Poems by Emily Dickinson Part 43

XV.

THE INEVITABLE.

While I was fearing it, it came, But came with less of fear, Because that fearing it so long Had almost made it dear.

There is a fitting a dismay, A fitting a despair.

'Tis harder knowing it is due, Than knowing it is here.

The trying on the utmost, The morning it is new, Is terribler than wearing it A whole existence through.

XVI.

A BOOK.

There is no frigate like a book To take us lands away, Nor any coursers like a page Of prancing poetry.

This traverse may the poorest take Without oppress of toll; How frugal is the chariot That bears a human soul!

XVII.

Who has not found the heaven below Will fail of it above.

G.o.d's residence is next to mine, His furniture is love.

XVIII.

A PORTRAIT.

A face devoid of love or grace, A hateful, hard, successful face, A face with which a stone Would feel as thoroughly at ease As were they old acquaintances, -- First time together thrown.

XIX.

I HAD A GUINEA GOLDEN.

I had a guinea golden; I lost it in the sand, And though the sum was simple, And pounds were in the land, Still had it such a value Unto my frugal eye, That when I could not find it I sat me down to sigh.

I had a crimson robin Who sang full many a day, But when the woods were painted He, too, did fly away.

Time brought me other robins, -- Their ballads were the same, -- Still for my missing troubadour I kept the 'house at hame.'

I had a star in heaven; One Pleiad was its name, And when I was not heeding It wandered from the same.

And though the skies are crowded, And all the night as.h.i.+ne, I do not care about it, Since none of them are mine.

My story has a moral: I have a missing friend, -- Pleiad its name, and robin, And guinea in the sand, -- And when this mournful ditty, Accompanied with tear, Shall meet the eye of traitor In country far from here, Grant that repentance solemn May seize upon his mind, And he no consolation Beneath the sun may find.

NOTE. -- This poem may have had, like many others, a personal origin. It is more than probable that it was sent to some friend travelling in Europe, a dainty reminder of letter-writing delinquencies.

XX.

SAt.u.r.dAY AFTERNOON.

From all the jails the boys and girls Ecstatically leap, -- Beloved, only afternoon That prison doesn't keep.

They storm the earth and stun the air, A mob of solid bliss.

Alas! that frowns could lie in wait For such a foe as this!

XXI.

Few get enough, -- enough is one; To that ethereal throng Have not each one of us the right To stealthily belong?

XXII.

Upon the gallows hung a wretch, Too sullied for the h.e.l.l To which the law ent.i.tled him.

As nature's curtain fell The one who bore him tottered in, For this was woman's son.

''T was all I had,' she stricken gasped; Oh, what a livid boon!

XXIII.