Emily Dickinson

Here are some of the works of my favorite poet, Emily Dickinson.

Part One: Life

XVI

TO fight aloud is very brave,

But gallanter, I know,

Who charge within the bosom,

The cavalry of woe.

Who win, and nations do not see,

Who fall, and none observe,

Whose dying eyes no country

Regards with patriot love.

We trust, in plumed procession,

For such the angels go,

Rank after rank, with even feet

And uniforms of snow.

Part Two: Nature

I

NATURE, the gentlest mother,

Impatient of no child,

The feeblest or the waywardest,-----

Her admonition mild

In forest and the hill

By traveller is heard,

Restraining rampant squirrel

Or too impetuous bird.

How fair her conversation,

A summer afternoon,-----

Her household, her assembly;

And when the sun goes down

Her voice among the aisles

Incites the timid prayer

Of the minutest cricket,

The most unworthy flower.

When all the children sleep

She turns as long away

As will suffice to light her lamps;

Then, bending from the sky,

With infinite affection

And infiniter care,

Her golden finger on her lip,

Wills silence everywhere.

Part Three: Love

XLIV

THERE is a word

Which bears a sword

Can pierce an armed man.

It hurls its barbed syllables,-----

At once is mut again.

But where it fell

The saved will tell

On patriotic day,

Some epauletted brother

Gave his breath away.

Whenever runs the breathless sun,

Wherever roams the day,

There is its noiseless onset,

There is its victory!

Behold the keenest marksman!

The most accomplished shot!

Time's sublimest target

Is a soul "forgot"!

Part Four: Time and Eternity

X

I DIED for beauty, but was scarce

Adjusted in the tomb,

When one who died for truth was lain

In an adjoining room.

He questioned softly why I failed?

"For beauty," I replied

"And I for truth,-----the two are one;

We brethren are," he said.

And so, as kinsmen met a night,

We talked between the rooms,

Until the moss had reached our lips,

And covered up our names.

Part Five: The Single Hound

IV

FAME is a fickle food

Upon a shifting plate,

Whose table once a Guest,

The second time, is set.

Whose crumbs the crows inspect,

And with ironic caw

Flap past it to the Farmer;s corn;

Men eat of it and die.