"Part V: CX-CXLII" by Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)
From: The Single Hound; Poems of a Lifetime. by Emily Dickinson (1830-1886). With an introduction by her niece, Martha Gilbert Dickinson Bianchi (1866?-1943).
Boston: Little, Brown, 1914. pp. 118-151.
[Page 118]
CX.
THAT Love is all there is,
Is all we know of Love;
It is enough, the freight should be
Proportioned to the groove.
[Page 119]
CXI.
THE luxury to apprehend
The luxury 'twould be
To look at thee a single time,
An Epicure of me,
In whatsoever Presence, makes,
Till, for a further food
I scarcely recollect to starve,
So first am I supplied.
The luxury to meditate
The luxury it was
To banquet on thy Countenance,
A sumptuousness bestows
On plainer days,
Whose table, far as
Certainty can see,
Is laden with a single crumb–
The consciousness of Thee.
[Page 120]
CXII.
THE Sea said "Come" to the Brook,
The Brook said "Let me grow!"
The Sea said "Then you will be a Sea–
I want a brook, Come now!"
[Page 121]
CXIII.
ALL I may, if small,
Do it not display
Larger for its Totalness?
'Tis economy
To bestow a world
And withhold a star,
Utmost is munificence;
Less, though larger, Poor.
[Page 122]
CXIV.
LOVE reckons by itself alone,
"As large as I" relate the Sun
To one who never felt it blaze,
Itself is all the like it has.
[Page 123]
CXV.
THE inundation of the Spring
Submerges every soul,
It sweeps the tenement away
But leaves the water whole.
In which the Soul, at first alarmed,
Seeks furtive for its shore,
But acclimated, gropes no more
For that Peninsular.
[Page 124]
CXVI.
NO Autumn's intercepting chill
Appalls this Tropic Breast,
But African exuberance
And Asiatic rest.
[Page 125]
CXVII.
VOLCANOES be in Sicily
And South America,
I judge from my geography.
Volcanoes nearer here,
A lava step, at any time,
Am I inclined to climb,
A crater I may contemplate,
Vesuvius at home.
[Page 126]
CXVIII.
DISTANCE is not the realm of Fox,
Nor by relay as Bird;
Abated, Distance is until
Thyself, Beloved!
[Page 127]
CXIX.
THE treason of an accent
Might vilify the Joy–
To breathe,–corrode the rapture
Of Sanctity to be.
[Page 128]
CXX.
HOW destitute is he
Whose Gold is firm,
Who finds it every time,
The small stale sum–
When Love, with but a pence
Will so display,
As is a disrespect to India!
[Page 129]
CXXI.
CRISIS is sweet and, set the Heart
Upon the hither side,
Has dowers of prospective
Surrendered by the Tried.
Inquire of the closing Rose
Which Rapture she preferred,
And she will tell you, sighing,
The transport of the Bud.
[Page 130]
CXXII.
TO tell the beauty would decrease,
To state the Spell demean,
There is a syllableless sea
Of which it is the sign.
My will endeavours for its word
And fails, but entertains
A rapture as of legacies–
Of introspective mines.
[Page 131]
CXXIII.
TO love thee, year by year,
May less appear
Than sacrifice and cease.
However, Dear,
Forever might be short
I thought, to show,
And so I pieced it with a flower now.
[Page 132]
CXXIV.
I SHOWED her heights she never saw–
"Would'st climb?" I said,
She said "Not so"–
"With me?" I said, "With me?"
I showed her secrets
Morning's nest,
The rope that Nights were put across–
And now, "Would'st have me for a Guest?"
She could not find her yes–
And then, I brake my life, and Lo!
A light for her, did solemn glow,
The larger, as her face withdrew–
And could she, further, "No?"
[Page 133]
CXXV.
ON my volcano grows the grass,–
A meditative spot,
An area for a bird to choose
Would be the general thought.
How red the fire reeks below,
How insecure the sod–
Did I disclose, would populate
With awe my solitude.
[Page 134]
CXXVI.
IF I could tell how glad I was,
I should not be so glad,
But when I cannot make the Force
Nor mould it into word,
I know it is a sign
That new Dilemma be
From mathematics further off,
Than from Eternity.
