Poems by Emily Dickinson Part 45

A MAN.

Fate slew him, but he did not drop; She felled -- he did not fall -- Impaled him on her fiercest stakes -- He neutralized them all.

She stung him, sapped his firm advance, But, when her worst was done, And he, unmoved, regarded her, Acknowledged him a man.

x.x.xII.

VENTURES.

Finite to fail, but infinite to venture.

For the one s.h.i.+p that struts the sh.o.r.e Many's the gallant, overwhelmed creature Nodding in navies nevermore.

x.x.xIII.

GRIEFS.

I measure every grief I meet With a.n.a.lytic eyes; I wonder if it weighs like mine, Or has an easier size.

I wonder if they bore it long, Or did it just begin?

I could not tell the date of mine, It feels so old a pain.

I wonder if it hurts to live, And if they have to try, And whether, could they choose between, They would not rather die.

I wonder if when years have piled -- Some thousands -- on the cause Of early hurt, if such a lapse Could give them any pause;

Or would they go on aching still Through centuries above, Enlightened to a larger pain By contrast with the love.

The grieved are many, I am told; The reason deeper lies, -- Death is but one and comes but once, And only nails the eyes.

There's grief of want, and grief of cold, -- A sort they call 'despair;'

There's banishment from native eyes, In sight of native air.

And though I may not guess the kind Correctly, yet to me A piercing comfort it affords In pa.s.sing Calvary,

To note the fas.h.i.+ons of the cross, Of those that stand alone, Still fascinated to presume That some are like my own.

x.x.xIV.

I have a king who does not speak; So, wondering, thro' the hours meek I trudge the day away,-- Half glad when it is night and sleep, If, haply, thro' a dream to peep In parlors shut by day.

And if I do, when morning comes, It is as if a hundred drums Did round my pillow roll, And shouts fill all my childish sky, And bells keep saying 'victory'

From steeples in my soul!

And if I don't, the little Bird Within the Orchard is not heard, And I omit to pray, 'Father, thy will be done' to-day, For my will goes the other way, And it were perjury!

x.x.xV.

DISENCHANTMENT.

It dropped so low in my regard I heard it hit the ground, And go to pieces on the stones At bottom of my mind;

Yet blamed the fate that fractured, less Than I reviled myself For entertaining plated wares Upon my silver shelf.

x.x.xVI.

LOST FAITH.

To lose one's faith surpa.s.ses The loss of an estate, Because estates can be Replenished, -- faith cannot.

Inherited with life, Belief but once can be; Annihilate a single clause, And Being's beggary.

x.x.xVII.

LOST JOY.

I had a daily bliss I half indifferent viewed, Till sudden I perceived it stir, -- It grew as I pursued,

Till when, around a crag, It wasted from my sight, Enlarged beyond my utmost scope, I learned its sweetness right.

x.x.xVIII.