Selected Poems of Emily Dickinson
Date: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Poetry; Year 4

Selected Poems
of

Emily Dickinson

1830-1886

1
I Never Saw a Moor

I never saw a moor,

I never saw the sea;

Yet know I how the heather looks,

And what a wave must be.

I never spoke with God,

Nor visited in heaven;

Yet certain am I of the spot

As if the chart were given.

2
The Lost Jewel

I held a jewel in my fingers

And went to sleep.

The day was warm, and winds were prosy;

I said: “’T’will keep.”

I woke and chid my honest fingers,

The gem was gone;

And now an amethyst remembrance

Is all I own.

3
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!

4
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.

5
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.

6
Beclouded

The sky is low, the clouds are mean,

A travelling flake of snow

Across a barn or through a rut

Debates if it will go.

A narrow wind complains all day

How some one treated him;

Nature, like us, is sometimes caught

Without her diadem.

7
Summer Shower

A drop fell on the apple tree,

Another on the roof

A half a dozen kissed the eaves,

And made the gables laugh.

A few went out to help the brook,

That went to help the sea.

Myself conjectured, Were they pearls,

What necklaces could be!

The dust replaced in hoisted roads,

The birds jocoser sung;

The sunshine threw his hat away,

The orchards spangles hung.

The breezes brought dejected lutes,

And bathed them in the glee;

The East put out a single flag,

And signed the fete away.

8
If I Can Stop One From Breaking

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.

9
A Word

A word is dead

When it is said,

Some say.

I say it just

Begins to live

That day.

10
The Railway Train

I like to see it lap the miles,

And lick the valleys up,

And stop to feed itself at tanks;

And then, prodigious, step

Around a pile of mountains,

And, supercilious, peer

In shanties by the sides of roads;

And then a quarry pare.

To fit its sides, and crawl between,

Complaining all the while

In horrid, hooting stanza;

Then chase itself down hill

And neigh like Boanerges;

Then, punctual as a star,

Stop docile and omnipotent

At its own stable door.

11
The Bee is Not Afraid of Me

The bee is not afraid of me,

I know the butterfly;

The pretty people in the woods

Receive me cordially.

The brooks laugh louder when I come,

The breezes madder play.

Wherefore, mine eyes, thy silver mists?

Wherefore, O summer’s day?

12
As Children Bid the Guest Goodnight

As children bid the guest good-night,

And then reluctant turn,

My flowers raise their pretty lips,

Then put their nightgowns on.

As children caper when they wake,

Merry that it is morn,

My flowers from a hundred cribs

Will peep, and prance again.

13
A Day

I’ll tell you how the sun rose,

A ribbon at a time.

The steeples swam in amethyst,

The news like squirrels ran.

The hills untied their bonnets,

The bobolinks begun.

Then I said softly to myself,

“That must have been the sun!”

But how he set, I know not.

There seemed a purple stile

Which little yellow boys and girls

Were climbing all the while

Till when they reached the other side,

A dominic in gray

Put gently up the evening bars,

And led the flock away.

14
The Pedigree of Honey

The pedigree of honey

Does not concern the bee;

A clover, any time, to him

Is aristocracy.

15
The Grass

The grass so little has to do,

A sphere of simple green,

With only butterflies to brood,

And bees to entertain,

And stir all day to pretty tunes

The breezes fetch along,

And hold the sunshine in its lap

And bow to everything;

And thread the dews all night, like pearls,

And make itself so fine,

A duchess were too common

For such a noticing.

And even when it dies, to pass

In odors so divine,

As lowly spices gone to sleep,

Or amulets of pine.

And then to dwell in sovereign barns,

And dream the days away,

The grass so little has to do,

I wish I were the hay!

16
Perhaps You’d Like to Buy a Flower

Perhaps you’d like to buy a flower?

But I could never sell.

If you would like to borrow

Until the daffodil

Unties her yellow bonnet

Beneath the village door,

Until the bees, from clover rows

Their hock and sherry draw,

Why, I will lend until just then,

But not an hour more!

17
The Moon

The moon was but a chin of gold

A night or two ago,

And now she turns her perfect face

Upon the world below.

Her forehead is of amplest blond;

Her cheek like beryl stone;

Her eye unto the summer dew

The likest I have known.

Her lips of amber never part;

But what must be the smile

Upon her friend she could bestow

Were such her silver will!

And what a privilege to be

But the remotest star!

For certainly her way might pass

Beside your twinkling door.

Her bonnet is the firmament,

The universe her shoe,

The stars the trinkets at her belt,

Her dimities of blue.

18
Evening

The cricket sang,

And set the sun,

And workmen finished, one by one,

Their seam the day upon.

The low grass loaded with the dew,

The twilight stood as strangers do

With hat in hand, polite and new,

To stay as if, or go.

A vastness, as a neighbor, came,

A wisdom without face or name,

A peace, as hemispheres at home,

And so the night became.

19
Autumn

The morns are meeker than they were,

The nuts are getting brown;

The berry’s cheek is plumper,

The rose is out of town.

The maple wears a gayer scarf,

The field a scarlet gown.

Lest I should be old-fashioned,

I’ll put a trinket on.

20
The Butterfly’s Day

From cocoon forth a butterfly

As lady from her door

Emerged a summer afternoon

Repairing everywhere,

Without design, that I could trace,

Except to stray abroad

On miscellaneous enterprise

The clovers understood.

Her pretty parasol was seen

Contracting in a field

Where men made hay, then struggling hard

With an opposing cloud,

Where parties, phantom as herself,

To Nowhere seemed to go

In purposeless circumference,

As ’t were a tropic show.

