The Collected Poems of Emily Dickinson (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) (12 page)

 

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
¹²¹
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 a hay!

LXI

A little road not made of man,
Enabled of the eye,
Accessible to thill
¹²²
of bee,
Or cart of butterfly.

 

If town it have, beyond itself,
’T is that I cannot say;
I only sigh,—no vehicle
Bears me along that way.

LXII

A drop fell on the apple tree.
Another on the roof;
A half a dozen kissed the eaves,
And made the gables
¹²³
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
¹²⁴
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 fête
¹²⁵
away.

LXIII

A something in a summer’s day,
As slow her flambeaux
¹²⁶
burn away,
Which solemnizes me.

 

A something in a summer’s noon,—
An azure depth, a wordless tune,
Transcending ecstasy.

 

And still within a summer’s night
A something so transporting bright,
I clap my hands to see;

Then veil my too inspecting face,
Lest such a subtle, shimmering grace
Flutter too far for me.

 

The wizard-fingers never rest,
The purple brook within the breast
Still chafes its narrow bed;

 

Still rears the East her amber flag,
Guides still the sun along the crag
His caravan of red,

 

Like flowers that heard the tale of dews,
But never deemed the dripping prize
Awaited their low brows;

 

Or bees, that thought the summer’s name
Some rumor of delirium
No summer could for them;

 

Or Arctic creature, dimly stirred
By tropic hint,—some travelled bird
Imported to the wood;

 

Or wind’s bright signal to the ear,
Making that homely and severe,
Contented, known, before

 

The heaven unexpected came,
To lives that thought their worshipping
A too presumptuous psalm.

LXIV

THIS is the land the sunset washes,
These are the banks of the Yellow Sea;
¹²⁷
Where it rose, or whither it rushes,
These are the western mystery!

 

Night after night her purple traffic
Strews the landing with opal
¹²⁸
bales;
Merchantmen poise upon horizons,
Dip, and vanish with fairy sails.

LXV

LIKE trains of cars on tracks of plush
I hear the level bee:
A jar across the flowers goes,
Their velvet masonry

 

Withstands until the sweet assault
Their chivalry consumes,
While he, victorious, tilts away
To vanquish other blooms.

 

His feet are shod with gauze,
His helmet is of gold;
His breast, a single onyx
¹²⁹
With chrysoprase,
¹³⁰
inlaid.

His labor is a chant,
His idleness a tune;
Oh, for a bee’s experience
Of clovers and of noon!

LXVI

THERE is a flower that bees prefer,
And butterflies desire;
To gain the purple democrat
The humming-birds aspire.

 

And whatsoever insect pass,
A honey bears away
Proportioned to his several dearth
And her capacity.

 

Her face is rounder than the moon,
And ruddier than the gown
Of orchis in the pasture,
Or rhododendron worn.

 

She doth not wait for June;
Before the world is green
Her sturdy little countenance
Against the wind is seen,

 

Contending with the grass,
Near kinsman to herself,
For privilege of sod and sun,
Sweet litigants for life.

 

And when the hills are full,
And newer fashions blow,
Doth not retract a single spice
For pang of jealousy.

 

Her public is the noon,
Her providence the sun,
Her progress by the bee proclaimed
In sovereign, swerveless tune.

 

The bravest of the host,
Surrendering the last,
Nor even of defeat aware
When cancelled by the frost.

LXVII

PRESENTIMENT is that long shadow on the lawn
Indicative that suns go down;
The notice to the startled grass
That darkness is about to pass.

LXVIII

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.

LXIX

ANGELS in the early morning
May be seen the dews among,
Stooping, plucking, smiling, flying:
Do the buds to them belong?

 

Angels when the sun is hottest
May be seen the sands among,
Stooping, plucking, sighing, flying;
Parched the flowers they bear along.

LXX

SO bashful when I spied her,
So pretty, so ashamed!
So hidden in her leaflets,
Lest anybody find;

 

So breathless till I passed her,
So helpless when I turned
And bore her, struggling, blushing,
Her simple haunts beyond!

