Poems of Emily Dickinson, series 2 | Page 5

never climbed the weary league --?Can such a foot explore?The purple territories?On Pizarro's shore?
How many legions overcome??The emperor will say.?How many colors taken?On Revolution Day?
How many bullets bearest??The royal scar hast thou??Angels, write "Promoted"?On this soldier's brow!
IX.
THE TEST.
I can wade grief,?Whole pools of it, --?I 'm used to that.?But the least push of joy?Breaks up my feet,?And I tip -- drunken.?Let no pebble smile,?'T was the new liquor, --?That was all!
Power is only pain,?Stranded, through discipline,?Till weights will hang.?Give balm to giants,?And they 'll wilt, like men.?Give Himmaleh, --?They 'll carry him!
X.
ESCAPE.
I never hear the word "escape"?Without a quicker blood,?A sudden expectation,?A flying attitude.
I never hear of prisons broad?By soldiers battered down,?But I tug childish at my bars, --?Only to fail again!
XI.
COMPENSATION.
For each ecstatic instant?We must an anguish pay?In keen and quivering ratio?To the ecstasy.
For each beloved hour?Sharp pittances of years,?Bitter contested farthings?And coffers heaped with tears.
XII.
THE MARTYRS.
Through the straight pass of suffering?The martyrs even trod,?Their feet upon temptation,?Their faces upon God.
A stately, shriven company;?Convulsion playing round,?Harmless as streaks of meteor?Upon a planet's bound.
Their faith the everlasting troth;?Their expectation fair;?The needle to the north degree?Wades so, through polar air.
XIII.
A PRAYER.
I meant to have but modest needs,?Such as content, and heaven;?Within my income these could lie,?And life and I keep even.
But since the last included both,?It would suffice my prayer?But just for one to stipulate,?And grace would grant the pair.
And so, upon this wise I prayed, --?Great Spirit, give to me?A heaven not so large as yours,?But large enough for me.
A smile suffused Jehovah's face;?The cherubim withdrew;?Grave saints stole out to look at me,?And showed their dimples, too.
I left the place with all my might, --?My prayer away I threw;?The quiet ages picked it up,?And Judgment twinkled, too,
That one so honest be extant?As take the tale for true?That "Whatsoever you shall ask,?Itself be given you."
But I, grown shrewder, scan the skies?With a suspicious air, --?As children, swindled for the first,?All swindlers be, infer.
XIV.
The thought beneath so slight a film?Is more distinctly seen, --?As laces just reveal the surge,?Or mists the Apennine.
XV.
The soul unto itself?Is an imperial friend, --?Or the most agonizing spy?An enemy could send.
Secure against its own,?No treason it can fear;?Itself its sovereign, of itself?The soul should stand in awe.
XVI.
Surgeons must be very careful?When they take the knife!?Underneath their fine incisions?Stirs the culprit, -- Life!
XVII.
THE RAILWAY TRAIN.
I like to see it lap the miles,?And lick the valleys up,?And stop to feed itself at tanks;?And then, prodigious, step
Around a pile of mountains,?And, supercilious, peer?In shanties by the sides of roads;?And then a quarry pare
To fit its sides, and crawl between,?Complaining all the while?In horrid, hooting stanza;?Then chase itself down hill
And neigh like Boanerges;?Then, punctual as a star,?Stop -- docile and omnipotent --?At its own stable door.
XVIII.
THE SHOW.
The show is not the show,?But they that go.?Menagerie to me?My neighbor be.?Fair play --?Both went to see.
XIX.
Delight becomes pictorial?When viewed through pain, --?More fair, because impossible?That any gain.
The mountain at a given distance?In amber lies;?Approached, the amber flits a little, --?And that 's the skies!
XX.
A thought went up my mind to-day?That I have had before,?But did not finish, -- some way back,?I could not fix the year,
Nor where it went, nor why it came?The second time to me,?Nor definitely what it was,?Have I the art to say.
But somewhere in my soul, I know?I 've met the thing before;?It just reminded me -- 't was all --?And came my way no more.
XXI.
Is Heaven a physician?
They say that He can heal;?But medicine posthumous
Is unavailable.
Is Heaven an exchequer?
They speak of what we owe;?But that negotiation
I 'm not a party to.
XXII.
THE RETURN.
Though I get home how late, how late!?So I get home, 't will compensate.?Better will be the ecstasy?That they have done expecting me,?When, night descending, dumb and dark,?They hear my unexpected knock.?Transporting must the moment be,?Brewed from decades of agony!
To think just how the fire will burn,?Just how long-cheated eyes will turn?To wonder what myself will say,?And what itself will say to me,?Beguiles the centuries of way!
XXIII.
A poor torn heart, a tattered heart,?That sat it down to rest,?Nor noticed that the ebbing day?Flowed silver to the west,?Nor noticed night did soft descend?Nor constellation burn,?Intent upon the vision?Of latitudes unknown.
The angels, happening that way,?This dusty heart espied;?Tenderly took it up from toil?And carried it to God.?There, -- sandals for the barefoot;?There, -- gathered from the gales,?Do the blue havens by the hand?Lead the wandering sails.
XXIV.
TOO MUCH.
I should have been too glad, I see,?Too lifted for the scant degree
Of life's penurious round;?My little circuit would have shamed?This new circumference, have blamed
The homelier time behind.
I should have been too saved, I see,?Too rescued; fear too dim to me
That I could spell the prayer?I knew so perfect yesterday, --?That scalding one, "Sabachthani,"
Recited fluent here.
Earth would have been too much, I see,?And heaven not enough for me;
I should have had the joy?Without