Emily Dickinson

«Could live - did live - | Could die - did die - | Could smile upon the whole | Through faith in one he met not - | To introduce his soul - | Could go from scene familiar | To an untraversed spot - | Could contemplate the journey | With unpuzzled heart - | | Such trust had one among us - | Among us not today - | We who saw the launching | Never sailed the Bay.»

«There's something quieter than sleep | Within this inner room! | It wears a sprig upon it's breast - | And will not tell it's name. | Some touch it, and some kiss it - | Some chafe it's idle hand - | It has a simple gravity | I do not understand! | | I would not weep if I were they - | How rude in one to sob! | Might scare the quiet fairy | Back to her native wood! | | While simple-hearted neighbors | Chat of the "Early dead" - | We - prone to periphrasis, | Remark that Birds have fled!»

«If recollecting were forgetting, | Then I remember not, | And if forgetting, recollecting, | How near I had forgot, | And if to miss, were merry, | And to mourn, were gay, | How very blithe the fingers | That gathered this, today!»

«Garlands for Queens, may be - | Laurels - for rare degree | Of soul or sword - | Ah - but remembering me - | Ah - but remembering thee - | Nature in chivalry - | Nature in charity - | Nature in equity - | This Rose ordained!»

«I counted till they danced so | Their slippers leaped the town - | And then I took a pencil | To note the rebels down - | And then they grew so jolly | I did resign the prig - | And ten of my once stately toes | Are marshalled for a jig!»

«If those I loved were lost | The Crier's voice w'd tell me - | If those I loved were found | The bells of Ghent w'd ring - | Did those I loved repose | The Daisy would impel me. | Philip - when bewildered | Bore his riddle in!»

«So has a Daisy vanished | From the fields today - | So tiptoed many a slipper | To Paradise away - | Oozed so, in crimson bubbles | Day's departing tide - | Blooming - tripping - flowing - | Are ye then with God»

«Morns like these - we parted - | Noons like these - she rose - | Fluttering first - then firmer | To her fair repose. | Never did she lisp it - | It was not for me - | She - was mute from transport - | I - from agony - | | Till - the evening nearing | One the curtains drew - | Quick! A sharper rustling! | And this linnet flew»

«By such and such an offering | To Mr So and So - | The web of live woven - | So martyrs albums show.»

«Before the ice is in the pools - | Before the skaters go, | Or any cheek at nightfall | Is tarnished by the snow - | Before the fields have finished - | Before the Christmas tree, | Wonder upon wonder | Will arrive to me! | | What we touch the hems of | On a summer's day - | What is only walking | Just a bridge away - | | That which sings so - speaks so - | When there's no one here - | Will the frock I wept in | Answer me to wear?»

«It did not surprise me - | So I said - or thought - | She will stir her pinions | And the nest forgot, | Traverse broader forests - | Build in gayer boughs, | Breathe in Ear more modern | God's old fashioned vows - | | This was but a Birdling - | What and if it be | One within my bosom | Had departed me? | | This was but a story - | What and if indeed | There were just such coffin | In the heart - instead.»

«When I count the seeds | That are sown beneath - | To bloom so, bye and bye - | When I con the people | Lain so low - | To be received as high - | | When I believe the garden | Mortal shall not see - | Pick by faith it's blossom | And avoid it's Bee, | I can spare this summer - unreluctantly.»

«It's all I have to bring today - | This, and my heart beside - | This, and my heart, and all the fields - | And all the meadows wide - | Be sure you count - sh'd I forget | Some one the sum could tell - | This, and my heart, and all the Bees | Which in the Clover dwell.»

«Adrift! A little boat adrift! | And night is coming down! | Will no one guide a little boat | Unto the nearest town? | So sailors say - on yesterday - | Just as the dusk was brown | One little boat gave up it's strife | And gurgled down and down. | | So angels say - on yesterday - | Just as the dawn was red | One little boat - o'erspent with gales - | Retrimmed it's masts - redecked it's sails - | And shot - exultant on!»

«Baffled for just a day or two - | Embarrassed - not afraid - | Encounter in my garden | An unexpected Maid! | She beckons, and the Woods start - | She nods, and all begin - | Surely, such a country | I was never in»

«A sepal - petal - and a thorn | Upon a common summer's morn - | A flask of Dew - A Bee or two - | A Breeze - a caper in the trees - | And I'm a Rose!»

«Distrustful of the Gentian - | And just to turn away, | The fluttering of her fringes | Chid my perfidy - | Weary for my ?? | I will singing go - | I shall not feel the sleet - then - | I shall not fear the snow. | Flees so the phantom meadow | Before the breathless Bee - | So bubble brooks in deserts | On ears that dying lie - | Burn so the evening spires | To eyes that Closing go - | Hangs so distant Heaven - | To a hand below»

«We lose - because we win - | Gamblers - recollecting which - | Toss their dice again.»

«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!»

«There is a word | Which bears a sword | Can pierce an armed man - | It hurls it's barbed syllables | And is mute again - | But where it fell | The saved will tell | On patriotic day, | Some epauletted Brother | Gave his breath away. | Wherever runs the breathless sun - | Wherever roams the day, | There is it's noiseless onset - | There is it's victory! | Behold the keenest marksman! | The most accomplished shot! | Time's sublimest target | Is a soul "forgot"!»