Poems by Emily Dickinson Third Series Read online

  * * *

  Poems by Emily Dickinson Third Series

  Edited by Mabel Loomis Todd and T.W. Higginson

  BOOK I. -- LIFE.

  I. Real Riches

  II. Superiority to Fate

  III. Hope

  IV. Forbidden Fruit

  V. Forbidden Fruit

  VI. A Word

  VII. "To venerate the simple days"

  VIII. Life's Trades

  IX. "Drowning is not so pitiful"

  X. "How still the bells in steeples stand"

  XI. "If the foolish call them 'flowers'"

  XII. A Syllable

  XIII. Parting

  XIV. Aspiration

  XV. The Inevitable

  XVI. A Book

  XVII. "Who has not found the heaven below"

  XVIII. A Portrait

  XIX. I had a Guinea Golden

  XX. Saturday Afternoon

  XXI. "Few get enough--enough is one"

  XXII. "Upon the gallows hung a wretch"

  XXIII. The Lost Thought

  XXIV. Reticence

  XXV. With Flowers

  XXVI. "The farthest thunder that I heard"

  XXVII. "On the bleakness of my lot"

  XXVIII. Contrast

  XXIX. Friends

  XXX. Fire

  XXXI. A Man

  XXXII. Ventures

  XXXIII. Griefs

  XXXIV. "I have a king who does not speak"

  XXXV. Disenchantment

  XXXVI. Lost Faith

  XXXVII. Lost Joy

  XXXVIII. " I worked for chaff, and earning wheat"

  XXXIX. "Life, and Death, and Giants"

  XL. Alpine Glow

  XLI. Remembrance

  XLII. "To hang our head ostensibly"

  XLIII. The Brain

  XLIV. "The bone that has no marrow"

  XLV. The Past

  XLVI. "To help our bleaker parts"

  XLVII. "What soft, cherubic creatures"

  XLVIII. Desire

  XLIX. Philosophy

  L. Power

  LI. "A modest lot, a fame petite"

  LII. "Is bliss, then, such abyss"

  LIII. Experience

  LIV. Thanksgiving Day

  LV. Childish Griefs

  BOOK II. -- LOVE.

  I. Consecration

  II. Love's Humility

  III. Love

  IV. Satisfied

  V. With a Flower

  VI. Song

  VII. Loyalty

  VIII. "To lose thee, sweeter than to gain"

  IX. "Poor little heart!"

  X. Forgotten

  XI. "I've got an arrow here"

  XII. The Master

  XIII. "Heart, we will forget him!"

  XIV. "Father, I bring thee not myself"

  XV. "We outgrow love, like other things"

  XVI. "Not with a club the heart is broken"

  XVII. Who?

  XVIII. "He touched me, so I live to know"

  XIX. Dreams

  XX. Numen Lumen

  XXI. Longing

  XXII. Wedded

  BOOK III. -- NATURE.

  I. Nature's Changes

  II. The Tulip

  III. "A light exists in spring"

  IV. The Waking Year

  V. To March

  VI. March

  VII. Dawn

  VIII. " A murmur in the trees to note"

  IX. "Morning is the place for dew"

  X. "To my quick ears the leaves conferred"

  XI. A Rose

  XII. "High from the earth I heard a bird"

  XIII. Cobwebs

  XIV. A Well

  XV. "To make a prairie it takes a clover"

  XVI. The Wind

  XVII. "A dew sufficed itself"

  XVIII. The Woodpecker

  XIX. A Snake

  XX. "Could I but ride indefinite"

  XXI. The Moon

  XXII. The Bat

  XXIII. The Balloon

  XXIV. Evening

  XXV. Cocoon

  XXVI. Sunset

  XXVII. Aurora

  XXVIII. The Coming of Night

  XXIX. Aftermath

  BOOK IV. -- TIME AND ETERNITY.

