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Emily Dickinson
It sounded as if the Streets were running
And then -- the Streets stood still --
Eclipse -- was all we could see at the Window
And Awe -- was all we could feel.
By and by -- the boldest stole out of his Covert
To see if Time was there --
Nature was in an Opal Apron,
Mixing fresher Air.
Growth of Man -- like Growth of Nature --
Gravitates within --
Atmosphere, and Sun endorse it --
Bit it stir -- alone --
Each -- its difficult Ideal
Must achieve -- Itself --
Through the solitary prowess
Of a Silent Life --
Effort -- is the sole condition --
Patience of Itself --
Patience of opposing forces --
And intact Belief --
Looking on -- is the Department
Of its Audience --
But Transaction -- is assisted
By no Countenance --
Nature -- the Gentlest Mother is,
Impatient of no Child --
The feeblest -- or the waywardest --
Her Admonition mild --
In Forest -- and the Hill --
By Traveller -- be heard --
Restraining Rampant Squirrel --
Or too impetuous Bird --
How fair Her Conversation --
A Summer Afternoon --
Her Household -- Her Assembly --
And when the Sun go down --
Her Voice among the Aisles
Incite the timid prayer
Of the minutest Cricket --
The most unworthy Flower --
Believe me, this was true last night,
Tho' it is false to-day.
-- A.M.F. Robinson.
A fair dream to my chamber flew:
Such a crowd of folk that stirred,
Jested, fluttered; only you,
You alone of all that band,
Calm and silent, spake no word.
Only once you neared my place,
And your hand one moment's space
Sought the fingers of my hand;
Your eyes flashed to mine; I knew
All was well between us two.
On from dream to dream I past,
But the first sweet vision cast
Mystic radiance o'er the last.
Take a hold now
On the silver handles here,
Six silver handles,
One for each of his old pals.
Take hold
And lift him down the stairs.
Put him on the rollers
Over the floor of the hearse.
Take him on the last haul,
To the cold straight house.
The level even house,
To the last house of all.
The dead say nothing
And the dead know much
And the dead hold under their tongues
A locked-up story.
A languid atmosphere, a lazy breeze,
With labored respiration, moves the wheat
From distant reaches, till the golden seas
Break in crisp whispers at my feet.
My book, neglected of an idle mind,
Hides for a moment from the eyes of men;
Or lightly opened by a critic wind,
Affrightedly reviews itself again.
Off through the haze that dances in the shine
The warm sun showers in the open glade,
The forest lies, a silhouette design
Dimmed through and through with shade.
A dreamy day; and tranquilly I lie
At anchor from all storms of mental strain;
With absent vision, gazing at the sky,
"Like one that hears it rain."
THE new moon hangs like an ivory bugle
In the naked frosty blue;
And the ghylls of the forest, already blackened
By Winter, are blackened anew.
The brooks that cut up and increase the forest,
As if they had never known
The sun, are roaring with black hollow voices
Betwixt rage and a moan.
But still the caravan-hut by the hollies
Like a kingfisher gleams between:
Round the mossed old hearths of the charcoal-burners
First primroses ask to be seen.
The charcoal-burners are black, but their linen
Blows white on the line;
And white the letter the girl is reading
Under that crescent fine;
IT seems I have no tears left. They should have fallen--
Their ghosts, if tears have ghosts, did fall--that day
When twenty hounds streamed by me, not yet combed
out
But still all equals in their rage of gladness
Upon the scent, made one, like a great dragon
In Blooming Meadow that bends towards the sun
And once bore hops: and on that other day
When I stepped out from the double-shadowed Tower
Into an April morning, stirring and sweet
And warm. Strange solitude was there and silence.
A mightier charm than any in the Tower
Possessed the courtyard. They were changing guard
Soldiers in line, young English countrymen,
Fair-haired and ruddy, in white tunics. Drums
OUT in the dark over the snow
The fallow fawns invisible go
With the fallow doe;
And the winds blow
Fast as the stars are slow.
Stealthily the dark haunts round
And, when a lamp goes, without sound
At a swifter bound
Than the swiftest hound,
Arrives, and all else is drowned;
And I and star and wind and deer,
Are in the dark together,--near,
Yet far,--and fear
Drums on my ear
In that sage company drear.
How weak and little is the light,
The silence of unlaboured fields
Lies like a judgment on the air:
A human voice is never heard:
The sighing grass is everywhere--
The sighing grass, the shadowed sky,
The cattle crying wearily!
Where are the lowland people gone?
Where are the sun-dark faces now?
The love that kept the quiet hearth,
The strength that held the speeding plough?
Grasslands and lowing herds are good,
But better human flesh and blood!
Clear from the deep sky pours the moon
Her silver on the heavy dark;
The small stars blink.
Against the moon the maple bough
Flutters distinct her leafy spears;
All sound falls weak....
Weak the train's whistle, the dog's bark,
Slow steps; and rustling into her nest
At last, the thrush.
All's still; only earth turns and breathes.
Then that amazing trembling note
Cleaves the deep wave
Of silence. Shivers even that silvery one;
Sigh all the trees, even the cedar dark
----O joy, and I.
A LITTLE brown room in a sea of fields.
Fields pink as rose-mallows
Under a fading rose-mallow sky.
Four candles on a tall iron candlestick.
Clustered like altar lights.
Above, the models of four brown Chinese junks
Sailing round the brown walls.
Silent and motionless.
The quick cut of a vibrating string.
Another, and another.
Biting into the silence.
Notes pierce, sharper and sharper ;
They draw up in a freshness of sound.
Higher — higher, to the whiteness of intolerable beauty.
They are jagged and clear.
Like snow peaks against the sky ;