Poems by Emily Dickinson, Series One

XX

 
I taste a liquor never brewed,
From tankards scooped in pearl;
Not all the vats upon the Rhine
Yield such an alcohol!
 
 
Inebriate of air am I,
And debauchee of dew,
Reeling, through endless summer days,
From inns of molten blue.
 
 
When landlords turn the drunken bee
Out of the foxglove's door,
When butterflies renounce their drams,
I shall but drink the more!
 
 
Till seraphs swing their snowy hats,
And saints to windows run,
To see the little tippler
Leaning against the sun!
 

XXI

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!
 

XXII

 
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.
 

XXIII

UNRETURNING

 
'T was such a little, little boat
That toddled down the bay!
'T was such a gallant, gallant sea
That beckoned it away!
 
 
'T was such a greedy, greedy wave
That licked it from the coast;
Nor ever guessed the stately sails
My little craft was lost!
 

XXIV

 
Whether my bark went down at sea,
Whether she met with gales,
Whether to isles enchanted
She bent her docile sails;
 
 
By what mystic mooring
She is held to-day, —
This is the errand of the eye
Out upon the bay.
 

XXV

 
Belshazzar had a letter, —
He never had but one;
Belshazzar's correspondent
Concluded and begun
In that immortal copy
The conscience of us all
Can read without its glasses
On revelation's wall.
 

XXVI

 
The brain within its groove
Runs evenly and true;
But let a splinter swerve,
'T were easier for you
To put the water back
When floods have slit the hills,
And scooped a turnpike for themselves,
And blotted out the mills!
 

II.
LOVE

I

MINE

 
Mine by the right of the white election!
Mine by the royal seal!
Mine by the sign in 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 steal!
 

II

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.
 

III

 
Alter? When the hills do.
Falter? When the sun
Question if his glory
Be the perfect one.
 
 
Surfeit? When the daffodil
Doth of the dew:
Even as herself, O friend!
I will of you!
 

IV

SUSPENSE

 
Elysium is as far as to
The very nearest room,
If in that room a friend await
Felicity or doom.
 
 
What fortitude the soul contains,
That it can so endure
The accent of a coming foot,
The opening of a door!
 

V

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, forever,
What more the woman can, —
Say quick, that I may dower thee
With last delight I own!
 
 
It cannot be my spirit,
For that was thine before;
I ceded 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!
 

VI

 
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 in 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 Diemen's 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 time's uncertain wing,
It goads me, like the goblin bee,
That will not state its sting.
 

VII

WITH A FLOWER

 
I hide myself within my flower,
That wearing on your breast,
You, unsuspecting, wear me too —
And angels know the rest.
 
 
I hide myself within my flower,
That, fading from your vase,
You, unsuspecting, feel for me
Almost a loneliness.
 

VIII

PROOF

 
That I did always love,
I bring thee proof:
That till I loved
I did not love enough.
 
 
That I shall love alway,
I offer thee
That love is life,
And life hath immortality.
 
 
This, dost thou doubt, sweet?
Then have I
Nothing to show
But Calvary.
 

IX

 
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 draught of life
Is daily drunken there.
 
 
Then look out for the little brook in March,
When the rivers overflow,
And the snows come hurrying from the hills,
And the bridges often go.
 
 
And later, in August it may be,
When the meadows parching lie,
Beware, lest this little brook of life
Some burning noon go dry!
 

X

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 firmaments 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!
 

XI

THE OUTLET

 
My river runs to thee:
Blue sea, wilt welcome me?
 
 
My river waits reply.
Oh sea, look graciously!
 
 
I'll fetch thee brooks
From spotted nooks, —
 
 
Say, sea,
Take me!
 

XII

IN VAIN

 
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 Sevres pleases,
Old ones 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, than he
Shone 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 hell to me.
 
 
So we must keep apart,
You there, I here,
With just the door ajar
That oceans are,
And prayer,
And that pale sustenance,
Despair!