Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series, Complete

Enlarging loneliness. Antiquest felt at noon When August, burning low, Calls forth this spectral canticle, Repose to typify. Remit as yet no grace, No furrow on the glow, Yet a druidic difference Enhances nature now. XLV. As imperceptibly as grief The summer lapsed away, -- Too imperceptible, at last, To seem like perfidy. A quietness distilled, As twilight long begun, Or Nature, spending with herself Sequestered afternoon. The dusk drew earlier in, The morning foreign shone, -- A courteous, yet harrowing grace, As guest who would be gone. And thus, without a wing, Or service of a keel, Our summer made her light escape Into the beautiful. XLVI. It can't be summer, -- that got through; It 's early yet for spring; There 's that long town of white to cross Before the blackbirds sing. It can't be dying, -- it's too rouge, -- The dead shall go in white. So sunset shuts my question down With clasps of chrysolite. XLVII. SUMMER'S OBSEQUIES. The gentian weaves her fringes, The maple's loom is red. My departing blossoms Obviate parade. A brief, but patient illness, An hour to prepare; And one, below this morning, Is where the angels are. It was a short procession, -- The bobolink was there, An aged bee addressed us, And then we knelt in prayer. We trust that she was willing, -- We ask that we may be. Summer, sister, seraph, Let us go with thee! In the name of the bee And of the butterfly And of the breeze, amen! XLVIII. FRINGED GENTIAN. God made a little gentian; It tried to be a rose And failed, and all the summer laughed. But just before the snows There came a purple creature That ravished all the hill; And summer hid her forehead, And mockery was still. The frosts were her condition; The Tyrian would not come Until the North evoked it. "Creator! shall I bloom?" XLIX. NOVEMBER. Besides the autumn poets sing, A few prosaic days A little this side of the snow And that side of the haze. A few incisive mornings, A few ascetic eyes, -- Gone Mr. Bryant's golden-rod, And Mr. Thomson's sheaves. Still is the bustle in the brook, Sealed are the spicy valves; Mesmeric fingers softly touch The eyes of many elves. Perhaps a squirrel may remain, My sentiments to share. Grant me, O Lord, a sunny mind, Thy windy will to bear! L. THE SNOW. It sifts from leaden sieves, It powders all the wood, It fills with alabaster wool The wrinkles of the road. It makes an even face Of mountain and of plain, -- Unbroken forehead from the east Unto the east again. It reaches to the fence, It wraps it, rail by rail, Till it is lost in fleeces; It flings a crystal veil On stump and stack and stem, -- The summer's empty room, Acres of seams where harvests were, Recordless, but for them. It ruffles wrists of posts, As ankles of a queen, -- Then stills its artisans like ghosts, Denying they have been. LI. THE BLUE JAY. No brigadier throughout the year So civic as the jay. A neighbor and a warrior too, With shrill felicity Pursuing winds that censure us A February day, The brother of the universe Was never blown away. The snow and he are intimate; I 've often seen them play When heaven looked upon us all With such severity, I felt apology were due To an insulted sky, Whose pompous frown was nutriment To their temerity. The pillow of this daring head Is pungent evergreens; His larder -- terse and militant -- Unknown, refreshing things; His character a tonic, His future a dispute; Unfair an immortality That leaves this neighbor out. IV. TIME AND ETERNITY. I. 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. II. 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. III. 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? IV. EPITAPH. 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. V. 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! VI. 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. VII. 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. VIII. 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! IX. THE BATTLE-FIELD. 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. X. 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! XI. 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. XII. 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! XIII. MEMORIALS. 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. XIV. 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. XV. 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." XVI. 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. XVII. TRIUMPH. 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! XVIII. 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! XIX. 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! XX. FOLLOWING. 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. XXI. 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.