 Poems. Series 1 by Emily Dickinson Preface. The verses of Emily Dickinson belong emphatically to what Emerson Longson's called the poetry of the portfolio, something produced absolutely without the thought of publication and solely by way of expression of the writer's own mind. Such verse must inevitably forfeit whatever advantage lies in the discipline of public criticism in the enforced conformity to accepted ways. On the other hand, it may often gain something through the habit of freedom and the unconventional utterance of daring thoughts. In the case of the present author, there was absolutely no choice in the matter. She must write thus, or not at all. A recluse by temperament and habit, literally spending years without setting her foot beyond the doorstep, and many more years during which her walks were strictly limited to her father's grounds, she habitually concealed her mind, like her person, from all but a very few friends. And it was with great difficulty that she was persuaded to print during her lifetime three or four poems, yet she wrote verses in great abundance. And though rockerously indifferent to all conventional rules, had yet a rigorous literary standard of her own, and often altered a word many times to suit an ear which had its own tenacious vestidiousness. Ms. Dickinson was born in Amherst, Massachusetts, December 10, 1830, and died there May 15, 1886. Her father, the Honorable Edward Dickinson, was the leading lawyer of Amherst, and was treasurer of the well-known college there situated. It was his custom once the year to hold a large reception at his house, intended by all the families connected with the institution, and by the leading people of the town. On these occasions, his daughter Emily emerged from her wanted retirement, and did her part as gracious hostess. Nor would anyone have known from her manner, I have been told, that this was not a daily occurrence. The annual occasion once passed, she withdrew again into her seclusion, and except for very few friends, was as invisible to the world as if she dwelt in a nunnery. For myself, although, I had corresponded with her for many years. I saw her but twice, face to face, and brought away the impression of something as unique and remote as Undyne, or Mignon, or Thecla. This selection from her poems is published to meet the desire of personal friends, and especially of her surviving sister. It is believed that the thoughtful reader will find in these pages a quality more suggestive of the poetry of William Blake than of anything to be elsewhere found. Flashes of wholly original and profound insight into nature and life, words and phrases exhibiting an extraordinary vividness of description and imaginative power, yet often set in a seemingly whimsical or even rugged frame. They are here published as they were written, with very few and superficial changes. Although it is fair to say that the titles have been assigned almost invariably by the editors. In many cases, these verses will seem to the reader like poetry torn up by the roots, with rain and dew and earth still clinging to them, giving a freshness and fragrance not otherwise to be conveyed. In other cases, as in the few poems of shipwreck or of mental conflict, we can only wonder at the gift of vivid imagination by which this recluse woman can delineate by a few touches the very crisis of physical and mental struggle, and sometimes again we catch glimpses of a lyric strain, sustained perhaps but for a line or two at a time, making the reader regret its sudden cessation. The main quality of these poems is that of extraordinary grasp and insight, uttered with an uneven vigor, sometimes exasperating, seemingly wayward but really unsought and inevitable. After all, when a thought takes one's breath away, a lesson on grammar seems no impertinence. As Ruskin wrote in his earlier and better days, no weight nor mass nor beauty of execution can outweigh one grain or fragment of thought. Thomas Wentworth Higginson End of The Preface to Poems, Series 1, by Emily Dickinson Poems, Series 1, by Emily Dickinson Part 1, Life This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Part 1, Life 1, Success Success is counted sweetest by those who never succeed. To comprehend a nectar requires sorus' need. Not one of all the purple hosts 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 break agonized and clear. Our share of night to bear, our share of morning, our blank and bliss to fill, our blank and scorning, hear a star and there a star, some lose their way, hear a mist and there a mist, afterwards, day. 3, Rouge et Noir Soul wilt thou toss again? By just such a hazard hundreds have lost indeed, but tens have won and all. All's breathless ballad lingers to record the imps in eager caucus raffle for my soul. 4, Rouge Gagni To so much joy, to so much joy if I should fail what poverty, and yet as poor as I have ventured all upon a throw, have gained, yes, hesitated so this side the victory. Life is but life, and death but death, bliss is but bliss, and breath but breath, and if indeed I fail, at least to know the worst is sweet. Defeat means nothing but defeat, no drearier can prevail. And if I gain, oh, gone at sea, oh, bells that in the steeples be, at first repeat it slow, for heaven is a different thing, conjectured and waked sudden in. And might or well me so. 5, Glee, the great storm is over. Four have recovered the land, forty gone down together into the boiling sand. Ring for the scant salvation, toll for the bony souls, neighbor and friend and bridegroom spinning upon the shoals. How they will tell the shipwreck when winter shakes the door till the children ask, but the forty, did they come back no more? Then a silence effuses the story, and a softness the teller's eye, and the children know further question and only the waves reply. 