17 poems by Emily Dickinson

Parables of Love and Death

1
One crown that no one seeks
And yet the highest head
Its isolation coveted
Its stigma deified
While Pontius Pilate lives
In whatsoever hell
That coronation pierces him
He recollects it well.

2
I like a look of Agony,
Because I know its true ––
Men do not sham Convulsion,
Nor simulate, a Throe ––
The Eyes glaze once –– and that is Death ––
Impossible to feign
The beads upon the Forehead
By homely Anguish strung.

3
I shall know why –– when Time is over ––
And I have ceased to wonder why ––
Christ will explain each separate anguish
In the fair schoolroom of the sky ––
He will tell me shat “Peter” promised ––
And I –– for wonder at his woe ––
I shall forget the drop of Anguish
That scalds me now –– that scalds me now!

4
If this is “fading”
Oh let me immediately “fade”!
If this is “dying”
Bury me in such a shroud of red!
If this is “sleep,”
On such a night
How proud to shut the eye!
Good Evening, gentle Fellow men!
Peacock presumes to die!

5
To die –– without the Dying
And live –– without the Life
This is the hardest Miracle
Propounded to Belief.

6
She died –– this was the way she died.
And when her breath was done
Took up her simple wardrobe
And started for the sun.
Her little figure at the gate
The Angels must have spied,
Since I could never find her
Upon the mortal side.

7
Unable are the Loved to die
For Love is Immortality,
Nay, it is Deity ––
Unable they that love –– to die
For Love reforms Vitality
Into Divinity.

8
Love –– is the anterior to Life ––
Posterior –– to Death ––
Initial of Creation, and
The Exponent of Earth ––

9
Sweet hours have perished here;
This is a mighty room;
Within its precincts hopes have played, ––
Now shadows in the tomb.

10
The Test of Love –– is Death ––
Our Lord –– “so loved” –– it saith ––
What Largest Lover –– hath ––
Another –– doth ––
If smaller Patience –– be ––
Through less Infinity ––
If Bravo, sometimes swerve ––
Through fainter nerve ––
Accept its Most ––
And overlook –– the Dust ––
Last –– Least ––
The Cross’ –– Request ––

11
Not any sunny tone
From any fervent zone
Find entrance there ––
Better a grave of Balm
Toward human nature’s home ––
And Robins near ––
Than a stupendous Tomb
Proclaiming to the Gloom
How dead we are ––

12
I keep my pledge.
I was not called ––
Death did not notice me.
I bring my Rose.
I plight again,
By every sainted Bee ––
By Daisy called from hillside ––
By Bobolink from lane.
Blossom and I ––
Her oath, and mine ––
Will surely come again.

13
If I should cease to bring a Rose
Upon a festal day,
’Twill be because beyond the Rose
I have been called away ––
If I should cease to take the names
My buds commemorate ––
’Twill be because Death’s finger
Claps my murmuring lip!

14
I hide myself within my flower,
That fading from your Vase,
You, unsuspecting, feel for me ––
Almost a loneliness.

15
How many flowers fail in Wood ––
Or perish from the Hill ––
Without the privilege to know
That they are beautiful ––
How many cast a nameless Pod
Upon the nearest Breeze ––
Unconscious of the Scarlet Freight ––
It bear to Other Eyes ––

16
Within my reach!
I could have touched!
I might have chanced that way!
Soft sauntered thro’ the village ––
Sauntered as soft away!
So unsuspected Violets
Within the meadows go ––
Too late for striving fingers
That passed, an hour ago!

17
A Death blow is a Life blow to Some
Who till they died, did not alive become ––
Who had they lived, had died but when
They died, Vitality begun.