American

Emily Dickinson

1830–1886

Poems (774)

1. Success is counted sweetest
2. Our share of night to bear
3. Soul, wilt thou toss again
4. 'T is so much joy! 'T is so much joy
5. Glee! The great storm is over
6. If I can stop one heart from breaking
7. Within my reach
8. A wounded deer leaps highest
9. The heart asks pleasure first
10. A precious, mouldering pleasure 't is
11. Much madness is divinest sense
12. I asked no other thing
13. The soul selects her own society
14. Some things that fly there be, --
15. I know some lonely houses off the road
16. To fight aloud is very brave
17. When night is almost done
18. Read, sweet, how others strove
19. Pain has an element of blank
20. I taste a liquor never brewed
21. He ate and drank the precious words
22. I had no time to hate, because
23. 'T was such a little, little boat
24. Whether my bark went down at sea
25. Belshazzar had a letter, --
26. The brain within its groove
27. Mine by the right of the white election
28. You left me, sweet, two legacies, --
29. Alter? When the hills do
30. Elysium is as far as to
31. Doubt me, my dim companion
32. If you were coming in the fall
33. I hide myself within my flower
34. That I did always love
35. Have you got a brook in your little heart
36. As if some little Arctic flower
37. My river runs to thee
38. I cannot live with you
39. There came a day at summer's full
40. I'm ceded, I've stopped being theirs
41. 'T was a long parting, but the time
42. I'm wife; I've finished that
43. She rose to his requirement, dropped
44. Come slowly, Eden
45. New feet within my garden go
46. Pink, small, and punctual
47. The murmur of a bee
48. Perhaps you'd like to buy a flower
49. The pedigree of honey
50. Some keep the Sabbath going to church
51. The bee is not afraid of me
52. Some rainbow coming from the fair
53. The grass so little has to do, --
54. A little road not made of man
55. A drop fell on the apple tree
56. A something in a summer's day
57. This is the land the sunset washes
58. There is a flower that bees prefer
59. Like trains of cars on tracks of plush
60. Presentiment is that long shadow on the lawn
61. As children bid the guest good-night
62. Angels in the early morning
63. So bashful when I spied her
64. It makes no difference abroad
65. The mountain sat upon the plain
66. I'll tell you how the sun rose, --
67. The butterfly's assumption-gown
68. Of all the sounds despatched abroad
69. Apparently with no surprise
70. 'T WAS later when the summer went
71. These are the days when birds come back
72. The morns are meeker than they were
73. The sky is low, the clouds are mean
74. I think the hemlock likes to stand
75. There's a certain slant of light
76. One dignity delays for all
77. Delayed till she had ceased to know
78. Departed to the judgment
79. Safe in their alabaster chambers
80. On this long storm the rainbow rose
81. My cocoon tightens, colors tease
82. Exultation is the going
83. Look back on time with kindly eyes
84. A train went through a burial gate
85. I died for beauty, but was scarce
86. "TROUBLED ABOUT MANY THINGS."
87. I like a look of agony
88. That short, potential stir
89. I went to thank her
90. I've seen a dying eye
91. The clouds their backs together laid
92. I never saw a moor
93. God permits industrious angels
94. To know just how he suffered would be dear
95. The last night that she lived
96. Not in this world to see his face
97. The bustle in a house
98. I reason, earth is short
99. Afraid? Of whom am I afraid
100. The sun kept setting, setting still
101. Two swimmers wrestled on the spar
102. Because I could not stop for Death
103. She went as quiet as the dew
104. At last to be identified
105. Except to heaven, she is nought
106. Death is a dialogue between
107. It was too late for man
108. When I was small, a woman died
109. The daisy follows soft the sun
110. No rack can torture me
111. I lost a world the other day
112. If I shouldn't be alive
113. Sleep is supposed to be
114. I shall know why, when time is over
115. I never lost as much but twice
116. I'm nobody! Who are you
117. I bring an unaccustomed wine
118. The nearest dream recedes, unrealized
119. We play at paste
120. I found the phrase to every thought
121. Hope is the thing with feathers
122. Dare you see a soul at the white heat
123. Who never lost, are unprepared
124. I can wade grief
125. I never hear the word "escape"
126. For each ecstatic instant
127. Through the straight pass of suffering
128. I meant to have but modest needs
129. The thought beneath so slight a film
130. The soul unto itself
131. Surgeons must be very careful
132. I like to see it lap the miles
133. The show is not the show
134. Delight becomes pictorial
135. A thought went up my mind to-day
136. Is Heaven a physician
137. Though I get home how late, how late
138. A poor torn heart, a tattered heart
139. I should have been too glad, I see
140. It tossed and tossed, --
141. Victory comes late
142. God gave a loaf to every bird
143. Experiment to me
144. My country need not change her gown
145. Faith is a fine invention
146. Except the heaven had come so near
147. Portraits are to daily faces
148. I took my power in my hand
149. A shady friend for torrid days
150. Each life converges to some centre
151. Before I got my eye put out
152. Talk with prudence to a beggar
153. He preached upon "breadth" till it argued him narrow, --
154. Good night! which put the candle out
155. When I hoped I feared