6, if I can stop one heart from breaking, I shall not live in vain. If I can ease one life from aching, or cool one pain, or help one fainting robin unto his nest again, I shall not live in vain. 7, almost. Within my reach I could have touched, I might have chanced that way, soft sauntered through the village, sauntered a soft way. So unsuspecting violets within the fields lie low, too late for striving fingers that passed an hour ago. 8, a wounded deer leaps highest, I've heard the hunter tell. Tis but the ecstasy of death, and then the break is still. The smitten rock that gushes, the trampled steel that springs, a cheek is always redder, just where the hectic stings. Merth is the male of anguish, in which it cautions arm lest anybody spy the blood. And your hurt exclaim, 9, the heart asks pleasure first, and then excuse from pain, and then those little anodynes that are dead in suffering, and then to go to sleep, and then, if it should be, the will of its inquisitor, the liberty to die. 10, in a library. A precious, mouldering place, Tis, to meet an antique book, in just the dress his century wore, a privilege, I think. His venerable hand to take, and warming in our own, a passage back or two to make. To times when he was young. His quaint opinions to inspect, his knowledge to unfold, and what concerns our mutual mind, the literature of old. What interested scholars most? What competitions ran when Plato was a certainty, and Sophocles a man? When Sefo was a living girl, and Beatrice wore the gown that Dante defied, facts centuries before. He traverses familiar, as one should come to town, and tell you all your dreams were true. He lived where dreams were sown. His presence is enchantment. You beg him not to go. Old volumes shake their vellum heads, and tantalize, just so. 11, much madness is divinous sense, to a discerning eye. Much sense is the starkest madness. Tis the majority in this as all prevails. Ascent, and you are sane. Dimmer, you're straightway dangerous, and handled with a chain. 12, I asked, No other thing, no other was denied, I offered being for it. The mighty merchant smiled. Brazil, he twirled the button without a glance my way, but madam, is there nothing else that we can show today? 13, Exclusion The soul selects her own society, then shuts the door, on her divine majority, obtrude no more, unmoved, she notes the chariots pausing at her low gate, unmoved, an emperor is kneeling upon her mat. I have known her from an ample nation, choose one, then close the valves of her attention like stone. 14, The Secret Some things that fly there be, birds, hours, the bumblebee, of those noelogy, some things that stay there be, grief, hills, eternity, nor this behooveeth me. There are that resting rise, can I expound the skies, how still the riddle lies. 15, The Lonely House I know some lonely houses off the road, a robert-like look of, wooden bard, and windows hanging low, inviting two, a portico, where two would creep, one hand the tools, the other peep, to make sure all asleep, old-fashioned eyes not easy to surprise, how orderly the kitchen'd look by night, with just a clock. But they could gag the tick, and mice won't bark, and so the walls don't tell, none will. 16, A pair of spectacles ajar, just stir, and almanacs aware, was it the mat-winked, or nervous star? The moon slides down the stair, to see who's there. 17, There's plunder, where, tankard or spoon, earring or stone, a watch, some ancient brooch, to match the grandma, stayed sleeping there. 18, Day rattles too, stealth-slow, the sun has got as far as the third sycamore, screams shanticleer, who's there, and echoes trains away, sneer, where? While the old couple, just a stir, fancied the sunrise, left the door ajar. 16, To fight aloud is very brave, but gallanter I know, who charge within the bosom the cavalry of woe, who win, and nations do not see, who fall, and none observe, whose dying eyes no country regards with patriot love. We trust in plumed procession, for such the angels go, rank after rank, with even feet and uniforms of snow. 17, Dawn, When night is almost done, and sunrise grows so near, that we can touch the spaces. It's time to smooth the hair, and get the dimples ready, and wonder we could care for that old faded midnight, that frighten but an hour. 18, The Book of Martyrs, Read, sweet, how others drove till we are stouter, what they renounced till we are less afraid, how many times they bore the faithful witness till we are helped, as if a kingdom cared. 19, Read then a faith that shone above the faggot, clear strains of him the river could not drown, brave names of men and celestial women passed out of record into renown. 