Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series, Complete

Soft overheard the whole. If I should bribe the little bird, Who knows but she would tell? I think I won't, however, It's finer not to know; If summer were an axiom, What sorcery had snow? So keep your secret, Father! I would not, if I could, Know what the sapphire fellows do, In your new-fashioned world! XVII. Who robbed the woods, The trusting woods? The unsuspecting trees Brought out their burrs and mosses His fantasy to please. He scanned their trinkets, curious, He grasped, he bore away. What will the solemn hemlock, What will the fir-tree say? XVIII. TWO VOYAGERS. Two butterflies went out at noon And waltzed above a stream, Then stepped straight through the firmament And rested on a beam; And then together bore away Upon a shining sea, -- Though never yet, in any port, Their coming mentioned be. If spoken by the distant bird, If met in ether sea By frigate or by merchantman, Report was not to me. XIX. BY THE SEA. 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. XX. OLD-FASHIONED. Arcturus is his other name, -- I'd rather call him star! It's so unkind of science To go and interfere! I pull a flower from the woods, -- A monster with a glass Computes the stamens in a breath, And has her in a class. Whereas I took the butterfly Aforetime in my hat, He sits erect in cabinets, The clover-bells forgot. What once was heaven, is zenith now. Where I proposed to go When time's brief masquerade was done, Is mapped, and charted too! What if the poles should frisk about And stand upon their heads! I hope I 'm ready for the worst, Whatever prank betides! Perhaps the kingdom of Heaven 's changed! I hope the children there Won't be new-fashioned when I come, And laugh at me, and stare! I hope the father in the skies Will lift his little girl, -- Old-fashioned, naughty, everything, -- Over the stile of pearl! XXI. A TEMPEST. An awful tempest mashed the air, The clouds were gaunt and few; A black, as of a spectre's cloak, Hid heaven and earth from view. The creatures chuckled on the roofs And whistled in the air, And shook their fists and gnashed their teeth. And swung their frenzied hair. The morning lit, the birds arose; The monster's faded eyes Turned slowly to his native coast, And peace was Paradise! XXII. THE SEA. An everywhere of silver, With ropes of sand To keep it from effacing The track called land. XXIII. IN THE GARDEN. A bird came down the walk: He did not know I saw; He bit an angle-worm in halves And ate the fellow, raw. And then he drank a dew From a convenient grass, And then hopped sidewise to the wall To let a beetle pass. He glanced with rapid eyes That hurried all abroad, -- They looked like frightened beads, I thought; He stirred his velvet head Like one in danger; cautious, I offered him a crumb, And he unrolled his feathers And rowed him softer home Than oars divide the ocean, Too silver for a seam, Or butterflies, off banks of noon, Leap, splashless, as they swim. XXIV. THE SNAKE. A narrow fellow in the grass Occasionally rides; You may have met him, -- did you not, His notice sudden is. The grass divides as with a comb, A spotted shaft is seen; And then it closes at your feet And opens further on. He likes a boggy acre, A floor too cool for corn. Yet when a child, and barefoot, I more than once, at morn, Have passed, I thought, a whip-lash Unbraiding in the sun, -- When, stooping to secure it, It wrinkled, and was gone. Several of nature's people I know, and they know me; I feel for them a transport Of cordiality; But never met this fellow, Attended or alone, Without a tighter breathing, And zero at the bone. XXV. THE MUSHROOM. The mushroom is the elf of plants, At evening it is not; At morning in a truffled hut It stops upon a spot As if it tarried always; And yet its whole career Is shorter than a snake's delay, And fleeter than a tare. 'T is vegetation's juggler, The germ of alibi; Doth like a bubble antedate, And like a bubble hie. I feel as if the grass were pleased To have it intermit; The surreptitious scion Of summer's circumspect. Had nature any outcast face, Could she a son contemn, Had nature an Iscariot, That mushroom, -- it is him. XXVI. THE STORM. There came a wind like a bugle; It quivered through the grass, And a green chill upon the heat So ominous did pass We barred the windows and the doors As from an emerald ghost; The doom's electric moccason That very instant passed. On a strange mob of panting trees, And fences fled away, And rivers where the houses ran The living looked that day. The bell within the steeple wild The flying tidings whirled. How much can come And much can go, And yet abide the world! XXVII. THE SPIDER. A spider sewed at night Without a light Upon an arc of white. If ruff it was of dame Or shroud of gnome, Himself, himself inform. Of immortality His strategy Was physiognomy. XXVIII. I know a place where summer strives With such a practised frost, She each year leads her daisies back, Recording briefly, "Lost." But when the south wind stirs the