(29) DOWN Time’s quaint stream Without an oar, We are enforced to sail, Our Port—a secret— Our Perchance—a gale. What Skipper would Incur the risk, What Buccaneer would ride, Without a surety from the wind Or schedule of the tide?
-Emily Dickinson
OF Death the sharpest function
(28) OF Death the sharpest function, That, just as we discern, The Excellence defies us; Securest gathered then The fruit perverse to plucking, But leaning to the sight With the ecstatic limit Of unobtained Delight.
-Emily Dickinson
THE gleam of an heroic act
(27) THE gleam of an heroic act, Such strange illumination— The Possible’s slow fuse is lit By the Imagination!
-Emily Dickinson
THE props assist the house
(26) THE props assist the house Until the house is built, And then the props withdraw— And adequate, erect, The house supports itself; Ceasing to recollect The auger and the carpenter. Just such a retrospect Hath the perfected life, A past of plank and nail, And slowness,—then the scaffolds drop— Affirming it a soul.
-Emily Dickinson
THERE is a solitude of space
(25) THERE is a solitude of space, A solitude of sea, A solitude of death, but these Society shall be, Compared with that profounder site, That polar privacy, A Soul admitted to Itself: Finite Infinity.
-Emily Dickinson
THE difference between despair
(24) THE difference between despair And fear, is like the one Between the instant of a wreck, And when the wreck has been. The mind is smooth,—no motion— Contented as the eye Upon the forehead of a Bust, That knows it cannot see.
-Emily Dickinson
THE suburbs of a secret
(23) THE suburbs of a secret A strategist should keep, Better than on a dream intrude To scrutinize the sleep.
-Emily Dickinson
HIS mind, of man a secret makes
(22) HIS mind, of man a secret makes, I meet him with a start, He carries a circumference In which I have no part, Or even if I deem I do— He otherwise may know. Impregnable to inquest, However neighborly.
-Emily Dickinson
THE missing All prevented me
(21) THE missing All prevented me From missing minor things. If nothing larger than a World’s Departure from a hinge, Or Sun’s extinction be observed, ’T was not so large that I Could lift my forehead from my work For curiosity.
-Emily Dickinson
GLORY is that bright tragic thing
(20) GLORY is that bright tragic thing, That for an instant Means Dominion, Warms some poor name That never felt the sun, Gently replacing In oblivion.
-Emily Dickinson