  I. "This world is not conclusion"

  II. "We learn in the retreating"

  III. "They say that 'time assuages'"

  IV. "We cover thee, sweet face"

  V. Ending

  VI. "The stimulus, beyond the grave"

  VII. "Given in marriage unto thee"

  VIII. "That such have died enables us"

  IX. "They won't frown always, -- some sweet day"

  X. Immortality

  XI. "The distance that the dead have gone"

  XII. "How dare the robins sing"

  XIII. Death

  XIV. Unwarned

  XV. "Each that we lose takes part of us"

  XVI. "Not any higher stands the grave"

  XVII. Asleep

  XVIII. The Spirit

  XIX. The Monument

  XX. "Bless God, he went as soldiers"

  XXI. "Immortal is an ample word"

  XXII. "Where every bird is bold to go"

  XXIII. "The grave my little cottage is"

  XXIV. "This was in the white of the year"

  XXV. "Sweet hours have perished here"

  XXVI. "Me! Come! My dazzled face"

  XXVII. Invisible

  XXVIII. "I wish I knew that woman's name"

  XXIX. Trying to Forget

  XXX. "I felt a funeral in my brain"

  XXXI. "I meant to find her when I came"

  XXXII. Waiting

  XXXIII. "A sickness of this world it most occassions"

  XXXIV. "Superfluous were the sun"

  XXXV. "So proud she was to die"

  XXXVI. Farewell

  XXXVII. "The dying need but little, dear"

  XXXVIII. Dead

  XXXIX. "The soul should always stand ajar"

  XL. "Three weeks passed since I had seen her"

  XLI. "I brethed enough to learn the trick"

  XLII. "I wonder if the sepulchre"

  XLIII. Joy in Death

  XLIV. "If I may have it when it's dead"

  XLV. "Before the ice is in the pools"

  XLVI. Dying

  XLVII. "Adrift! A little boat adrift!"

  XLVIII. "There's been a death in the opposite house"

  XLIX. "We never know we go, -- when we are going"

  L. The Soul's Storm

  LI. "Water is taught by thirst"

  LII. Thirst

  LIII. "A clock stopped -- not the mantel's"

  LIV. Charlotte Brontë's Grave

  LV. "A toad can die of light!"

  LVI. "Far from love the Heavenly Father"

  LVII. Sleeping

  LVIII. Retrospect

  LIX. Eternity This page copyright © 2000 Blackmask Online.

  PREFACE.

  THE intellectual activity of Emily Dickinson was so great that a large and characteristic choice is still possible among her literary material, and this third volume of her verses is put forth in response to the repeated wish of the admirers of her peculiar genius.

  Much of Emily Dickinson's prose was rhythmic, -- even rhymed, though frequently not set apart in lines. Also many verses, written as such, were sent to friends in letters; these were published in , in the volumes of her Letters. It has not been necessary, however, to include them in this Series, and all have been omitted, except three or four exceptionally strong ones, as "A Book," and "With Flowers."

  There is internal evidence that many of the poems were simply spontaneous flashes of insight, apparently unrelated to outward
circumstance. Others, however, had an obvious personal origin; for example, the verses "I had a Guinea golden," which seem to have been sent to some friend travelling in Europe, as a dainty reminder of letter-writing delinquencies. The surroundings in which any of Emily Dickinson's verses are known to have been written usually serve to explain them clearly; but in general the present volume is full of thoughts needing no interpretation to those who apprehend this scintillating spirit.

  M. L. T.

  AMHERST, October, .

  I. LIFE.

  POEMS.

  I. REAL RICHES.

  'T IS little I could care for pearls

  Who own the ample sea;

  Or brooches, when the Emperor

  With rubies pelteth me;

  Or gold, who am the Prince of Mines;

  Or diamonds, when I see

  A diadem to fit a dome

  Continual crowning me.

  II. SUPERIORITY TO FATE.

  SUPERIORITY to fate

  Is difficult to learn.

  'T is not conferred by any,

  But possible to earn

  A pittance at a time,

  Until, to her surprise,

  The soul with strict economy

  Subsists till Paradise.

  III. HOPE.

  HOPE is a subtle glutton;

  He feeds upon the fair;

  And yet, inspected closely,

  What abstinence is there!

  His is the halcyon table

  That never seats but one,

  And whatsoever is consumed

  The same amounts remain.

  IV. FORBIDDEN FRUIT.

  I.

  FORBIDDEN fruit a flavor has

  That lawful orchards mocks;

  How luscious lies the pea within

  The pod that Duty locks!

  V. FORBIDDEN FRUIT.

  II.

  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!

  VI. A WORD.

  AWORD is dead

  When it is said,

  Some say.

  I say it just

  Begins to live

  That day.

  VII.

  To venerate the simple days

  Which lead the seasons by,

  Needs but to remember

  That from you or me

  They may take the trifle

  Termed mortality!

  To invent existence with a stately air,

  Needs but to remember

  That the acorn there

  Is the egg of forests,

  For the upper air!

  VIII. LIFE'S TRADES.

  IT's such a little thing to weep,

  So short a thing to sigh;

  And yet by trades the size of these

  We men and women die!

  IX. DROWNING is not so pitiful

  As the attempt to rise.

