Poetry, Lyrics, and Quotes

Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)
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187
How many times these low feet staggered--
Only the soldered mouth can tell--
Try--can you stir the awful rivet--
Try--can you lift the hasps of steel!
 
Stroke the cool forehead--hot so often--
Lift--if you care--the listless hair--
Handle the adamantine fingers
Never a thimble--more--shall wear--
 
Buzz the dull flies--on the chamber window--
Brave--shines the sun through the freckled pane--
Fearless--the cobweb swings from the ceiling--
Indolent Housewife--in Daisies--lain!
 
 
249
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!
 
 
254
"Hope" is the thing with feathers--
That perches in the soul--
And sings the tune without 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.
 
 
536
The Heart asks Pleasure--first--
And then--Excuse from Pain--
And then--those little Anodynes
That deaden suffering--
 
And then--to go to sleep--
And then-if it should be
The will of its Inquisitor
The privilege to die--
 
 
632
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--
 
 
712
Because I could not stop for Death--
He kindly stoped for me--
The Carriage held but just Ourselves--
And Immortality.
 
We slowly drove--He knew no haste
And I had put away
My laor 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--
 
 
1129
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 explaination kind
The Tuth must dazzle gradually
Or every mand be blind--