19, The Mystery of Pain, Pain has an element of blank, it cannot recollect when it began, or if there were a day when it was not. It has no future but itself, its infinite realms contain its past, enlightened to perceive new periods of pain. 20, I taste a liquor never brewed, from tankard scooped in pearl, not all the vats upon the rye yield such an alcohol. In abbreviated of air am I, in debauchee of dew, reeling through endless summer days from inns of molten blue. When landlords turned the drunken bee out of the foxglove's door, when butterflies renounced their drams, I shall but drink the more, till seraphs swing their snowy hats and saints to windows run, I see the little tripler leaning against the sun. 21, A Book, He ate and drank the precious words, his spirit grew robust, he knew no more that he was poor, nor that his frame was dust, he danced along the dingy days, and this bequest of wings was but a book. What liberty a loosened spirit brings, 22, I had no time to hate, because the grave would hinder me, and life was not so ample I could finish enmity, nor had I time to love, but since some industry must be, the little toil of love I thought was large enough for me. 23, Unreturning, toward such a little boat that toddled down the bay, toward such a gallant gallant sea that beckoned it away, toward such a greedy, greedy wave that licked it from the coast, nor ever guessed the stately sails my little craft was lost. 24, Whether my bark went down at sea, whether she met with gales, whether to aisles enchanted she bent her docile sails, by what mystic mooring she is held today. This is the errand of the eye out upon the bay. 25, Belchazar had a letter, he never had but one, Belchazar's correspondent concluded and begun, in that immortal copy the conscience of us all can read without its glasses on Revelation's Wall. 26, The brain within its groove runs evenly and true, but let a splinter swerve, towards easier for you, to put the water back when floods have slipped the hills and scooped a turnpike for themselves and blotted out the mills. End of Part 1 of Poems, Series 1 by Emily Dickinson. Part 2, Love. This is the LibriVox recording, all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information on a volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Part 2, Love 1, Mine. Mine by the right of the white election, mine by the royal seal, mine by the signing the scarlet prison bars cannot conceal, mine here in vision and in veto, mine by the grave's repeal, titled, Confirmed Delirious Charter, Mine While the Ages Steel. 2, Bequest. You left me, sweet, two legacies, a legacy of love, a heavenly father would content, had he the offer of? You left me boundaries of pain, capacious as the sea, between eternity and time, your consciousness and me. 3, Alter, when the hills do, Falter, when the sun, question if his glory be the perfect one. Surfeit, when the daft dildock the dew, even asks herself, Oh friend, I will of you. 4, Suspense. Elzium is as far as to the very nearest room, if in that room a friend await felicity or doom. What fortitude the soul contains, there it can so endure the accent of a coming foot, the opening of a door. 5, Surrender. Doubt me, my dim companion, why, God would be content with but a fraction of the love poured thee without a stint, the whole of me for ever. What more the woman can, say quick, that I may dour thee with last delight I own. 6, It cannot be my spirit, for that was thine before, I seated all of dust I knew. What opulence the more had I, a humble maiden, whose farthest of degree was that she might some distant heaven dwell timidly with thee. 6, If you were coming in the fall, I'd brush the summer by, with half a smile and half a spurn, as housewives do a fly. If I could see you in a year, I'd wind the months into balls and put them each in separate drawers until their time befalls. If only centuries delayed, I'd count them on my hand, subtracting till my fingers dropped into van diemins at land. If certain when this life was out, that yours and mine should be, I'd toss it yonder like a rind and taste eternity. But now, all ignorant of the length of times on certain wing, it goads me, like the goblin bee, that will not state its sting. 7, With a Flower. I hide myself within a flower, that wearing on your breast, you unsuspecting, wear you, and angels know the rest. I hide myself within my flower, that fading into your face, you unsuspecting, feel for me almost a loneliness. 8, Proof. That I did always love, I bring thee proof. That till I loved, I did not love enough. That I shall love will always. I offer thee that love is life, and life hath immortality. This dost thou doubt, sweet? Then have I nothing to show, but cavalry. 9, Have you got a brook in your little heart, where bashful flowers blow, and blushing birds go down to drink, and shadows tremble so? And nobody knows, so still it flows, that any brook is there. And yet your little draft of life is daily drunken there. Then look out for that little brook in March, when the rivers overflow, and the snows come hurling from the hills, and the bridges often go. And later, in August it may be, when the meadows parching lie, but where, lest this little brook of life, some burning noon, go dry. 10, Transplanted. As if some little arctic flower upon the polar hem, went wandering down the latitudes, until it puzzled, came to continents of summer, to fur amendments of sun, to strange bright crowds of flowers, and birds of foreign tongue. I say, as if this little flower to Eden wandered in. What then? Why nothing, only your inference therefrom. 