[Page 135]
CXXVII.
HER Grace is all she has,
And that, so vast displays,
One Art, to recognize, must be,
Another Art to praise.
[Page 136]
CXXVIII.
NO matter where the Saints abide,
They make their circuit fair;
Behold how great a Firmament
Accompanies a star!
[Page 137]
CXXIX.
TO see her is a picture,
To hear her is a tune,
To know her an intemperance
As innocent as June;
By which to be undone
Is dearer than Redemption–
Which never to receive,
Makes mockery of melody
It might have been to live.
[Page 138]
CXXX.
SO set its sun in thee,
What day is dark to me–
What distance far,
So I the ships may see
That touch how seldomly
Thy shore?
[Page 139]
CXXXI.
HAD this one day not been,
Or could it cease to be–
How smitten, how superfluous
Were every other day!
Lest Love should value less
What Loss would value more,
Had it the stricken privilege–
It cherishes before.
[Page 140]
CXXXII.
THAT she forgot me was the least,
I felt it second pain,
That I was worthy to forget
Was most I thought upon.
Faithful, was all that I could boast,
But Constancy became,
To her, by her innominate,
A something like a shame.
[Page 141]
CXXXIII.
THE incidents of Love
Are more than its Events,
Investments best expositor
Is the minute per cents.
[Page 142]
CXXXIV.
JUST so, Jesus raps–He does not weary–
Last at the knocker and first at the bell,
Then on divinest tiptoe standing
Might He out-spy the lady's soul.
When He retires, chilled and weary–
It will be ample time for me;
Patient, upon the steps, until then–
Heart, I am knocking low at Thee!
[Page 143]
CXXXV.
SAFE Despair it is that raves,
Agony is frugal,
Puts itself severe away
For its own perusal.
Garrisoned no Soul can be
In the front of Trouble,
Love is one, not aggregate,
Nor is Dying double.
[Page 144]
CXXXVI.
THE Face we choose to miss,
Be it but for a day–
As absent as a hundred years
When it has rode away.
[Page 145]
CXXXVII.
OF so divine a loss
We enter but the gain,
Indemnity for loneliness
That such a bliss has been.
[Page 146]
CXXXVIII.
THE healed Heart shows its shallow scar
With confidential moan,
Not mended by Mortality
Are fabrics truly torn.
To go its convalescent way
So shameless is to see,
More genuine were Perfidy
Than such Fidelity.
[Page 147]
CXXXIX.
TO pile like Thunder to its close,
Then crumble grand away,
While everything created hid–
This would be Poetry:
Or Love,–the two coeval came–
We both and neither prove,
Experience either, and consume–
For none see God and live.
[Page 148]
CXL.
THE Stars are old, that stood for me–
The West a little worn,
Yet newer glows the only Gold
I ever cared to earn–
Presuming on that lone result
Her infinite disdain,
But vanquished her with my defeat,
'Twas Victory was slain.
[Page 149]
CXLI.
ALL circumstances are the frame
In which His Face is set,
All Latitudes exist for His
Sufficient continent.
The light His Action and the dark
The Leisure of His Will,
In Him Existence serve, or set
A force illegible.
[Page 150]
CXLII.
I DID not reach thee,
But my feet slip nearer every day;
Three Rivers and a Hill to cross,
One Desert and a Sea–
I shall not count the journey one
When I am telling thee.
Two deserts–but the year is cold
So that will help the sand–
One desert crossed, the second one
Will feel as cool as land.
Sahara is too little price
To pay for thy Right hand!
The sea comes last. Step merry, feet!
So short have we to go
To play together we are prone,
But we must labor now,
[Page 151]
The last shall be the lightest load
That we have had to draw.
The Sun goes crooked–that is night–
Before he makes the bend
We must have passed the middle sea,
Almost we wish the end
Were further off–too great it seems
So near the Whole to stand.
We step like plush, we stand like snow–
The waters murmur now,
Three rivers and the hill are passed,
Two deserts and the sea!
Now Death usurps my premium
And gets the look at Thee.
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