156. A deed knocks first at thought
157. Mine enemy is growing old, --
158. Remorse is memory awake
159. The body grows outside, --
160. Undue significance a starving man attaches
161. Heart not so heavy as mine
162. I many times thought peace had come
163. Unto my books so good to turn
164. This merit hath the worst, --
165. I had been hungry all the years
166. I gained it so
167. To learn the transport by the pain
168. I years had been from home
169. Prayer is the little implement
170. I know that he exists
171. Musicians wrestle everywhere
172. Just lost when I was saved
173. Of all the souls that stand create
174. I have no life but this
175. Your riches taught me poverty
176. I gave myself to him
177. "GOING to him! Happy letter! Tell him --
178. The way I read a letter 's this
179. Wild nights! Wild nights
180. The night was wide, and furnished scant
181. Did the harebell loose her girdle
182. A charm invests a face
183. The rose did caper on her cheek
184. In lands I never saw, they say
185. The moon is distant from the sea
186. He put the belt around my life, --
187. I held a jewel in my fingers
188. What if I say I shall not wait
189. Nature, the gentlest mother
190. Will there really be a morning
191. At half-past three a single bird
192. The day came slow, till five o'clock
193. The sun just touched the morning
194. The robin is the one
195. From cocoon forth a butterfly
196. Before you thought of spring
197. An altered look about the hills
198. "Whose are the little beds," I asked
199. Pigmy seraphs gone astray
200. To hear an oriole sing
201. One of the ones that Midas touched
202. I dreaded that first robin so
203. A route of evanescence
204. The skies can't keep their secret
205. Who robbed the woods
206. Two butterflies went out at noon
207. I started early, took my dog
208. Arcturus is his other name, --
209. An awful tempest mashed the air
210. An everywhere of silver
211. A bird came down the walk
212. A narrow fellow in the grass
213. The mushroom is the elf of plants
214. There came a wind like a bugle
215. A spider sewed at night
216. I know a place where summer strives
217. The one that could repeat the summer day
218. The wind tapped like a tired man
219. Nature rarer uses yellow
220. The leaves, like women, interchange
221. How happy is the little stone
222. It sounded as if the streets were running
223. The rat is the concisest tenant
224. Frequently the woods are pink
225. The wind begun to rock the grass
226. South winds jostle them
227. Where ships of purple gently toss
228. She sweeps with many-colored brooms
229. Like mighty footlights burned the red
230. Bring me the sunset in a cup
231. Blazing in gold and quenching in purple
232. Farther in summer than the birds
233. As imperceptibly as grief
234. It can't be summer, -- that got through
235. The gentian weaves her fringes
236. God made a little gentian
237. Besides the autumn poets sing
238. It sifts from leaden sieves
239. No brigadier throughout the year
240. Let down the bars, O Death
241. Going to heaven
242. At least to pray is left, is left
243. Step lightly on this narrow spot
244. Morns like these we parted
245. A death-blow is a life-blow to some
246. I read my sentence steadily
247. I have not told my garden yet
248. They dropped like flakes, they dropped like stars
249. The only ghost I ever saw
250. Some, too fragile for winter winds
251. As by the dead we love to sit
252. Death sets a thing significant
253. I went to heaven, --
254. Their height in heaven comforts not
255. There is a shame of nobleness
256. Triumph may be of several kinds
257. Pompless no life can pass away
258. I noticed people disappeared
259. I had no cause to be awake
260. If anybody's friend be dead
261. Our journey had advanced
262. Ample make this bed
263. On such a night, or such a night
264. Essential oils are wrung
265. I lived on dread; to those who know
266. If I should die
267. Her final summer was it
268. One need not be a chamber to be haunted
269. She died, -- this was the way she died
270. Wait till the majesty of Death
271. Went up a year this evening
272. Taken from men this morning
273. What inn is this
274. It was not death, for I stood up
275. I should not dare to leave my friend
276. Great streets of silence led away
277. A throe upon the features
278. Of tribulation these are they
279. I think just how my shape will rise
280. After a hundred years
281. Lay this laurel on the one
282. 'T is little I could care for pearls
283. Superiority to fate
284. Hope is a subtle glutton
285. Forbidden fruit a flavor has
286. Heaven is what I cannot reach
287. A word is dead
288. To venerate the simple days
289. It's such a little thing to weep
290. Drowning is not so pitiful
291. How still the bells in steeples stand
292. If the foolish call them 'flowers,'
293. Could mortal lip divine
294. My life closed twice before its close
295. We never know how high we are
296. While I was fearing it, it came
297. There is no frigate like a book
298. Who has not found the heaven below
299. A face devoid of love or grace
300. I had a guinea golden
301. From all the jails the boys and girls
302. Few get enough, -- enough is one
303. Upon the gallows hung a wretch
304. I felt a clearing in my mind
305. The reticent volcano keeps
306. If recollecting were forgetting
307. The farthest thunder that I heard
308. On the bleakness of my lot
309. A door just opened on a street --
