Poems of Emily Dickinson, series 2 | Page 7

at when I liked, --
The news would strike me dead!
So safer, guess, with just my soul
Upon the window-pane
Where
other creatures put their eyes,
Incautious of the sun.
XXXVII.
Talk with prudence to a beggar
Of 'Potosi' and the mines!

Reverently to the hungry
Of your viands and your wines!

Cautious, hint to any captive
You have passed enfranchised feet!

Anecdotes of air in dungeons
Have sometimes proved deadly sweet!
XXXVIII.
THE PREACHER.
He preached upon "breadth" till it argued him narrow, --
The broad
are too broad to define;
And of "truth" until it proclaimed him a liar,
--
The truth never flaunted a sign.
Simplicity fled from his counterfeit presence
As gold the pyrites
would shun.
What confusion would cover the innocent Jesus
To
meet so enabled a man!
XXXIX.
Good night! which put the candle out?
A jealous zephyr, not a doubt.
Ah! friend, you little knew
How long at that celestial wick
The
angels labored diligent;
Extinguished, now, for you!
It might have been the lighthouse spark
Some sailor, rowing in the
dark,
Had importuned to see!
It might have been the waning lamp
That lit
the drummer from the camp
To purer reveille!
XL.
When I hoped I feared,
Since I hoped I dared;
Everywhere alone

As a church remain;
Spectre cannot harm,
Serpent cannot charm;

He deposes doom,
Who hath suffered him.

XLI.
DEED.
A deed knocks first at thought,
And then it knocks at will.
That is
the manufacturing spot,
And will at home and well.
It then goes out an act,
Or is entombed so still
That only to the ear
of God
Its doom is audible.
XLII.
TIME'S LESSON.
Mine enemy is growing old, --
I have at last revenge.
The palate 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