Poems by Emily Dickinson Part 42

VI.

A WORD.

A word is dead When it is said, Some say.

I say it just Begins to live That day.

VII.

To venerate the simple days Which lead the seasons by, Needs but to remember That from you or me They may take the trifle Termed mortality!

To invest existence with a stately air, Needs but to remember That the acorn there Is the egg of forests For the upper air!

VIII.

LIFE'S TRADES.

It's such a little thing to weep, So short a thing to sigh; And yet by trades the size of these We men and women die!

IX.

Drowning is not so pitiful As the attempt to rise.

Three times, 't is said, a sinking man Comes up to face the skies, And then declines forever To that abhorred abode Where hope and he part company, -- For he is grasped of G.o.d.

The Maker's cordial visage, However good to see, Is shunned, we must admit it, Like an adversity.

X.

How still the bells in steeples stand, Till, swollen with the sky, They leap upon their silver feet In frantic melody!

XI.

If the foolish call them 'flowers,'

Need the wiser tell?

If the savans 'cla.s.sify' them, It is just as well!

Those who read the Revelations Must not criticise Those who read the same edition With beclouded eyes!

Could we stand with that old Moses Canaan denied, -- Scan, like him, the stately landscape On the other side, --

Doubtless we should deem superfluous Many sciences Not pursued by learned angels In scholastic skies!

Low amid that glad _Belles lettres_ Grant that we may stand, Stars, amid profound Galaxies, At that grand 'Right hand'!

XII.

A SYLLABLE.

Could mortal lip divine The undeveloped freight Of a delivered syllable, 'T would crumble with the weight.

XIII.

PARTING.

My life closed twice before its close; It yet remains to see If Immortality unveil A third event to me,

So huge, so hopeless to conceive, As these that twice befell.

Parting is all we know of heaven, And all we need of h.e.l.l.

XIV.

ASPIRATION.

We never know how high we are Till we are called to rise; And then, if we are true to plan, Our statures touch the skies.

The heroism we recite Would be a daily thing, Did not ourselves the cubits warp For fear to be a king.