By Emily Dickinson
Several of these are taken from the collection My life had stood a loaded gun (Penguin Classics № 114).
“Hope” is the thing with feathers -
That perches in the soul -
And sings the tune without the 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.
A precious, mouldering pleasure ‘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
On 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 Sappho was a living girl,
And Beatrice wore
The gown that Dante deified.
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 born.
His presence is enchantment,
You beg him not to go;
Old volumes shake their vellum heads
And tantalize, just so.
‘Tis little I could care for pearls
Who own the ample sea;
Or brooches, when the Emperor
With rubies pelteth me;
Or gold, who am the Prince of Mines;
Or diamonds, when I see
A diadem to fit a dome
Continual crowning me.
A route of evanescence With a revolving wheel; A resonance of emerald, A rush of cochineal; And every blossom on the bush Adjusts its tumbled head, — The mail from Tunis, probably, An easy morning’s ride.
Where ships of purple gently toss
On seas of daffodil,
Fantastic sailors mingle,
And then — the wharf is still.
He fumbles at your spirit
As players at the keys
Before they drop full music on;
He stuns you by degrees,
Prepares your brittle substance
For the ethereal blow,
By fainter hammers, further heard,
Then nearer, then so slow
Your breath has time to straighten,
Your brain to bubble cool, —
Deals one imperial thunderbolt
That scalps your naked soul.
Bereaved of all, I went abroad,
No less bereaved to be
Upon a new peninsula, —
The grave preceded me,
Obtained my lodgings ere myself,
And when I sought my bed,
The grave it was, reposed upon
The pillow for my head.
I waked, to find it first awake,
I rose, — it followed me;
I tried to drop it in the crowd,
To lose it in the sea,
In cups of artificial drowse
To sleep its shape away, —
The grave was finished, but the spade
Remained in memory.
I felt a funeral in my brain,
And mourners, to and fro,
Kept treading, treading, till it seemed
That sense was breaking through.
And when they all were seated,
A service like a drum
Kept beating, beating, till I thought
My mind was going numb.
And then I heard them lift a box,
And creak across my soul
With those same boots of lead, again,
Then space began to toll
As all the heavens were a bell,
And Being but an ear,
And I and silence some strange race,
Wrecked, solitary, here.
Summer begins to have the look,
Peruser of enchanting Book
Reluctantly, but sure, perceives —
A gain upon the backward leaves.
Autumn begins to be inferred
By millinery of the cloud,
Or deeper color in the shawl
That wraps the everlasting hill.
The eye begins its avarice,
A meditation chastens speech,
Some Dyer of a distant tree
Resumes his gaudy industry.
Conclusion is the course of all,
Almost to be perennial,
And then elude stability
Recalls to immortality.
I dwell in Possibility,
A fairer house than Prose,
More numerous of windows,
Superior of doors.
Of chambers, as the cedars —
Impregnable of eye;
And for an everlasting roof
The gables of the sky.
Of visitors — the fairest —
For occupation — this —
The spreading wide my narrow hands
To gather Paradise.
(With a flower)
All the letters I can write
Are not fair as this,
Syllables of velvet,
Sentences of plush,
Depths of ruby, undrained,
Hid, lip, for thee —
Play it were a humming bird
And just sipped me!
It’s coming — the postponeless Creature,
It gains the block and now it gains the door,
Chooses its latch from all the other fastenings,
Enters with a — ‘You know me, Sir?’
Simple salute and certain recognition,
Bold — were it enemy — brief were it friend,
Dresses each house in crêpe and icicle,
And carries one out of it to God.
My life had stood a loaded gun
In corners, till a day
The owner passed — identified,
And carried me away.
And now we roam the sov’reign woods,
And now we hunt the doe —
And every time I speak for him
The mountains straight reply.
And do I smile, such cordial light
Upon the valley glow —
It is as a Vesuvian face
Had let its pleasure through,
And when at night, our good day done,
I guard my master’s head,
‘Tis better than the eider duck’s
Deep pillow to have shared.
To foe of his I’m deadly foe,
None stir the second time
On whom I lay a yellow eye
Or an emphatic thumb.
Though I than he may longer live,
He longer must than I,
For I have but the art to kill —
Without the power to die.
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/42889/hope-is-the-thing-with-feathers-314 ↩