| Emily Dickenson |
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| 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! |
| SUCCESS 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 to-day 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 |
| If I can stop one heart from breaking, I shall not live in vain; If I can ease on life the aching, Or cool one pain, Or help one fainting robin Unto his nest again, I shall not live in vain. |
| I had no time to hate, because The grave would hinder me, And life was not so ample I Could taste 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. |
| 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! |
| 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 your 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. |
| 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. |
| I never saw a moor, I never saw the sea; Yet know I 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. |
| 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, he knew no haste, And I had put away My labor, and my leisure too, For civility. We passed the school where children played, Their lessions scarcely done; We passed the fields of gazing grain, We passed the setting sun. We passed before a house that seemed A swelling of the ground; The rood was scarcely visible, The cornice but a mound. Since then 'tis centuries; but each Feels shorter than the day I first sumised the horses heads Were toward eternity. |
| I'm nobody! Who are you? Are you nobody, too? Then there's a pair of us - don't tell! They'd banish us, you know. How dreary to be somebody! How public, like a frog To tell you name the livelong day To an admiring bog! |
| 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. Buglar, banker, father, I am poor once more! |