Emily Dickinson Belle of Amherst

Emily Dickinson – Belle of Amherst

This is my letter to the World,

That never wrote to Me —

The simple news that Nature told -

With tender Majesty

Her Message is committed

To Hands I cannot see;

For love of Her – Sweet - Countrymen,

Judge tenderly - of Me

Publication - is the Auction

Of the Mind of Man -

Poverty - be justifying

For so foul a thing

Possibly - but We - would rather

From Our Garret go

White - Unto the White Creator -

Than invest - Our Snow -

Thought belong to Him who gave it -

Then - to Him Who bear

Its Corporeal illustration - Sell

The Royal Air -

In the Parcel - Be the Merchant

Of the Heavenly Grace -

But reduce no Human Spirit

To Disgrace of Price -

Exultation is the going

Of an inland soul to sea,—

Past the houses – past the headlands -

Into deep Eternity

Bred as we, among the mountains,

Can the sailor understand

The divine intoxication

Of the first league out from land?

They shut me up in Prose -

As when a little Girl

They put me in the Closet -

Because they liked me "still" -

Still! Could themself have peeped -

And seen my Brain - go round -

They might as wise have lodged a Bird

For Treason - in the Pound -

Himself has but to will

And easy as a Star

Abolish his Captivity -

And laugh - No more have I -

Pain - has an element of blank -

It cannot recollect

When it begun - or if there were

A time when it was not -

It has no Future - but itself,

Its Infinite contain

Its past - enlightened to perceive

New Periods - of Pain.

There's a certain Slant of light,

Winter Afternoons -

That oppresses, like the Heft

Of Cathedral Tunes -

Heavenly Hurt, it gives us -

We can find no scar,

But internal difference,

Where the Meanings, are -

None may teach it - Any -

'Tis the Seal Despair -

An imperial affliction

Sent us of the Air -

When it comes, the Landscape listens -

Shadows - hold their breath -

When it goes, 'tis like the Distance

On the look of Death -

I never saw a Moor -

I never saw the Sea -

Yet know I how the Heather looks

And what a Billow be.

I never spoke with God

Nor visited in Heaven -

Yet certain am I of the spot

As if the Checks were given –

I felt a Funeral, in my Brain,

And Mourners to and fro

Kept treading - treading - till it seemed

That Sense was breaking through -

And when they all were seated,

A Service, like a Drum -

Kept beating - beating - till I thought

My Mind was going numb -

And then I heard them lift a Box

And creak across my Soul

With those same Boots of Lead, again,

Then Space - began to toll,

As all the Heavens were a Bell,

And Being, but an Ear,

And I, and Silence, some strange Race

Wrecked, solitary, here -

And then a Plank in Reason, broke,

And I dropped down, and down --

And hit a World, at every plunge,

And Finished knowing -- then --

I took my Power in my Hand -

And went against the World -

'Twas not so much as David - had -

But I - was twice as bold -

I aimed by Pebble - but Myself

Was all the one that fell -

Was it Goliath - was too large -

Or was myself - too small?

One need not be a Chamber - to be Haunted -

One need not be a House -

The Brain has Corridors - surpassing

Material Place -

Far safer, of a Midnight Meeting

External Ghost

Than its interior Confronting -

That Cooler Host.

Far safer, through an Abbey gallop,

The Stones a'chase -

Than Unarmed, one's a'self encounter -

In lonesome Place -

Ourself behind ourself, concealed -

Should startle most -

Assassin hid in our Apartment

Be Horror's least.

The Body - borrows a Revolver -

He bolts the Door -

O'erlooking a superior spectre -

Or More -

The Bustle in a House

The Morning after Death

Is solemnest of industries

Enacted upon Earth -

The Sweeping up the Heart

And putting Love away

We shall not want to use again

Until Eternity.

Most she touched me by her muteness -

Most she won me by the way

She presented her small figure -

Plea itself - for Charity -

Were a Crumb my whole possession -

Were there famine in the land -

Were it my resource from starving -

Could I such a plea withstand -

Not upon her knee to thank me

Sank this Beggar from the Sky -

But the Crumb partook - departed -

And returned On High -

I supposed - when sudden

Such a Praise began

'Twas as Space sat singing

To herself - and men -

'Twas the Winged Beggar -

Afterward I learned

To her Benefactor

Making Gratitude