Poems of Emily Dickinson, series 2 | Page 5

kept so many warm.
I 've heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet,
never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.
VII.
THE WHITE HEAT.
Dare you see a soul at the white heat?
Then crouch within the door.
Red is the fire's common tint;
But when the vivid ore
Has sated flame's conditions,

Its quivering substance plays
Without a color but the light
Of unanointed blaze.
Least village boasts its blacksmith,
Whose anvil's even din
Stands symbol for the finer forge
That soundless tugs within,
Refining these impatient ores
With hammer and with blaze,
Until the designated light
Repudiate the forge.
VIII.
TRIUMPHANT.
Who never lost, are unprepared
A coronet to find;
Who never
thirsted, flagons
And cooling tamarind.
Who 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