Poems of Emily Dickinson, series 2 | Page 7

of the hate departs;?If any would avenge, --
Let him be quick, the viand flits,?It is a faded meat.?Anger as soon as fed is dead;?'T is starving makes it fat.
XLIII.
REMORSE.
Remorse is memory awake,?Her companies astir, --?A presence of departed acts?At window and at door.
It's past set down before the soul,?And lighted with a match,?Perusal to facilitate?Of its condensed despatch.
Remorse is cureless, -- the disease?Not even God can heal;?For 't is his institution, --?The complement of hell.
XLIV.
THE SHELTER.
The body grows outside, --?The more convenient way, --?That if the spirit like to hide,?Its temple stands alway
Ajar, secure, inviting;?It never did betray?The soul that asked its shelter?In timid honesty.
XLV.
Undue significance a starving man attaches?To food?Far off; he sighs, and therefore hopeless,?And therefore good.
Partaken, it relieves indeed, but proves us?That spices fly?In the receipt. It was the distance?Was savory.
XLVI.
Heart not so heavy as mine,?Wending late home,?As it passed my window?Whistled itself a tune, --
A careless snatch, a ballad,?A ditty of the street;?Yet to my irritated ear?An anodyne so sweet,
It was as if a bobolink,?Sauntering this way,?Carolled and mused and carolled,?Then bubbled slow away.
It was as if a chirping brook?Upon a toilsome way?Set bleeding feet to minuets?Without the knowing why.
To-morrow, night will come again,?Weary, perhaps, and sore.?Ah, bugle, by my window,?I pray you stroll once more!
XLVII.
I many times thought peace had come,?When peace was far away;?As wrecked men deem they sight the land?At centre of the sea,
And struggle slacker, but to prove,?As hopelessly as I,?How many the fictitious shores?Before the harbor lie.
XLVIII.
Unto my books so good to turn?Far ends of tired days;?It half endears the abstinence,?And pain is missed in praise.
As flavors cheer retarded guests?With banquetings to be,?So spices stimulate the time?Till my small library.
It may be wilderness without,?Far feet of failing men,?But holiday excludes the night,?And it is bells within.
I thank these kinsmen of the shelf;?Their countenances bland?Enamour in prospective,?And satisfy, obtained.
XLIX.
This merit hath the worst, --?It cannot be again.?When Fate hath taunted last?And thrown her furthest stone,
The maimed may pause and breathe,?And glance securely round.?The deer invites no longer?Than it eludes the hound.
L.
HUNGER.
I had been hungry all the years;?My noon had come, to dine;?I, trembling, drew the table near,?And touched the curious wine.
'T was this on tables I had seen,?When turning, hungry, lone,?I looked in windows, for the wealth?I could not hope to own.
I did not know the ample bread,?'T was so unlike the crumb?The birds and I had often shared?In Nature's dining-room.
The plenty hurt me, 't was so new, --?Myself felt ill and odd,?As berry of a mountain bush?Transplanted to the road.
Nor was I hungry; so I found?That hunger was a way?Of persons outside windows,?The entering takes away.
LI.
I gained it so,
By climbing slow,?By catching at the twigs that grow?Between the bliss and me.
It hung so high,?As well the sky?Attempt by strategy.
I said I gained it, --
This was all.?Look, how I clutch it,
Lest it fall,?And I a pauper go;?Unfitted by an instant's grace?For the contented beggar's face?I wore an hour ago.
LII.
To learn the transport by the pain,?As blind men learn the sun;?To die of thirst, suspecting?That brooks in meadows run;
To stay the homesick, homesick feet?Upon a foreign shore?Haunted by native lands, the while,?And blue, beloved air --
This is the sovereign anguish,?This, the signal woe!?These are the patient laureates?Whose voices, trained below,
Ascend in ceaseless carol,?Inaudible, indeed,?To us, the duller scholars?Of the mysterious bard!
LIII.
RETURNING.
I years had been from home,?And now, before the door,?I dared not open, lest a face?I never saw before
Stare vacant into mine?And ask my business there.?My business, -- just a life I left,?Was such still dwelling there?
I fumbled at my nerve,?I scanned the windows near;?The silence like an ocean rolled,?And broke against my ear.
I laughed a wooden laugh?That I could fear a door,?Who danger and the dead had faced,?But never quaked before.
I fitted to the latch?My hand, with trembling care,?Lest back the awful door should spring,?And leave me standing there.
I moved my fingers off?As cautiously as glass,?And held my ears, and like a thief?Fled gasping from the house.
LIV.
PRAYER.
Prayer is the little implement?Through which men reach?Where presence is denied them.?They fling their speech
By means of it in God's ear;?If then He hear,?This sums the apparatus?Comprised in prayer.
LV.
I know that he exists?Somewhere, in silence.?He has hid his rare life?From our gross eyes.
'T is an instant's play,?'T is a fond ambush,?Just to make bliss?Earn her own surprise!
But should the play?Prove piercing earnest,?Should the glee glaze?In death's stiff stare,
Would not the fun?Look too expensive??Would not the jest?Have crawled too far?
LVI.
MELODIES UNHEARD.
Musicians wrestle everywhere:?All day, among the crowded air,?I hear the silver strife;?And -- waking long before the dawn --?Such transport breaks upon the town?I think it that "new life!"
It is not bird, it has no nest;?Nor band, in brass and scarlet dressed,?Nor tambourine, nor man;?It is not hymn from pulpit read, --?The morning stars the treble led?On time's first afternoon!
Some say it is the spheres at play!?Some