11, The Outlet. My river runs to thee, blue sea, will welcome me? My river waits reply. Oh, see, look graciously. I'll fetch thee brooks from spotted nooks. Say, see, take me. 12, Invane. I cannot live with you. It would be life, and life is over there, behind the shelf. The sexton keeps the key to putting up our life, his porcelain like a cup, discarded of the housewife, quaint or broken. A newer sever's pleases, old one's crack. I could not die with you. For one must wait to shut the other's gaze down. You could not, and I, could I stand by and see you freeze without my right of frost, death's privilege? Nor could I rise with you, because your face would put out Jesus, that new grace, glow plain and foreign on my homesick eye, except that you, then he shun closer by. They'd judge us, how? For you served heaven, you know, or sought to. I could not. Because you saturated sight, and I had no more eyes for sordid excellence as paradise. And were you lost, I would be, though my name rang loudest on the heavenly fame. And were you saved, and I condemned to be where you were not, that self were held to me. So we must keep apart. You there, I hear, with just the door ajar, the oceans are in prayer, and that pale sustenance despair. Thirteen, renunciation. There came a day at summer's full entirely for me. I thought that such were for the saints, where revelations be. The sun, as common, winter broad, the flowers accustomed blue, as if no soul the solstice passed, that maketh all things new. The time were scarce profaned by speech. The symbol of a word was needless, as at sacrament. The wardrobe of our lord. Each was each the sealed church, permitted to commune this time, lest we too awkward show at supper of the lamb, the hours slid fast, as hours will, clutched tight by greedy hands, so faces on two decks look back, bound to opposing lands. And so, when all the time had failed without external sound, each bound the other's crucifix, we gave no other bond, sufficient troth that we shall rise, deposed at length the grave, to that new marriage justified, through calvaries of love. Fourteen, love's baptism. I'm seated. I've stopped being theirs, the name they dropped upon my face with water in the country church is finished using now. And they can put it with my dolls, my childhood in the string of spools I've finished threading to. Baptized before without the choice, but this time consciously of grace, unto supremus name, called to my fold the crescent dropped, existences whole arc filled up with one small diadem. My second rank too small the first, crowned, crowning on my father's breast, a half unconscious queen, but this time, adequate, erect, with all to choose or to rejoice, and I choose just a throne. Fifteen, resurrection. It was a long parting, but the time for interview had come. Before the judgment seat of God, the last and second time, these fleshless lovers met, a heaven in gaze, a heaven of heavens the privilege of one another's eyes. No lifetime said on them, apparel as the new unborn, except they had beheld born everlasting now. Was bridal error like this? A paradise, the host, and cherubim and seraphim, the most familiar guest. Sixteen, apocalypse. I'm wife, I finished that, that other state. I'm czar, I'm woman now, it's safer so. How odd the girl's life looks behind that soft eclipse. I think the earth seems so to those in heaven now. This being comfort then, the other kind was pain, but why compare? I'm wife, stop there. Seventeen, the wife. She rose to his requirement, drop the playthings of her life to take the honorable work of woman and of wife. If odd she missed in her new day of amplitude or awe, or first perspective of the gold, in using more way. It lay unmentioned as a sea, develops pearl and weed, but only to himself is known the fathoms they abide. Eighteen, apotheosis. Come slowly, Eden. Lips unused to the bashful, siftly jasmines as the fainting bee, reaching late his flower round her chamber hums, counts his nectars, enters, and is lost in balms. End of part two, love of poems, series one by Emily Dickinson. Poems, series one by Emily Dickinson. Part three, nature. This is a LibriVox recording, all LibriVox recordings on the public domain. For more information on a volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Part three, nature. One. New feet within my garden go, new fingers stir the sod, a troubadour upon the elm betrays the solitude, new children play upon the green, new weary sleep below, and still the pensive spring returns, and still the punctual snow. Two. Mayflower. Pink, small, and punctual, aromatic, low, covert in April, candid in May, dear to the moss known by the knoll, next to the robin in every human soul, bold little beauty, bedecked with the nature for swerve's antiquity. Three. Why? The murmur of a bee, a witchcraft yieldeth me. If any ask me why, to her easier to die than tell. The red upon the hill taketh away my will, if anybody's smear, take care, for God is here. That's all. The breaking of the day addeth to my degree. If any ask me how, artists drew me so, must tell. But I could never sell. If you would like to borrow until the daffodil unties her yellow bonnet beneath the village door, until the bees from the clover rose their hawk and sherry draw, why, I will lend until just then, but not an hour or more. Five. The pedigree of honey does not concern the bee. A clover, any time, to him, is aristocracy. Six. A service of song. Some keep the Sabbath going to church. I keep it staying at home, with a boba-link for a chorister and an orchid for a dome. Some keep the Sabbath in surplus. I just wear my wings, and instead of tolling the bell for