Poems by Emily Dickinson Part 50

XV.

We outgrow love like other things And put it in the drawer, Till it an antique fas.h.i.+on shows Like costumes grandsires wore.

XVI.

Not with a club the heart is broken, Nor with a stone; A whip, so small you could not see it.

I've known

To lash the magic creature Till it fell, Yet that whip's name too n.o.ble Then to tell.

Magnanimous of bird By boy descried, To sing unto the stone Of which it died.

XVII.

WHO?

My friend must be a bird, Because it flies!

Mortal my friend must be, Because it dies!

Barbs has it, like a bee.

Ah, curious friend, Thou puzzlest me!

XVIII.

He touched me, so I live to know That such a day, permitted so, I groped upon his breast.

It was a boundless place to me, And silenced, as the awful sea Puts minor streams to rest.

And now, I'm different from before, As if I breathed superior air, Or brushed a royal gown; My feet, too, that had wandered so, My gypsy face transfigured now To tenderer renown.

XIX.

DREAMS.

Let me not mar that perfect dream By an auroral stain, But so adjust my daily night That it will come again.

XX.

NUMEN LUMEN.

I live with him, I see his face; I go no more away For visitor, or sundown; Death's single privacy,

The only one forestalling mine, And that by right that he Presents a claim invisible, No wedlock granted me.

I live with him, I hear his voice, I stand alive to-day To witness to the certainty Of immortality

Taught me by Time, -- the lower way, Conviction every day, -- That life like this is endless, Be judgment what it may.

XXI.

LONGING.

I envy seas whereon he rides, I envy spokes of wheels Of chariots that him convey, I envy speechless hills

That gaze upon his journey; How easy all can see What is forbidden utterly As heaven, unto me!

I envy nests of sparrows That dot his distant eaves, The wealthy fly upon his pane, The happy, happy leaves

That just abroad his window Have summer's leave to be, The earrings of Pizarro Could not obtain for me.

I envy light that wakes him, And bells that boldly ring To tell him it is noon abroad, -- Myself his noon could bring,

Yet interdict my blossom And abrogate my bee, Lest noon in everlasting night Drop Gabriel and me.

XXII.

WEDDED.

A solemn thing it was, I said, A woman white to be, And wear, if G.o.d should count me fit, Her hallowed mystery.

A timid thing to drop a life Into the purple well, Too plummetless that it come back Eternity until.