathed enough to learn the trick,

And now, removed from air,

I simulate the breath so well,

That one, to be quite sure

The lungs are stirless, must descend

Among the cunning cells,

And touch the pantomime himself.

How cool the bellows feels!

CXXIV

I wonder if the sepulchre

Is not a lonesome way,

When men and boys, and larks and June

Go down the fields to hay!

CXXV

If tolling bell I ask the cause.

“A soul has gone to God,”

I’m answered in a lonesome tone;

Is heaven then so sad?

That bells should joyful ring to tell

A soul had gone to heaven,

Would seem to me the proper way

A good news should be given.

CXXVI

If I may have it when it’s dead

I will contented be;

If just as soon as breath is out

It shall belong to me,

Until they lock it in the grave,

’T is bliss I cannot weigh,

For though they lock thee in the grave,

Myself can hold the key.

Think of it, lover! I and thee

Permitted face to face to be;

After a life, a death we’ll say,—

For death was that, and this is thee.

CXXVII

Before the ice is in the pools,

Before the skaters go,

Or any cheek at nightfall

Is tarnished by the snow,

Before the fields have finished,

Before the Christmas tree,

Wonder upon wonder

Will arrive to me!

What we touch the hems of

On a summer’s day;

What is only walking

Just a bridge away;

That which sings so, speaks so,

When there’s no one here,—

Will the frock I wept in

Answer me to wear?

CXXVIII

I heard a fly buzz when I died;

The stillness round my form

Was like the stillness in the air

Between the heaves of storm.

The eyes beside had wrung them dry,

And breaths were gathering sure

For that last onset, when the king

Be witnessed in his power.

I willed my keepsakes, signed away

What portion of me I

Could make assignable,—and then

There interposed a fly,

With blue, uncertain, stumbling buzz,

Between the light and me;

And then the windows failed, and then

I could not see to see.

CXXIX

Adrift! A little boat adrift!

And night is coming down!

Will no one guide a little boat

Unto the nearest town?

So sailors say, on yesterday,

Just as the dusk was brown,

One little boat gave up its strife,

And gurgled down and down.

But angels say, on yesterday,

Just as the dawn was red,

One little boat o’erspent with gales

Retrimmed its masts, redecked its sails

Exultant, onward sped!

CXXX

There’s been a death in the opposite house

As lately as to-day.

I know it by the numb look

Such houses have alway.

The neighbors rustle in and out,

The doctor drives away.

A window opens like a pod,

Abrupt, mechanically;

Somebody flings a mattress out,—

The children hurry by;

They wonder if It died on that,—

I used to when a boy.

The minister goes stiffly in

As if the house were his,

And he owned all the mourners now,

And little boys besides;

And then the milliner, and the man

Of the appalling trade,

To take the measure of the house.

There’ll be that dark parade

Of tassels and of coaches soon;

It’s easy as a sign,—

The intuition of the news

In just a country town.

CXXXI

We never know we go,—when we are going

We jest and shut the door;

Fate following behind us bolts it,

And we accost no more.

CXXXII

It struck me every day

The lightning was as new

As if the cloud that instant slit

And let the fire through.

It burned me in the night,

It blistered in my dream;

It sickened fresh upon my sight

With every morning’s beam.

I thought that storm was brief,—

The maddest, quickest by;

But Nature lost the date of this,

And left it in the sky.

CXXXIII

Water is taught by thirst;

Land, by the oceans passed;

Transport, by throe;

Peace, by its battles told;

Love, by memorial mould;

Birds, by the snow.

CXXXIV

We thirst at first,—’t is Nature’s act;

And later, when we die,

A little water supplicate

Of fingers going by.

It intimates the finer want,

Whose adequate supply

Is that great water in the west

Termed immortality.

CXXXV

A clock stopped—not the mantel’s;

Geneva’s farthest skill

Can’t put the puppet bowing

That just now dangled still.

An awe came on the trinket!

The figures hunched with pain,

Then quivered out of decimals

Into degreeless noon.

It will not stir for doctors,

This pendulum of snow;

The shopman importunes it,

While cool, concernless No

Nods from the gilded pointers,

Nods from the seconds slim,

Decades of arrogance between

The dial life and him.

CXXXVI

All overgrown by cunning moss,

All interspersed with weed,

The little cage of “Currer Bell”,

In quiet Haworth laid.

This bird, observing others,

When frosts too sharp became,

Retire to other latitudes,

Quietly did the same.

But differed in returning;

Since Yorkshire hills are green,

Yet not in all the nests I meet

Can nightingale be seen.

Gathered from any wanderings,

Gethsemane can tell

Through what transporting anguish

She reached the asphodel!

Soft falls the sounds of Eden

Upon her puzzled ear;

Oh, what an afternoon for heaven,

When Brontë entered there!

CXXXVII

A toad can die of light!

