Collected Poems of Emily Dickinson (Barnes & Noble Classics Series)

PAIN has an element of blank;

It cannot recollect

When it began, or if there were

A day when it was not.

It has no future but itself,

Its infinite realms contain

Its past, enlightened to perceive

New periods of pain

That Love is all there is,

Is all we know of Love.

If I can stop one heart from breaking,

I shall not live in vain.

You try to touch the smile,

And dip your fingers in the frost:

When was it, can you tell,

As by the dead we love to sit,

Become so wondrous dear,

As for the lost we grapple,

Though all the rest are here,—

In broken mathematics

We estimate our prize,

Vast, in its fading ratio,

To our penurious eyes!

Angels, twice descending,

Reimbursed my store.

Burglar, banker, father,

I am poor once more!

BECAUSE I could not stop for Death,

He kindly stopped for me;

The carriage held but just ourselves

And Immortality.

My feet kept drowsing, drowsing still,

My fingers were awake;

Yet why so little sound myself

Unto my seeming make?

AFRAID? Of whom am I afraid?

Not death; for who is he?

The porter of my father’s lodge

As much abasheth188 me.

Of life? ’T were odd I fear a thing

That comprehendeth189 me

In one or more existences

At Deity’s decree.

Of resurrection? Is the east

Afraid to trust the morn

With her fastidious forehead?

As soon impeach my crown!

THE bustle in a house

The morning after death