church, our little sexton sings. God preaches, a noted clergyman, and the sermon is never long. So instead of getting to heaven at last, I'm going all along. Seven. The bee is not afraid of me. I know the butterfly. The pretty people in the woods receive me cordially. The brooks laugh louder when I come. The breezes matter play. Wherefore, mine eyes, thy silver mists, wherefore, oh summer's day. Eight. Summer's armies. Some rainbow coming from the fair, some vision of the world cashmere. I confidently see, or else a peacock's purple train, feather by feather on the plane, furt as itself away. The dreamy butterflies bestir, lethargic pools resume the whir of last year's sundered tune. From some old fortress on the sun, barren old bees march one by one in murmuring platoon. The robins stand as thick today as flakes of snow stood yesterday, on fence and roof and twig. The orcus finds her feather on for her old love, dawn the sun, revisiting the bog. Without commander, countless, still. The regiment of wood and hill, the bright detachment stand. Behold! What multitudes are these? The children of whose turban seas, or what sorsacean land? Nine. The grass. The grass a little has to do. A sphere of simple green. With only butterflies to brood and bees to entertain. 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 do's all night like pearls, and make itself so fine a duchess were too common for such a noticing. And even when it dies, to passing odors so divine, as lowly spices gone to sleep, or amulets of pine, and then to dwell in sovereign barns, and dream the days away, the grass a little has to do, I wish I were the hay. Ten. A little road not made of man, enabled of the eye, accessible to the ill of bee, or cart of butterfly. If town it have, beyond itself, tis that I cannot say, I only sigh. No vehicle bears me along that way. Eleven. Summer shower. A drop fell on the apple tree, another on the roof, a half dozen kissed the eaves, and made the gables 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 joccused their sun, and sunshine threw his hat away, the orchids' spangles hung, the breezes brought dejected loots, and bathed them in the glee. The east put out a single flag, and signed the fed away. Twelve. Psalm of the day. A something in a summer's day, as slow her flambeau burn away, which solemnizes me. A something in a summer's noon, an azure debt, the worldless tune, a transcending ecstasy, and still within a summer's night, a something so transporting bright, I clap my hands to see, then veil my two inspecting face, less such a subtle, shimmering grace, flutter too far from me. The wizard fingers never rest, the purple brook within the breast, still chafes its narrow bed, still rears the Easter amber flag, guides still the sun along the crag, his caravan of red, like flowers that herd the tale of dews, but never deem the dripping prize awaiting their low brows. Orbeez, that thought the summer's name some rumour of delirium, no summer could for them, or Arctic creatures, dimly stirred by tropic hint, some traveled bird, importing to the wood, or wind's bright signal to the ear, making that homely and severe, contented, known before. The heavenly unexpected came to lives that thought their worshipping a too presumptuous psalm. Thirteen. A Sea of Sunset. This is the land the sunset washes, these are the banks of the Yellow Sea, where it rose or wither it rushes, these are the western mystery. Night after night her purple traffic strews the landing with opal bales, merchant men poise upon horizons, dip and vanish with fairy snails. Fourteen. Purple Clover. There is a flower that bees prefer in Butterfly's desire to gain the purple democrat the hummingbirds aspire, and whatsoever insect pass, a honey bears away, proportion to his several dearth and her capacity. Her face is rounder than the moon, and rudder than the gown of Orcus 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 herself for privilege of sod and sun, sweet litigants for life, and when the hills are full and never fashions blow, doth but retract a single spice 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 canceled by the frost. Fifteen. The bee. Like trains of cars on tracks of plush, I hear the level bee, as the forest goes, their velvet masonry withstands until a 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 onks, with chrysopraison laid. His labor is a chant, his idleness a tune. Oh, for a bee's experience of clover and of noon. Sixteen. 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. Seventeen. As children bid the guests good night, and then reluctant turn, my flowers raise their pretty lips, then put their nightgowns on. As children caper when they wake, marry that it is mourn, my flowers from a hundred cribs will peep, and prance again. Eighteen. Angels in the early morning may be seen the do's among, stooping, plucking, smiling, flying, to 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. Nineteen. So bashful when I spied her, so pretty, so ashamed, so hidden and leafless lest anybody find. So breathless till I passed her, so breathless when I turned and bore her, struggling, blushing, her simple haunts beyond. For whom I robbed the dingle, for whom I betrayed the dell, many will doubtless ask me, but I shall never tell. Twenty. Two worlds. It makes no difference abroad. The seasons fit the same. The mornings blossom into noons and split their pods aflame. Wild flowers kindle