Emily Dickinson

Because I could not stop for Death – He kindly stopped for me – The Carriage held but just Ourselves – And Immortality. We slowly drove – He knew no haste And I had put away My labor and my leisure too, For His Civility – We passed the School, where Children strove At Recess – in the Ring – We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain – We passed the Setting Sun – Or rather – He passed Us – The Dews drew quivering and Chill – For only Gossamer, my Gown – My Tippet – only Tulle – We paused before a House that seemed A Swelling of the Ground – The Roof was scarcely visible – The Cornice – in the Ground – Since then – 'tis Centuries – and yet Feels shorter than the Day I first surmised the Horses Heads Were toward Eternity –

I heard a Fly buzz – when I died – The Stillness in the Room Was like the Stillness in the Air – Between the Heaves of Storm – The Eyes around – had wrung them dry – And Breaths were gathering firm For that last Onset – when the King Be witnessed – in the Room – I willed my Keepsakes – Signed away What portion of me be Assignable – and then it was There interposed a Fly – With Blue – uncertain stumbling Buzz – Between the light – and me – And then the Windows failed – and then I could not see to see –

Safe in their Alabaster Chambers – Untouched by Morning – and untouched by Noon – Sleep the meek members of the Resurrection – Rafter of Satin – and Roof of Stone – Grand go the Years, in the Crescent – above them – Worlds scoop their Arcs – and Firmaments – row – Diadems – drop – and Doges – surrender – Soundless as Dots, On a Disc of Snow –

I'm Nobody! Who are you? Are you – Nobody – too? Then there's a pair of us! Dont tell! they'd advertise – you know! How dreary – to be – Somebody! How public – like a Frog – To tell one's name – the livelong June – To an admiring Bog!

My Life had stood – a Loaded Gun – In Corners – till a Day The Owner passed – identified – And carried Me away – And now We roam in Sovereign Woods – And now We hunt the Doe – And every time I speak for Him The Mountains straight reply – And do I smile, such cordial light Opon the Valley glow – It is as a Vesuvian face Had let it's pleasure through – And when at Night – Our good Day done – I guard My Master's Head – 'Tis better than the Eider-Duck's Deep Pillow – to have shared – To foe of His – I'm deadly foe – None stir the second time – On whom I lay a Yellow Eye – Or an emphatic Thumb – Though I than He – may longer live He longer must – than I – For I have but the power to kill, Without – the power to die –

The Soul selects her own Society – Then – shuts the Door – To her divine Majority – Present no more – Unmoved – she notes the Chariots – pausing – At her low Gate – Unmoved – an Emperor be kneeling Upon her Mat – I've known her – from an ample nation – Choose One – Then – close the Valves of her attention – Like Stone –

This is my letter to the World That never wrote to Me – The simple News that Nature told – With tender Majesty Her Message is committed To Hands I cannot see – For love of Her – Sweet – Countrymen – Judge tenderly – of Me

"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.

Success – is counted sweetest By those who ne'er succeed – To comprehend a Nectar Requires sorest need – Not one of all the Purple Host Who took the Flag – today Can tell the Definition so clear, of Victory – As He – defeated – dying – On whose forbidden Ear The distant strains of triumph Burst – agonized – and Clear!

A narrow Fellow in the Grass Occasionally rides – You may have met him? did you not His notice instant 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 – But when a Boy and Barefoot I more than once at Noon 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.

A Bird came down the Walk – He did not know I saw – He bit an Angleworm in halves And ate the fellow, raw, And then he drank a Dew From a convenient Grass – And then hopped sidewise to the Wall To let a Beetle pass – He glanced with rapid eyes That hurried all around – They looked like frightened Beads, I thought – He stirred his Velvet Head – Like One in danger, Cautious, I offered him a Crumb And he unrolled his feathers And rowed him softer home – Than Oars divide the Ocean, Too silver for a seam, Or Butterflies, off Banks of Noon Leap, plashless as they swim.

Tell all the truth but tell it slant – Success in Circuit lies Too bright for our infirm delight The truth's superb surprise As Lightning to the Children eased With explanation kind The truth must dazzle gradually Or every man be blind –

The Brain – is wider than the Sky – For – put them side by side – The One the Other will contain With ease – and You – beside – The Brain is deeper than the Sea – For – hold them – Blue to Blue – The One the Other will absorb – As Sponges – Buckets – do – The Brain is just the weight of God – For – Heft them – Pound for Pound – And they will differ – if they do – As Syllable from Sound –

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 the Human soul –

There's a certain Slant of light, Winter Afternoons – That oppresses, like the Heft Of Cathedral Tunes – Heavenly Hurt, it gives us – We can find no scar, But internal difference Where the Meanings, are – None may teach it – Any – 'Tis the Seal Despair – An imperial affliction Sent us of the Air – When it comes, the Landscape listens – Shadows – hold their breath – When it goes, 'tis like the Distance On the look of Death –

I felt a Funeral, in my Brain, And Mourners to and fro Kept treading – treading – till it seemed That Sense was breaking through – And when they all were seated, A Service, like a Drum – Kept beating – beating – till I thought My Mind was going numb – And then I heard them lift a Box And creak across my Soul With those same Boots of Lead, again, Then Space – began to toll, As all the Heavens were a Bell, And Being, but an Ear, And I, and Silence, some strange Race Wrecked, solitary, here – And then a Plank in Reason, broke, And I dropped down, and down – And hit a World, at every plunge, And Finished knowing – then –

Wild nights – Wild nights! Were I with thee Wild nights should be Our luxury! Futile – the winds – To a Heart in port – Done with the Compass – Done with the Chart –! Rowing in Eden – Ah! the Sea! Might I but moor – Tonight – In thee!