Selected Poems - Emily Dickinson

« I never hear the word « escape »

Without a quicker blood,

A sudden expectation,

A flying attitude. »

« Hope is the thing with feathers

That perches in the soul,

And sings the tune without the words,

And never stops at all, »

« There’s a certain slant of light,

On winter afternoons,

That oppresses, like the weight

Of cathedral tunes. »

« When it comes, the landscape listens,

Shadows hold their breath ;

When it goes, ‘t is like the distance

On the look of death. »

« Merchantmen poise upon horizons,

Dip, and vanish with fairy sails. »

« A shady friend for torrid days

Is easier to find

Than one of higher temperature

For frigid hour of mind. »

« How dreary to be somebody !

How public, like a frog

To tell your name the livelong day

To an admiring bog ! »

« I thought if I could only live

Till that first shout got by,

Not all pianos in the woods

Had power to mangle me.

I dared not meet the daffodils,

For fear their yellow gown

Would pierce me with a fashion

So foreign to my own. »

« The Battlefield

They dropped like flakes, they dropped like stars,

Like petals from a rose,

When suddenly across the June

A wind with fingers goes.

They perished in the seamless grass, -

No eye could find the place ;

But God on his repealless list

Can summon every face. »

« If I can stop one heart from breaking,

I shall not live in vain ;

If I can ease one life the aching,

Or cool one pain,

Or help one fainting robin

Unto his nest again,

I shall not live in vain. »

« Immortality

It is an honorable thought,

And makes one lift one’s hat,

As one encountered gentlefolk

Upon a daily street,

That we’ve immortal place,

Though pyramids decay,

And kingdoms, like the orchard,

Flit russetly away. »

« I never spoke with God,

Nor visited in heaven ;

Yet certain am I of the spot

As if the chart were given. »

Selected Poems – Emily Dickinson