Poems of Emily Dickinson, series 1 | Page 7

Lamb.
The hours slid fast, as hours will,?Clutched tight by greedy hands;?So faces on two decks look back,?Bound to opposing lands.
And so, when all the time had failed,?Without external sound,?Each bound the other's crucifix,?We gave no other bond.
Sufficient troth that we shall rise --?Deposed, at length, the grave --?To that new marriage, justified?Through Calvaries of Love!
XIV.
LOVE'S BAPTISM.
I'm ceded, I've stopped being theirs;?The name they dropped upon my face?With water, in the country church,?Is finished using now,?And they can put it with my dolls,?My childhood, and the string of spools?I've finished threading too.
Baptized before without the choice,?But this time consciously, of grace?Unto supremest name,?Called to my full, the crescent dropped,?Existence's whole arc filled up?With one small diadem.
My second rank, too small the first,?Crowned, crowing on my father's breast,?A half unconscious queen;?But this time, adequate, erect,?With will to choose or to reject.?And I choose -- just a throne.
XV.
RESURRECTION.
'T was a long parting, but the time?For interview had come;?Before the judgment-seat of God,?The last and second time
These fleshless lovers met,?A heaven in a gaze,?A heaven of heavens, the privilege?Of one another's eyes.
No lifetime set on them,?Apparelled as the new?Unborn, except they had beheld,?Born everlasting now.
Was bridal e'er like this??A paradise, the host,?And cherubim and seraphim?The most familiar guest.
XVI.
APOCALYPSE.
I'm wife; I've finished that,?That other state;?I'm Czar, I'm woman now:?It's safer so.
How odd the girl's life looks?Behind this soft eclipse!?I think that earth seems so?To those in heaven now.
This being comfort, then?That other kind was pain;?But why compare??I'm wife! stop there!
XVII.
THE WIFE.
She rose to his requirement, dropped?The playthings of her life?To take the honorable work?Of woman and of wife.
If aught she missed in her new day?Of amplitude, or awe,?Or first prospective, or the gold?In using wore away,
It lay unmentioned, as the sea?Develops pearl and weed,?But only to himself is known?The fathoms they abide.
XVIII.
APOTHEOSIS.
Come slowly, Eden!?Lips unused to thee,?Bashful, sip thy jasmines,?As the fainting bee,
Reaching late his flower,?Round her chamber hums,?Counts his nectars -- enters,?And is lost in balms!
III.
NATURE.
I.
New feet within my garden go,?New fingers stir the sod;?A troubadour upon the elm?Betrays the solitude.
New children play upon the green,?New weary sleep below;?And still the pensive spring returns,?And still the punctual snow!
II.
MAY-FLOWER.
Pink, small, and punctual,?Aromatic, low,?Covert in April,?Candid in May,
Dear to the moss,?Known by the knoll,?Next to the robin?In every human soul.
Bold little beauty,?Bedecked with thee,?Nature forswears?Antiquity.
III.
WHY?
THE murmur of a bee?A witchcraft yieldeth me.?If any ask me why,?'T were easier to die?Than tell.
The red upon the hill?Taketh away my will;?If anybody sneer,?Take care, for God is here,?That's all.
The breaking of the day?Addeth to my degree;?If any ask me how,?Artist, who drew me so,?Must tell!
IV.
Perhaps you'd like to buy a flower??But I could never sell.?If you would like to borrow?Until the daffodil
Unties her yellow bonnet?Beneath the village door,?Until the bees, from clover rows?Their hock and sherry draw,
Why, I will lend until just then,?But not an hour more!
V.
The pedigree of honey?Does not concern the bee;?A clover, any time, to him?Is aristocracy.
VI.
A SERVICE OF SONG.
Some keep the Sabbath going to church;?I keep it staying at home,?With a bobolink for a chorister,?And an orchard for a dome.
Some keep the Sabbath in surplice;?I just wear my wings,?And instead of tolling the bell for church,?Our little sexton sings.
God preaches, -- a noted clergyman, --?And the sermon is never long;?So instead of getting to heaven at last,?I'm going all along!
VII.
The bee is not afraid of me,?I know the butterfly;?The pretty people in the woods?Receive me cordially.
The brooks laugh louder when I come,?The breezes madder play.?Wherefore, mine eyes, thy silver mists??Wherefore, O summer's day?
VIII.
SUMMER'S ARMIES.
Some rainbow coming from the fair!?Some vision of the world Cashmere?I confidently see!?Or else a peacock's purple train,?Feather by feather, on the plain?Fritters itself away!
The dreamy butterflies bestir,?Lethargic pools resume the whir?Of last year's sundered tune.?From some old fortress on the sun?Baronial bees march, one by one,?In murmuring platoon!
The robins stand as thick to-day?As flakes of snow stood yesterday,?On fence and roof and twig.?The orchis binds her feather on?For her old lover, Don the Sun,?Revisiting the bog!
Without commander, countless, still,?The regiment of wood and hill?In bright detachment stand.?Behold! Whose multitudes are these??The children of whose turbaned seas,?Or what Circassian land?
IX.
THE GRASS.
The grass so little has to do, --?A sphere of simple green,?With only butterflies to brood,?And bees to entertain,
And stir all day to pretty tunes?The breezes fetch along,?And hold the sunshine in its lap?And bow to everything;
And thread the dews all night, like pearls,?And make itself so fine, --?A duchess were too common?For such a noticing.
And even when it dies, to pass?In odors so divine,?As lowly spices gone to sleep,?Or amulets of pine.
And then to dwell in sovereign barns,?And dream the days away, --?The grass so little has to do,?I wish I were the hay!
X.
A little road not made of man,?Enabled of the eye,?Accessible to thill of bee,?Or cart of butterfly.
If town it have, beyond itself,?'T is that I cannot say;?I only