 

For whom I robbed the dingle,
¹³¹
For whom betrayed the dell,
¹³²
Many will doubtless ask me,
But I shall never tell!

LXXI

IT makes no difference abroad,
The seasons fit the same,
The mornings blossom into noons,
And split their pods of flame.

 

Wild-flowers kindle in the woods,
The brooks brag all the day;
No blackbird bates
¹³³
his jargoning
For passing Calvary.

 

Auto-da-fé
¹³⁴
and judgment
Are nothing to the bee;
His separation from his rose
To him seems misery.

LXXII

THE mountain sat upon the plain
In his eternal chair,
His observation omnifold,
¹³⁵
His inquest everywhere.

 

The seasons prayed around his knees,
Like children round a sire:
Grandfather of the days is he,
Of dawn the ancestor.

LXXIII

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 dominie
¹³⁶
in gray
Put gently up the evening bars,
And led the flock away.

LXXIV

THE butterfly’s assumption-gown,
¹³⁷
In chrysoprase apartments hung,
This afternoon put on.

 

How condescending to descend,
And be of buttercups the friend
In a New England town!

LXXV

OF all the sounds despatched abroad,
There’s not a charge to me
Like that old measure in the boughs,
That phraseless melody

 

The wind does, working like a hand
Whose fingers comb the sky,
Then quiver down, with tufts of tune
Permitted gods and me.

 

When winds go round and round in bands,
And thrum
¹³⁸
upon the door,
And birds take places overhead,
To bear them orchestra,

 

I crave him grace, of summer boughs,
If such an outcast be,
He never heard that fleshless chant
Rise solemn in the tree,

 

As if some caravan of sound
On deserts, in the sky,
Had broken rank,
Then knit, and passed
In seamless company.

LXXVI

APPARENTLY with no surprise
To any happy flower,
The frost beheads it at its play
In accidental power.

 

The blond assassin passes on,
The sun proceeds unmoved
To measure off another day
For an approving God.

LXXVII

‘Twas later when the summer went
Than when the cricket came,
And yet we knew that gentle clock
Meant nought but going home.

 

’T was sooner when the cricket went
Than when the winter came,
Yet that pathetic pendulum
Keeps esoteric time.

LXXVIII

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
¹³⁹
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!

LXXIX

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.

LXXX

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.

LXXXI

I think the hemlock likes to stand
Upon a marge
¹⁴⁰
of snow;
It suits his own austerity,
And satisfies an awe

That men must slake in wilderness,
Or in the desert cloy,—
An instinct for the hoar, the bald,
Lapland’s necessity.

 

The hemlock’s nature thrives on cold;
The gnash of northern winds
Is sweetest nutriment to him,
His best Norwegian wines.

 

To satin races he is nought;
But children on the Don
¹⁴¹
Beneath his tabernacles
¹⁴²
play,
And Dnieper wrestlers run.

LXXXII

THERE’S a certain slant of light,
On winter afternoons,
That oppresses, like the weight
Of cathedral tunes.

Heavenly hurt it gives us;
We can find no scar,
But internal difference
Where the meanings are.

 

None may teach it anything,
’T is the seal,
¹⁴³
despair,—
An imperial affliction
Sent us of the air.

 

When it comes, the landscape listens,
Shadows hold their breath;
When it goes, ’t is like the distance
On the look of death.

LXXXIII

THE springtime’s pallid landscape
Will glow like bright bouquet,
Though drifted deep in parian
¹⁴⁴
The village lies to-day.

The lilacs, bending many a year,
With purple load will hang;
The bees will not forget the tune
Their old forefathers sang.

 

The rose will redden in the bog,
The aster on the hill
Her everlasting fashion set,
And covenant gentians frill,

 

Till summer folds her miracle
As women do their gown,
Or priests adjust the symbols
When sacrament is done.

LXXXIV

SHE slept beneath a tree
Remembered but by me.
I touched her cradle mute;
She recognized the foot,
Put on her carmine suit,—
And see!

 

(With a Tulip.)

LXXXV

A light exists in spring
Not present on the year
At any other period.
When March is scarcely here