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

Part One: Life

XXVI

THE BRAIN within its groove

Runs evenly and true;

But let a splinter swerve,

’T were easier for you

To put the water back

When floods have slit the hills,

And scooped a turnpike for themselves,

And blotted out the mills!

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

Part One: Life

LXXIX

I YEARS had been from home,

And now, before the door,

I dared not open, lest a face

I never saw before

Stare vacant into mine

And ask my business there.

My business,—just a life I left,

Was such still dwelling there?

I fumbled at my nerve,

I scanned the windows near;

The silence like an ocean rolled,

And broke against my ear.

I laughed a wooden laugh

That I could fear a door,

Who danger and the dead had faced,

But never quaked before.

I fitted to the latch

My hand, with trembling care,

Lest back the awful door should spring,

And leave me standing there.

I moved my fingers off

As cautiously as glass,

And held my ears, and like a thief

Fled gasping from the house.

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

Part Three: Love
VI

IF you were coming in the fall,

I ’d brush the summer by

With half a smile and half a spurn,

As housewives do a fly.

If I could see you in a year,

        5

I ’d wind the months in balls,

And put them each in separate drawers,

Until their time befalls.

If only centuries delayed,

I ’d count them on my hand,

        10

Subtracting till my fingers dropped

Into Van Diemen’s land.

If certain, when this life was out,

That yours and mine should be,

I ’d toss it yonder like a rind,

        15

And taste eternity.

But now, all ignorant of the length

Of time’s uncertain wing,

It goads me, like the goblin bee,

That will not state its sting.

        20