pools And struggles in the lanes, Her heart misgives her for her vow, And she pours soft refrains Into the lap of adamant, And spices, and the dew, That stiffens quietly to quartz, Upon her amber shoe. XXIX. The one that could repeat the summer day Were greater than itself, though he Minutest of mankind might be. And who could reproduce the sun, At period of going down -- The lingering and the stain, I mean -- When Orient has been outgrown, And Occident becomes unknown, His name remain. XXX. THE WIND'S VISIT. The wind tapped like a tired man, And like a host, "Come in," I boldly answered; entered then My residence within A rapid, footless guest, To offer whom a chair Were as impossible as hand A sofa to the air. No bone had he to bind him, His speech was like the push Of numerous humming-birds at once From a superior bush. His countenance a billow, His fingers, if he pass, Let go a music, as of tunes Blown tremulous in glass. He visited, still flitting; Then, like a timid man, Again he tapped -- 't was flurriedly -- And I became alone. XXXI. 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. XXXII. GOSSIP. The leaves, like women, interchange Sagacious confidence; Somewhat of nods, and somewhat of Portentous inference, The parties in both cases Enjoining secrecy, -- Inviolable compact To notoriety. XXXIII. SIMPLICITY. 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. XXXIV. STORM. It sounded as if the streets were running, And then the streets stood still. Eclipse was all we could see at the window, And awe was all we could feel. By and by the boldest stole out of his covert, To see if time was there. Nature was in her beryl apron, Mixing fresher air. XXXV. THE RAT. The rat is the concisest tenant. He pays no rent, -- Repudiates the obligation, On schemes intent. Balking our wit To sound or circumvent, Hate cannot harm A foe so reticent. Neither decree Prohibits him, Lawful as Equilibrium. XXXVI. Frequently the woods are pink, Frequently are brown; Frequently the hills undress Behind my native town. Oft a head is crested I was wont to see, And as oft a cranny Where it used to be. And the earth, they tell me, On its axis turned, -- Wonderful rotation By but twelve performed! XXXVII. A THUNDER-STORM. The wind begun to rock the grass With threatening tunes and low, -- He flung a menace at the earth, A menace at the sky. The leaves unhooked themselves from trees And started all abroad; The dust did scoop itself like hands And throw away the road. The wagons quickened on the streets, The thunder hurried slow; The lightning showed a yellow beak, And then a livid claw. The birds put up the bars to nests, The cattle fled to barns; There came one drop of giant rain, And then, as if the hands That held the dams had parted hold, The waters wrecked the sky, But overlooked my father's house, Just quartering a tree. XXXVIII. WITH FLOWERS. South winds jostle them, Bumblebees come, Hover, hesitate, Drink, and are gone. Butterflies pause On their passage Cashmere; I, softly plucking, Present them here! XXXIX. SUNSET. Where ships of purple gently toss On seas of daffodil, Fantastic sailors mingle, And then -- the wharf is still. XL. She sweeps with many-colored brooms, And leaves the shreds behind; Oh, housewife in the evening west, Come back, and dust the pond! You dropped a purple ravelling in, You dropped an amber thread; And now you 've littered all the East With duds of emerald! And still she plies her spotted brooms, And still the aprons fly, Till brooms fade softly into stars -- And then I come away. XLI. Like mighty footlights burned the red At bases of the trees, -- The far theatricals of day Exhibiting to these. 'T was universe that did applaud While, chiefest of the crowd, Enabled by his royal dress, Myself distinguished God. XLII. PROBLEMS. Bring me the sunset in a cup, Reckon the morning's flagons up, And say how many dew; Tell me how far the morning leaps, Tell me what time the weaver sleeps Who spun the breadths of blue! Write me how many notes there be In the new robin's ecstasy Among astonished boughs; How many trips the tortoise makes, How many cups the bee partakes, -- The debauchee of dews! Also, who laid the rainbow's piers, Also, who leads the docile spheres By withes of supple blue? Whose fingers string the stalactite, Who counts the wampum of the night, To see that none is due? Who built this little Alban house And shut the windows down so close My spirit cannot see? Who 'll let me out some gala day, With implements to fly away, Passing pomposity? XLIII. THE JUGGLER OF DAY. Blazing in gold and quenching in purple, Leaping like leopards to the sky, Then at the feet of the old horizon Laying her spotted face, to die; Stooping as low as the otter's window, Touching the roof and tinting the barn, Kissing her bonnet to the meadow, -- And the juggler of day is gone! XLIV. MY CRICKET. Farther in summer than the birds, Pathetic from the grass, A minor nation celebrates Its unobtrusive mass. No ordinance is seen, So gradual the grace, A pensive custom it becomes,