in the woods, the brooks brag all the day. No blackbird baits his jargonning for passing cavalry. Otto d'affay in judgment are nothing to the bee. His separation from his rose to him seems misery. Twenty-one. The Mountain. The Mountain sat upon the plane, in his eternal chair, his observations omnifold, his inquist everywhere. The seasons preyed around his knees, like children round a sire, grandfather of the days as he, of dawn, the ancestor. Twenty-two. A day. I'll tell you how the sun rose, a ribbon at a time, the steeples swam in empathist, the news like swirls ran, the hills untied their bonnets, the boba-links begun, then I said softly to myself, that must have been the sun. But how he set, I know not. There seemed a purple style, which little yellow boys and girls were climbing all the while, till when they reached the other side, a dominion gray put gently up the evening bars and led the flock away. Twenty-three. A butterfly's assumption gown in Chris's appraised apartment's hung this afternoon put on. How condescending to descend and be of buttercups the friend in a New England town. Twenty-four. The Wind. Of all the sounds dispatched around, 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 brush the sky, then quiver down with tufts of tune permitted gods and me. When winds go round and round in bands and throng upon the door and birds take places overhead to bear them orchestra, I crave him grace of summer bows. 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, they knit and passed in seamless company. Twenty-five. Death and life. Apparently with no surprise to any happy flower, the frost beheaded at its play in accidental power. The blonde assassin passes on, the sun proceeds unmoved to measure off another day for an approving god. Twenty-six. It was later when the summer went than when the cricket came, and yet we knew that gentle clock meant not but going home. It was sooner when the cricket went than when the winter came. Yet that pathetic pendulum keeps esoteric time. Twenty-seven. Indian summers. 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 sophistories of June, a blue and gold mistake. Oh, fraud that cannot cheat the bee. Almost the 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 sacred emblems to partake. Thy consequent bread to break taste thine immortal wine. Twenty-eight. Autumn. The mourns are meeker than they were. The nuts are getting brown. The berries' cheek is plumper. The rose is out of town. The maple wears a gayer scarf. The field is scarlet gown. Lest I should be old-fashioned, I'll put a trinket on. Twenty-nine. Procluded. The sky is low, the clouds are mean. A traveling flake of snow across the barn through a rut debates if it will go. A narrow wind complains all day how someone treated him. Nature, like us, is sometimes caught without her diet. Thirty. The hemlock. I think the hemlock likes to stand upon a marge 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 oar, 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 not. But children on the dawn beneath his tabernacles play. And I have her wrestlers run. Thirty-one. 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 you anything. Tis the seal, despair, an imperial affliction sent us of the air. When it comes, the landscape listens. They hold their breath when it goes. Tis like the distance on the look of death. End of Part Three. Nature. Of Poems. Series One. By Emily Dickinson. Poems. Series One. By Emily Dickinson. Part Four. Time and Eternity. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information on how to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Part Four. Time and Eternity. One. One dignity delays for all. One mitered afternoon. None can avoid this purple. None evade this crown. Coach it insures and footmen. Chamber and state enthrong. Bells also in the village as we ride grand along. What dignified attendance. What service when we pause. How do you know what service is when we pause. How loyally at parting their hundred hats they raise. How pomps surpassing ermine when simple you and I present our Mika scooching and claim the rank to die. Two. Too late. Delayed till she had ceased to know. Delayed till in its vest of snow. Her loving bosom lay. An hour behind the fleeting breath. Later by just an hour than death. Oh lagging yesterday. Could she have guessed that it would be. Could but a crier of the glee have climbed a distant hill. Had not the bliss so slow a pace. Who knows but this surrendered face were undefeated still. Oh if there may departing be any forgot by victory in her imperial round. Show them this meek unparalleled thing that could not stop to be a king. Doubtful if it be crowned. Three. Astrakastra. Departed to the judgment a mighty afternoon. Great clouds like ushers leaning creation looking on. The flesh surrendered, cancelled. The body list begun. Two worlds like audiences disperse and leave the soul alone. Four. 