XXIX

ofhim:

THE rose did caper on her cheek,

Her bodice rose and fell,

Her pretty speech, like drunken men,

Did stagger pitiful.

Her fingers fumbled at her work,—

Her needle would not go;

What ailed so smart a little maid

It puzzled me to know,

Till opposite I spied a cheek

That bore another rose;

Just opposite, another speech

That like the drunkard goes;

A vest that, like the bodice, danced

To the immortal tune,—

Till those two troubled little clocks

Ticked softly into one.

Emily Dickinson

There is a word
Which bears a sword
can pierce an armed man.

It hurls its barbed syllables, —
At once is mute again.
But where it fell
The saved will tell
On patriotic day,
Some epauletted brother
Gave his breath away.

Wherever runs the breathless sun,
Wherever roams the day,
There is its victory!
Behold the keenest marksman!
Time’s sublimest target
Is a soul “forgot”!

Now I am generally not one for poetry, but I love Emily Dickinson

THE SOUL should always stand ajar.   

That if the heaven inquire,

He will not be obliged to wait,   

Or shy of troubling her.   

Depart, before the host has slid       

The bolt upon the door,

To seek for the accomplished guest—   

Her visitor no more.

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 grew 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 but a mound.

Since then ‘tis centuries, and yet each
Feels shorter than the day
I first surmised the horses’ heads
Were toward eternity.

The soul selects her own society,
Then shuts the door;
On her divine majority
Obtrude no more.

Unmoved, she notes the chariot’s pausing
At her low gate;
Unmoved, an emperor is kneeling
Upon her mat.

I’ve known her from an ample nation
Choose one;
Then close the valves of her attention
Like stone.