And notwithstanding bee that worked,

And flower that zealous blew,

This audience of idleness

Disdained them, from the sky,

Till sundown crept, a steady tide,

And men that made the hay,

And afternoon, and butterfly,

Extinguished in its sea.

21
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?”

22
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.

23
The Sea

An everywhere of silver,

With ropes of sand

To keep it from effacing

The track called land.

24
Forbidden Fruit (2)

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!

25
The Woodpecker

His bill an auger is,

His head, a cap and frill.

He laboreth at every tree,

A worm his utmost goal.

26
Hope

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 chillest land,

And on the strangest sea;

Yet, never, in extremity,

It asked a crumb of me.

27
May-Flower

Pink, small, and punctual,

Aromatic, low,

Covert in April,

Candid in May,

Dear to the moss,

Known by the knoll,

Next to the robin

In every human soul.

Bold little beauty,

Bedecked with thee,

Nature forswears

Antiquity.

28
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!

29
Have You Got a Brook in your Little Heart

Have you got a brook in your little heart,

Where bashful flowers blow,

And blushing birds go down to drink,

And shadows tremble so?

And nobody knows, so still it flows,

That any brook is there;

And yet your little draught of life

Is daily drunken there.

Then look out for the little brook in March,

When the rivers overflow,

And the snows come hurrying from the hills,

And the bridges often go.

And later, in August it may be,

When the meadows parching lie,

Beware, lest this little brook of life

Some burning noon go dry!

30
Dawn

Not knowing when the dawn will come

I open every door;

Or has it feathers like a bird,

Or billows like a shore?

31
A Service of Song

Some keep the Sabbath going to church;

I keep it staying at home,

With a bobolink for a chorister,

And an orchard for a dome.

Some keep the Sabbath in surplice;

I just wear my wings,

And instead of tolling the bell for church,

Our little sexton sings.

God preaches, a noted clergyman,

And the sermon is never long;

So instead of getting to heaven at last,

I’m going all along!

32
Who Has Not Found the Heaven Below

Who has not found the heaven below

Will fail of it above.

God’s residence is next to mine,

His furniture is love.

33
Proof

That I did always love,

I bring thee proof:

That till I loved

I did not love enough.

That I shall love alway,

I offer thee

That love is life,

And life hath immortality.

This, dost thou doubt, sweet?

Then have I

Nothing to show

But Calvary.

34
I’m Nobody! Who Are You?

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!

35
Nature is What we See

Nature is what we see,

The Hill, the Afternoon—

Squirrel, Eclipse, the Bumble-bee,

Nay—Nature is Heaven.

Nature is what we hear,

The Bobolink, the Sea—

Thunder, the Cricket—

Nay,—Nature is Harmony.

Nature is what we know

But have no art to say,

So impotent our wisdom is

To Her simplicity.

36
Sweet is the Swamp With its Secrets

Sweet is the swamp with its secrets,

Until we meet a snake;

’T is then we sigh for houses,

And our departure take

At that enthralling gallop

That only childhood knows.

A snake is summer’s treason,

And guile is where it goes.

37
The Duties of the Wind are Few

The duties of the Wind are few—

To cast the Ships at sea,

Establish March,

The Floods escort,

And usher Liberty.

38
The Robin is the One

The robin is the one

That interrupts the morn

With hurried, few, express reports

When March is scarcely on.

The robin is the one

That overflows the noon

With her cherubic quantity,

An April but begun.

The robin is the one

That speechless from her nest

Submits that home and certainty

And sanctity are best.

39
How Still the Bells in Steeples Stand

How still the bells in steeples stand,

Till, swollen with the sky,

They leap upon their silver feet

In frantic melody!

40
A Slash of Blue

A slash of Blue—

A sweep of Gray—

Some scarlet patches on the way,

Compose an Evening Sky—

A little purple—slipped between—

Some Ruby Trousers hurried on—

A Wave of Gold—

A Bank of Day—

This just makes out the Morning Sky.

41
The Saddest Noise, the Sweetest Noise

The saddest noise, the sweetest noise,

The maddest noise that grows,—

The birds, they make it in the spring,

At night’s delicious close.

Between the March and April line—

That magical frontier

Beyond which summer hesitates,

Almost too heavenly near.

It makes us think of all the dead

That sauntered with us here,

By separation’s sorcery

Made cruelly more dear.

It makes us think of what we had,

And what we now deplore.

We almost wish those siren throats

Would go and sing no more.

An ear can break a human heart

As quickly as a spear,

We wish the ear had not a heart

So dangerously near.

42
Morning

Will there really be a morning?

Is there such a thing as day?

Could I see it from the mountains

If I were as tall as they?

Has it feet like water lilies?

Has it feathers like a bird?

Is it brought from famous countries

Of which I’ve never heard?

Oh, some scholar! Oh, some sailor!

Oh, some wise man from the skies!

Please to tell a little pilgrim

Where the place called morning lies!

43
The Hummingbird

A route of evanescence

With a revolving wheel;

A resonance of emerald,

A rush of cochineal;

And every blossom on the bush

Adjusts its tumbled head—

The mail from Tunis, probably,

An easy morning’s ride.

44
A Narrow Fellow in the Grass

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.

45
Indian Summer

These are the days when birds come back,

A very few, a bird or two,

To take a backward look.

These are the days when skies put on

The old, old sophistries of June,—

A blue and gold mistake.

Oh, fraud that cannot cheat the bee,

Almost thy plausibility

Induces my belief,

Till ranks of seeds their witness bear,

And softly through the altered air

Hurries a timid leaf!

Oh, sacrament of summer days,

Oh last communion in the haze,

Permit a child to join,

Thy sacred emblems to partake,

Thy consecrated bread to break,

Taste thine immortal wine!