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. Light laughs the breeze in her castle of sunshine babbles the bee in the stolid ear. Pipe the sweet birds in ignorant cadence. Ah what sagacity perished here. Grand go the years and the crescent above them worlds scoop their arcs and firmens row diadems drop and dodges surrender soundless as dots on a disk of snow. Five. On this long storm the rainbow rose on this late morn the sun the clouds like listless elephants horizons straggled down. The birds rose smiling in their nests. The gales indeed were done alas how heedless were the eyes on whom the summer shone the quiet nonchalance of death no daybreak can buster the slow archangels syllables must awaken her. Six. From the chrysalis my cocoon titans colors tees I'm feeling for the air a dim capacity for wings degrades the dress I wear a power of butterfly must be the aptitude to fly meadows of majesty concedes and easy sweeps of sky. So I must baffle at the hint and cipher at the sign and make much blunder if at last I take the clue divine. Seven. Setting sail. Exultation is the going of an inland soul to sea houses past the headlands into deep eternity. Bread as we among the mountains can the sailor understand the divine intoxication of the first league out from land. Eight. Look back on time with kindly eyes he doubtless did his best how softly sinks his trembling sun in human nature's west. Nine. 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 at meat of him to say goodbye to men. Ten. I died for beauty but was scarce adjusted in the tomb when one who died for truth was lain in an adjoining room. He questioned softly why I failed for beauty I replied and I for truth the two were one we breathed and are he said and so as kinsmen met at night we talked between the rooms until the moss had reached our lips and covered up our names. Eleven. Troubled about many things how many times these low feet staggered only the soldierly mouth can tell try can you stir the awful rivet try can you lift the haps of steel stroke the cool forehead hot so often lift if you can the listless hair handle the adamantine fingers never a thimble moor shall wear buzz the dull flies on the chamber window brave shines the sun from the freckled pain fearless the cobweb swings from the ceiling indolent housewife's in daisy's lane. Twelve. Real. I like the look of agony because I know it's true men do not shame convulsion nor simulate a throw the eyes glaze once and that is death impossible to fain the beads upon the forehead by homely anguish strung thirteen the funeral that short potential stir the each can make but once that bustle so illustrious his almost consequence is the eclipsed of death oh thou unknown renown that not a beggar would accept had he the power to spurn fifteen I went to thank her but she slept her bed a funneled stone with nose gaze at the head and foot that travelers had thrown who went to thank her but she slept twist short to cross the sea to look upon her like alive but turning back twist slow fifteen I've seen a dying eye in search of something as it seemed then cloudier become and then obscure with fog and then be soldered down without disclosing what it be was blessed to have seen sixteen refuge the clouds their backs together laid the north begun to push the forest galloped till they fell the lightning skipped like mice the thunder crumbled like a stuff how good to be safe in tombs where nature's temper cannot reach nor vengeance ever comes seventeen I never saw more I never saw the sea yet no eye how the heather looks and what a wave must be I never spoke with God nor visited in heaven yet certain am I of the spot as if the chart were given eighteen playmates God permits industrious angels afternoons to play I met one forgot my schoolmates all for him straight away God calls home the angels promptly at the setting sun I missed mine how dreary marbles after playing crown nineteen to know just how he suffered would be dear to know if any human eyes were near he could entrust his wavering gaze until it settled firm on paradise to know if he was patient part content was dying as he thought or different was it a pleasant day to die and did the sunshine face his way what was his furthest mind of home or God or what the distance say at news that he had human nature on such a day and wishes had he any just his sigh accented had been legible to me and was he confident until ill fluttered or out in everlasting well and if he spoke what name was best what first what one broke off with at the drowsiest was he afraid or tranquil how conscious consciousness could grow to love that was and love to bless to be meet and the junction eternity twenty the last night that she lived it was a common night except the dying this to us made nature different we noticed smallest things things overlooked before by this great light upon our minds italicized as to her that others could exist while she must finish quite a jealousy for her rose so nearly infinite we waited until she passed it was a narrow time too jostled were our souls to speak at length the notice came she mentioned and forgot then lightly as a reed bent to the water shivered scarce and was dead and we we placed the hair and drew the head erect then an awful leisure was our faith to regulate twenty one the first lesson not in this world to see his face sounds long until i read the place where this is said to be be just the primer to a life unopened rare upon the shelf clasped yet to him and yet my primer suits me so i would not choose a book to know then that be sweeter wise might someone else so learn be and leave me just my abc himself could have the skies twenty two the bustle in a house the morning after death is soleness of industries enacted upon earth is sweeping up the heart and putting love away we shall not want to use again until eternity twenty three i reason earth is short and anguish absolute and many hurt but what of that