Emily Dickinson – I have no life but this
I have no life but this,
To lead it here;
Nor any death, but lest
Dispelled from there;
Nor tie to earths to come,
Nor action new,
Except through this extent,
The realm of you.
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Emily Dickinson – I’m nobody! Who are you?
I’m nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?
Then there’s a pair of us — don’t tell!
They’d banish us, you know.
How dreary to be somebody!
How public, like a frog
To tell your name the livelong day
To an admiring bog!
I Cannot Live With You by Emily Dickinson
I cannot live with you,
It would be life,
And life is over there
Behind the shelf
The sexton keeps the key to,
Putting up
Our life, his porcelain,
Like a cup
Discarded of the housewife,
Quaint or broken;
A newer Sèvres pleases,
Old ones crack.
I could not die with you,
For one must wait
To shut the other’s gaze down,—
You could not.
And I, could I stand by
And see you freeze,
Without my right of frost,
Death’s privilege?
Nor could I rise with you,
Because your face
Would put out Jesus’,
That new grace
Glow plain and foreign
On my homesick eye,
Except that you, than he
Shone closer by.
They ’d judge us—how?
For you served Heaven, you know,
Or sought to;
I could not,
Because you saturated sight,
And I had no more eyes
For sordid excellence
As Paradise.
And were you lost, I would be,
Though my name
Rang loudest
On the heavenly fame.
And were you saved,
And I condemned to be
Where you were not,
That self were hell to me.
So we must keep apart,
You there, I here,
With just the door ajar
That oceans are,
And prayer,
And that pale sustenance,
Despair!
No Notice gave She, but a Change by Emily Dickinson
No Notice gave She, but a Change —
No Message, but a Sigh —
For Whom, the Time did not suffice
That She should specify.
She was not warm, though Summer shone
Nor scrupulous of cold
Though Rime by Rime, the steady Frost
Upon Her Bosom piled —
Of shrinking ways — she did not fright
Though all the Village looked —
But held Her gravity aloft —
And met the gaze — direct —
And when adjusted like a Seed
In careful fitted Ground
Unto the Everlasting Spring
And hindered but a Mound
Her Warm return, if so she chose —
And We — imploring drew —
Removed our invitation by
As Some She never knew —