Emily Dickinson – Part One: Life IX

Emily Dickinson (1830–86). Complete Poems. 1924.

Part One: Life

IX

THE HEART asks pleasure first,
And then, excuse from pain;
And then, those little anodynes
That deaden suffering;

And then, to go to sleep;
And then, if it should be
The will of its Inquisitor,
The liberty to die.