i reason we could die the best fatality cannot excel decay but what of that i reason that in heaven somehow it will be even some new equation given but what of that twenty four afraid of whom am i afraid not death for who is he the porter of my father's lodge as much a bash of me of life poor odd i fear a thing that comprehendeth me in one or more existences at deities decree a resurrection is the east afraid to trust the steadiest forehead as soon impeach my crown twenty five dying the sun kept setting setting still no hue of afternoon upon the village i perceived from house to house towards noon the dusk kept dropping dropping still no dew upon the grass but only on my forehead stopped and wandering in my face my feet kept drowsing still my fingers were awake yet wise a little sound myself unto my seeming make how well i knew the light before i could not see it now tis dying i am doing but i'm not afraid to know twenty six two swimmers wrestled on the spar until the morning sun when one turned smiling to the land oh god the other one the stray ship's passing spider face upon the waters born with eyes in death still begging to raised and hands beseeching thrown twenty seven the chariot because i could not stop for death he kindly stopped for me the carriage held but just ourselves and immortality we slowly drove we knew no haste and i had put away my labour and my treasure too for his civility we passed the school where children play their lessons scarcely done we passed the fields of gazing grain we passed the setting sun we paused before a house that seemed a swelling of the ground the roof was scarcely visible the corny's but amount since then to centuries but each feel shorter than the day i first surmised the horse's heads were toward eternity twenty eight she went as quiet as the dew from a familiar flower not like the dew did she return at that accustomed hour she dropped as softly as a star from out my summer's eve less skillful than leviar it soared to believe twenty nine resurgent at last to be identified at last the lamps upon thy side the rest of life to see past midnight past the morning star past sunrise ah, what leagues there are between our feet and day thirty except to heaven she is not except for angels lone except to some wide wandering bee a flower superfluous blown except for winds provencal butterflies unnoticed as a single dew the on the acre lies the smallest housewife in the grass yet taker from the lawn and somebody has lost the face that made existence home thirty one death is a dialogue between the spirit and the dust dissolve, says death, the spirit sir i have another trust death doubts it argues from the ground the spirit turns away just laying off for evidence an overcoat of clay thirty two it was too late for man but early yet for god creation impotent to help but prayer remained our side how excellent the heaven when earth cannot be had how hospitable then the face of our old neighbor god thirty three when i was small a woman died today her only boy went up from the Potamac his face all victory to look at her how slowly the seasons must have turned till bullets clipped at an angle and he passed quickly round if pride shall be in paradise i never can decide or their imperial conduct no person testified but proud in apparition that woman and her boy passed back and forth before my brain as ever in the sky thirty four the daisy follows soft the sun and when his golden walk is done sits shyly at his feet he waking finds the flower near wherefore marauder art thou here because love is sweet we are the flower thou the sun forgive us if as days decline we nearer steal to thee enamored of the parting west the peace the flight the amethyst night's possibility thirty five emancipation no wrack can torture me my souls at liberty behind this mortal bone their knits a bolder one you cannot prick with saw he is therefore be bind one one will flee the eagle of his nest no easier divest and gain the sky than mayest thou except thyself may be thine enemy captivity is consciousness so is liberty thirty six lost i lost a world the other day has anybody found you'll know it by the row of stars around its forehead bound which man might not notice it yet to my frugal eye of more esteem than ducats oh find it sir for me thirty seven if i shouldn't be alive when the robins come give the one in red cravat a memorial crumb if i couldn't thank you being just asleep you will know i'm trying with my granite lip thirty eight by souls of sanity the shutting of the eye sleep is the station grand down which on either hand the hosts of witness stand mourn is supposed to be by people of degree the breaking of the day mourning has not occurred that shall a roar be east of eternity one with the banner gay one with the red array that is the break of day thirty nine i shall know why when time is over and i have ceased to wonder why Christ will explain each separate anguish in the fair schoolroom of the sky he will tell me what Peter promised and i, for wonder at his woe i shall forget the drop of anguish that scalds me now that scalds me now forty i never lost as much but twice and that was in the sod twice have i stood a beggar before the door of god angels twice descending reimbursed my store burglar, banker, father i am poor once more end of part four time and eternity of poems series one by emily dickinson end of poems series one by emily dickinson redphiliprevox.org by shirt to go