Death is the common right

Of toads and men,—

Of earl and midge

The privilege.

Why swagger then?

The gnat’s supremacy

Is large as thine.

CXXXVIII

Far from love the Heavenly Father

Leads the chosen child;

Oftener through realm of briar

Than the meadow mild,

Oftener by the claw of dragon

Than the hand of friend,

Guides the little one predestined

To the native land.

CXXXIX

A long, long sleep, a famous sleep

That makes no show for dawn

By stretch of limb or stir of lid,—

An independent one.

Was ever idleness like this?

Within a hut of stone

To bask the centuries away

Nor once look up for noon?

CXL

’T was just this time last year I died.

I know I heard the corn,

When I was carried by the farms,—

It had the tassels on.

I thought how yellow it would look

When Richard went to mill;

And then I wanted to get out,

But something held my will.

I thought just how red apples wedged

The stubble’s joints between;

And carts went stooping round the fields

To take the pumpkins in.

I wondered which would miss me least,

And when Thanksgiving came,

If father ’d multiply the plates

To make an even sum.

And if my stocking hung too high,

Would it blur the Christmas glee,

That not a Santa Claus could reach

The altitude of me?

But this sort grieved myself, and so

I thought how it would be

When just this time, some perfect year,

Themselves should come to me.

CXLI

On this wondrous sea,

Sailing silently,

Knowest thou the shore

Ho! pilot, ho!

Where no breakers roar,

Where the storm is o’er?

In the silent west

Many sails at rest,

Their anchors fast;

Thither I pilot thee,—

Land, ho! Eternity!

Ashore at last!

Reading Group Guide

1. Dickinson never published any of her poetry during her lifetime; her work was discovered after her death. As Billy Collins notes in his Introduction, “It is fascinating to consider the case of a person who led such a private existence … as if she had lain asleep only to be awakened by the kiss of the twentieth century.” What conclusions can you draw about the relationship of Dickinson’s privacy during her life and the nature and texture of her art?

2. Dickinson’s poetry continues to be extremely influential and important for twentieth-century readers; she remains one of the most widely read American poets to this day. What accounts for this remarkable, enduring popularity, in your view? What makes her poetry seem, to so many, so contemporary? What influence or legacy do you think her work has had or left?

3. Considering Dickinson in relation to some of the exemplary poetry of her time (for instance, Walt Whitman), what features seem to distinguish Dickinson’s work? Are there contemporary poets that you would compare in some way to Emily Dickinson?

4. What innovations—stylistic or otherwise—do you find or notice in Dickinson’s poetry? What themes or motifs seem to recur in her work, and what do these signify for you?

5. Which individual poems in this volume do you find most compelling and affecting? Which poems do you find most difficult, obscure, or hard to penetrate?

6. Billy Collins notes that Dickinson’s poetry is particularly effective in its ability to “compress wide meaning into small spaces.” Discuss this feature of her work in relation to poetry in general.

7. How do you think Dickinson’s identity as a woman—in nineteenth-century America—plays into her art?

Emily Dickinson

Emily Dickinson was born in Amherst, Massachusetts, on December 10, 1830, into a prominent New England family. Her father, Edward Dickinson, was a successful lawyer who served one term in Congress and an influential public figure who was treasurer of Amherst College, the school founded by his own father in 1821. The Dickinsons lived for many years in the Homestead, a brick mansion on spacious grounds three blocks from the center of town. Emily was the middle child in an unusually close-knit clan that was virtually a society unto itself: it included her elder brother, Austin, and a younger sister, Lavinia.

Between the ages of ten and seventeen Emily attended Amherst Academy, a remarkable school staffed by young graduates from nearby colleges. Its enlightened curriculum provided students with a broad range of humanistic and scientific knowledge. Dickinson blossomed there among a lively circle of friends, several of whom became trusted confidantes in later years. Upon graduation in 1847 she enrolled in Mount Holyoke Female Seminary in South Hadley but left after only two terms. Though it is not known exactly when Dickinson began writing verse, one of her poems was printed in the Amherst College Indicator in February 1850.

Dickinson grew increasingly solitary, by the late 1860s becoming a total recluse who never ventured from the Homestead.

Following her death on May 15, 1886, Lavinia Dickinson discovered many of the poems hidden among her sister’s possessions. With the assistance of Thomas Wentworth Higginson and Mabel Loomis Todd, the wife of an Amherst professor, Poems by Emily Dickinson was published in 1890. “In many cases these verses will seem to the reader like poetry torn up by the roots … flashes of wholly original and profound insight into nature and life,” wrote Higginson. Subsequent collections were also edited by the poet’s niece, Martha Dickinson Bianchi.

In 1955 the Belknap Press of Harvard University Press published the definitive three-volume variorum edition of all 1,775 poems in the Dickinson canon. In 1958 it brought out a companion three-volume compilation of that poet’s 1,045 letters.