Emily Dickinson

«Sexton! My Master's sleeping here. | Pray lead me to his bed! | I came to build the Bird's nest - | And sow the early seed - | That when the snow creeps slowly | From off his chamber door - | Daisies point the way there - | And the Troubadour.»

«My nosegays are for Captives - | Dim - long expectant eyes - | Fingers denied the plucking, | Patient till Paradise - | To such, if they sh'd whisper | Of morning and the moor - | They bear no other errand, | And I, no other prayer.»

«My friend must be a Bird - | Because it flies! | Mortal, my friend must be - | Because it dies! | Barbs has it, like a Bee! | Ah, curious friend! | Thou puzzlest me!»

«To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee, | One clover, and a bee, | And revery. | The revery alone will do, | If bees are few.»

«To lose thee - sweeter than to gain | All other hearts I knew. | 'Tis true the drought is destitute, | But then, I had the dew! | The Caspian has it's realms of sand, | It's other realm of sea. | Without the sterile perquisite, | No Caspian could be.»

«'Twas here my summer paused | What ripeness after then | To other scene or other soul | My sentence had begun. | To winter to remove | With winter to abide | Go manacle your icicle | Against your Tropic Bride.»

«Where every Bird is bold to go | And Bees abashless play | The Foreigner before he knocks | Must thrust the Tears away.»

«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. | "'Twere all I had", she stricken gasped - | Oh, what a livid boon.»

«Which misses most - | The hand that tends | Or heart so gently borne, | 'Tis twice as heavy as it was | Because the hand is gone? | Which blesses most | The lip that can, | Or that that went to sleep | With "if I could" endeavoring | Without the strength to shape?»

«A train went through a burial gate, | A bird broke forth and sang, | And trilled, and quivered, and shook his throat | Till all the churchyard rang; | And then adjusted his little notes, | And bowed and sang again. | Doubtless, he thought it meet of him | To say good-by to men.»

«Were nature mortal lady | Who had so little time | To pack her trunk and order | The great exchange of clime - | How rapid, how momentous - | What exigencies were - | But nature will be ready | And have an hour to spare. | | To make some trifle fairer | That was too fair before - | Enchanting by remaining, | And by departure more.»

«Fame is a bee. | It has a song - | It has a sting - | Ah, too, it has a wing.»

«Lad of Athens, faithful be | To thyself, | And Mystery - | All the rest is Perjury.»

«Sweet hours have perished here, | This is a mighty room - | Within it's precincts hopes have played | Now shadows in the tomb.»

«Those final Creatures, - who they are - | That, faithful to the close, | Administer her ecstasy, | But just the Summer knows.»

«The longest day that God appoints | Will finish with the sun. | Anguish can travel to it's stake, | And then it must return.»

«"They have not chosen me" - he said - | "But I have chosen them"! | Brave - Broken hearted statement - | Uttered in Bethleem! | I could not have told it, | But since Jesus dared, | Sovreign, know a Daisy | Thy dishonor shared!»

«Her breast is fit for pearls, | But I was not a "Diver". | Her brow is fit for thrones - | But I had not a crest. | Her heart is fit for home - | I - a sparrow - build there | Sweet of twigs and twine | My perennial nest.»

«South winds jostle them - | Bumblebees come - | Hover - hesitate - | Drink, and are gone - | Butterflies pause | On their passage Cashmere - | I - softly plucking, | Present them here!»

«This docile one inter | While we who dare to live | Arraign the sunny brevity | That sparkles to the Grave. | On her departing span | No wilderness remain | As dauntless in the House of Death | As if it were her own -.»