Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). An American Anthology, 1787–1900. 1900.

By EmilyDickinson

538 Time and Eternity

DELAYED till she had ceased to know,

Delayed till in its vest of snow

Her loving bosom lay:

An hour behind the fleeting breath,

Later by just an hour than death,—

Oh, lagging yesterday!

Could she have guessed that it would be;

Could but a crier of the glee

Have climbed the distant hill;

Had not the bliss so slow a pace,—

Who knows but this surrendered face

Were undefeated still?

Oh, if there may departing be

Any forgot by victory

In her imperial round,

Show them this meek apparelled thing,

That could not stop to be a king,

Doubtful if it be crowned!

I NEVER saw a moor,

I never saw the sea;

Yet know I how the heather looks,

And what a wave must be.

I never spoke with God,

Nor visited in heaven;

Yet certain am I of the spot

As if the chart were given.

THEY dropped like flakes, they dropped like stars,

Like petals from a rose,

When suddenly across the June

A wind with finger goes.

They perished in the seamless grass,—

No eye could find the place;

But God on his repealless list

Can summon every face.

SHE died,—this was the way she died;

And when her breath was done,

Took up her simple wardrobe

And started for the sun.

Her little figure at the gate

The angels must have spied,

Since I could never find her

Upon the mortal side.

THAT such have died enables us

The tranquiller to die;

That such have lived, certificate

For immortality.

I HAVE not told my garden yet,

Lest that should conquer me;

I have not quite the strength now

To break it to the bee.

I will not name it in the street,

For shops would stare, that I,

So shy, so very ignorant,

Should have the face to die.

The hillsides must not know it,

Where I have rambled so,

Nor tell the loving forests

The day that I shall go,

Nor lisp it at the table,

Nor heedless by the way

Hint that within the riddle

One will walk to-day!

ON this wondrous sea,

Sailing silently,

Ho! pilot, ho!

Knowest thou the shore

Where no breakers roar,

Where the storm is o’er?

In the silent west

Many sails at rest,

Their anchors fast;

Thither I pilot thee,—

Land, ho! Eternity!

Ashore at last!