The little toil of love

I had no time to Hate --

Because

The grave would hinder me --

And life was not so

Ample I

Could finish -- enmity --

Nor had I time to Love --

But since

Some industry must be --

The little toil of love --

I thought

Was large enough for me.

-- Emily Dickinson

The revery alone will do

To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee, --

One clover, and a bee,

And revery.

The revery alone will do,

If bees are few.

-- Emily Dickinson

I stepped from plank to plank

I stepped from plank to plank

    So slow and cautiously;

The stars about my head I felt,

    About my feet the sea.

I knew not but the next

    Would be my final inch, -

This gave me that precarious gait

    Some call experience.

- Emily Dickinson

And Life steps almost straight

We grow accustomed to the Dark --
When Light is put away --

As when the Neighbor holds the Lamp

To witness her Goodbye --

A Moment -- We uncertain step

For newness of the night --

Then -- fit our Vision to the Dark --

And meet the Road -- erect --

And so of larger -- Darkness --

Those Evenings of the Brain --

When not a Moon disclose a sign --

Or Star -- come out -- within --

The Bravest -- grope a little --

And sometimes hit a Tree

Directly in the Forehead --

But as they learn to see --

Either the Darkness alters --

Or something in the sight

Adjusts itself to Midnight --

And Life steps almost straight.

-- Emily Dickinson

The Poets light but Lamps

The Poets light but Lamps -
Themselves - go out -

The Wicks they stimulate -

If vital Light

Inhere as do the Suns - 

Each Age a Lens

Disseminating their

Circumference - 

- Emily Dickinson

We see - Comparatively -

We see - Comparatively -
The Thing so towering high

We could not grasp its segment

Unaided - Yesterday -

This Morning's finer Verdict -

Makes scarcely worth the toil -

A furrow - Our Cordillera - 

Our Apennine - a Knoll -

Perhaps 'tis kindly - done us -

The Anguish - and the loss -

The wrenching - for His Firmament 

The Thing belonged to us - 

To spare these Striding Spirits

Some Morning of Chagrin -

The waking in a Gnat's - embrace -

Our Giants - further on -

- Emily Dickinson

Grant me, Oh Lord, a sunny mind

Besides the Autumn poets sing
A few prosaic days

A little this side of the snow

And that side of the Haze -

A few incisive Mornings -

A few Ascetic Eves -

Gone - Mr. Bryant's "Golden Rod" -

And Mr. Thomson's "sheaves."

Still, is the bustle in the Brook -

Sealed are the spicy valves -

Mesmeric fingers softly touch

The Eyes of many Elves -

Perhaps a squirrel may remain -

My sentiments to share -

Grant me, Oh Lord, a sunny mind -

Thy windy will to bear!

- Emily Dickinson 

What mystery pervades a well

What mystery pervades a well!
That water lives so far -
A neighbour from another world

Residing in a jar.

Whose limit none has ever seen,

But just his lid of glass -

Like looking every time you please

In an abyss' face!

The grass does not appear afraid,

I often wonder he

Can stand so close and look so bold

At what is awe to me.

Related somehow they may be,

The sedge stands near the sea -

Where he is floorless

And does no timidity betray

But nature is a stranger yet:

The ones that cite her most

Have never passed her haunted house,

Nor simplified her ghost.

To pity those that know her not

Is helped by the regret

That those who know her, know her less

The nearer her they get.

- Emily Dickinson

There is another sky

There is another sky,
Ever serene and fair,
And there is another sunshine,
Though it be darkness there;
Never mind faded forests, Austin,
Never mind silent fields -
Here is a little forest,
whose leaf is ever green;
Here is a brighter garden,
Where not a forst has been;
In its unfading flowers
I hear the bright bee hum;
Prithee, my brother,
Into my garden come!