  Three times, 't is said, a sinking man

  Comes up to face the skies,

  And then declines forever

  To that abhorred abode

  Where hope and he part company, --

  For he is grasped of God.

  The Maker's cordial visage,

  However good to see,

  Is shunned, we must admit it,

  Like an adversity.

  X.

  HOW still the bells in steeples stand,

  Till, swollen with the sky,

  They leap upon their silver feet

  In frantic melody!

  XI.

  IF the foolish call them 'flowers,'

  Need the wiser tell?

  If the savans 'classify' them,

  It is just as well!

  Those who read the Revelations

  Must not criticise

  Those who read the same edition

  With beclouded eyes!

  Could we stand with that old Moses

  Canaan denied, --

  Scan, like him, the stately landscape

  On the other side, --

  Doubtless we should deem superfluous

  Many sciences

  Not pursued by learnèd angels

  In scholastic skies!

  Low amid that glad Belles lettres

  Grant that we may stand,

  Stars, amid profound Galaxies,

  At that grand 'Right hand'!

  XII. A SYLLABLE.

  COULD mortal lip divine

  The undeveloped freight

  Of a delivered syllable,

  'T would crumble with the weight.

  XIII. PARTING.

  MY life closed twice before its close;

  It yet remains to see

  If Immortality unveil

  A third event to me,

  So huge, so hopeless to conceive,

  As these that twice befell.

  Parting is all we know of heaven,

  And all we need of hell.

  XIV. ASPIRATION.

  WE never know how high we are

  Till we are called to rise;

  And then, if we are true to plan,

  Our statures touch the skies.

  The heroism we recite

  Would be a daily thing,

  Did not ourselves the cubits warp

  For fear to be a king.

  XV. THE INEVITABLE.

  WHILE I was fearing it, it came,

  But came with less of fear,

  Because that fearing it so long

  Had almost made it dear.

  There is a fitting a dismay,

  A fitting a despair.

  'Tis harder knowing it is due,

  Than knowing it is here.

  The trying on the utmost,

  The morning it is new,

  Is terribler than wearing it

  A whole existence through.

  XVI. 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!

  XVII.

  WHO has not found the heaven below

  Will fail of it above.

  God's residence is next to mine,

  His furniture is love.

  XVIII. A PORTRAIT.

  A FACE devoid of love or grace,

  A hateful, hard, successful face,

  A face with which a stone

  Would feel as thoroughly at ease

  As were they old acquaintances, --

  First time together thrown.

  XIX. I HAD A GUINEA GOLDEN.

  I HAD a guinea golden;

  I lost it in the sand,

  And though the sum was simple,

  And pounds were in the land,

  Still had it such a value

  Unto my frugal eye,

  That when I could not find it

  I sat me down to sigh.

  I had a crimson robin

  Who sang full many a day,

  But when the woods were painted

  He, too, did fly away.

  Time brought me other robins, --

  Their ballads were the same, --

  Still for my missing troubadour

  I kept the 'house at hame.'

  I had a star in heaven;

  One Pleiad was its name,

  And when I was not heeding

  It wandered from the same.

  And though the skies are crowded,

  And all the night ashine,

  I do not care about it,

  Since none of them are mine.

  My story has a moral:

  I have a missing friend,
--

  Pleiad its name, and robin,

  And guinea in the sand, --

  And when this mournful ditty,

  Accompanied with tear,

  Shall meet the eye of traitor

  In country far from here,

  Grant that repentance solemn

  May seize upon his mind,

  And he no consolation

  Beneath the sun may find.

  (Note: NOTE. -- This poem may have had, like many others, a personal origin. It is more than probable that it was sent to some friend travelling in Europe, a dainty reminder of letter writing delinquencies.)

  XX. SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

  FROM all the jails the boys and girls

  Ecstatically leap, --

  Beloved, only afternoon

  That prison doesn't keep.

  They storm the earth and stun the air,

  A mob of solid bliss.

  Alas! that frowns could lie in wait

  For such a foe as this!

  XXI.

  FEW get enough, -- enough is one;

  To that ethereal throng

  Have not each one of us the right

  To stealthily belong?

  XXII.

  UPON the gallows hung a wretch,

  Too sullied for the hell

  To which the law entitled him.

  As nature's curtain fell

  The one who bore him tottered in,

  For this was woman's son.

  ''T was all I had,' she stricken gasped;

  Oh, what a livid boon!

  XXIII. THE LOST THOUGHT.

  I FELT a clearing in my mind

  As if my brain had split;

  I tried to match it, seam by seam,

  But could not make them fit.

  The thought behind I strove to join

  Unto the thought before,