310. Are friends delight or pain
311. Ashes denote that fire was
312. Fate slew him, but he did not drop
313. Finite to fail, but infinite to venture
314. I measure every grief I meet
315. I have a king who does not speak
316. It dropped so low in my regard
317. To lose one's faith surpasses
318. I had a daily bliss
319. I worked for chaff, and earning wheat
320. Life, and Death, and Giants
321. Our lives are Swiss, --
322. Remembrance has a rear and front, --
323. To hang our head ostensibly
324. The brain is wider than the sky
325. The bone that has no marrow
326. The past is such a curious creature
327. To help our bleaker parts
328. What soft, cherubic creatures
329. Who never wanted, -- maddest joy
330. It might be easier
331. You cannot put a fire out
332. A modest lot, a fame petite
333. Is bliss, then, such abyss
334. I stepped from plank to plank
335. One day is there of the series
336. Softened by Time's consummate plush
337. Proud of my broken heart since thou didst break it
338. My worthiness is all my doubt
339. Love is anterior to life
340. One blessing had I, than the rest
341. When roses cease to bloom, dear
342. Summer for thee grant I may be
343. Split the lark and you'll find the music
344. To lose thee, sweeter than to gain
345. Poor little heart
346. There is a word
347. I've got an arrow here
348. He fumbles at your spirit
349. Heart, we will forget him
350. Father, I bring thee not myself, --
351. We outgrow love like other things
352. Not with a club the heart is broken
353. My friend must be a bird
354. He touched me, so I live to know
355. Let me not mar that perfect dream
356. I live with him, I see his face
357. I envy seas whereon he rides
358. A solemn thing it was, I said
359. The springtime's pallid landscape
360. She slept beneath a tree
361. A light exists in spring
362. A lady red upon the hill
363. Dear March, come in
364. We like March, his shoes are purple
365. Not knowing when the dawn will come
366. A murmur in the trees to note
367. Morning is the place for dew
368. To my quick ear the leaves conferred
369. A sepal, petal, and a thorn
370. High from the earth I heard a bird
371. The spider as an artist
372. What mystery pervades a well
373. To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee, --
374. It's like the light, --
375. A dew sufficed itself
376. His bill an auger is
377. Sweet is the swamp with its secrets
378. Could I but ride indefinite
379. The moon was but a chin of gold
380. The bat is dun with wrinkled wings
381. You've seen balloons set, haven't you
382. The cricket sang
383. Drab habitation of whom
384. A sloop of amber slips away
385. Of bronze and blaze
386. How the old mountains drip with sunset
387. The murmuring of bees has ceased
388. This world is not conclusion
389. We learn in the retreating
390. They say that 'time assuages,' --
391. We cover thee, sweet face
392. That is solemn we have ended, --
393. The stimulus, beyond the grave
394. Given in marriage unto thee
395. That such have died enables us
396. They won't frown always, -- some sweet day
397. It is an honorable thought
398. The distance that the dead have gone
399. How dare the robins sing
400. Death is like the insect
401. 'T is sunrise, little maid, hast thou
402. Each that we lose takes part of us
403. Not any higher stands the grave
404. As far from pity as complaint
405. 'T is whiter than an Indian pipe
406. She laid her docile crescent down
407. Bless God, he went as soldiers
408. Immortal is an ample word
409. Where every bird is bold to go
410. The grave my little cottage is
411. This was in the white of the year
412. Sweet hours have perished here
413. Me! Come! My dazzled face
414. From us she wandered now a year
415. I wish I knew that woman's name
416. Bereaved of all, I went abroad
417. I felt a funeral in my brain
418. I meant to find her when I came
419. I sing to use the waiting
420. A sickness of this world it most occasions
421. Superfluous were the sun
422. So proud she was to die
423. Tie the strings to my life, my Lord
424. The dying need but little, dear, --
425. There's something quieter than sleep
426. The soul should always stand ajar
427. Three weeks passed since I had seen her, --
428. I breathed enough to learn the trick
429. I wonder if the sepulchre
430. If tolling bell I ask the cause
431. If I may have it when it's dead
432. Before the ice is in the pools
433. I heard a fly buzz when I died
434. Adrift! A little boat adrift
435. There's been a death in the opposite house
436. We never know we go, -- when we are going
437. It struck me every day
438. Water is taught by thirst
439. We thirst at first, -- 't is Nature's act
440. A clock stopped -- not the mantel's
441. All overgrown by cunning moss
442. A toad can die of light
443. Far from love the Heavenly Father
444. A long, long sleep, a famous sleep
445. 'T was just this time last year I died
446. On this wondrous sea
447. A Cemetery
448. "Till death" is narrow loving;
449. "Unto Me?"
450. 'Tis opposites entice,
451. 'Twas the old road
452. 'Twas warm at first like us,
453. A bird is of all beings
454. A feather from the whippoorwill
455. A fuzzy fellow without feet
456. A prison gets to be a friend;
457. A science—so the savants say,
458. A secret told
459. A still volcano—Life—
460. A wife at daybreak I shall be,
461. After great pain a formal feeling comes—
462. Ah, necromancy sweet!
463. All but Death can be
464. All forgot for recollecting
465. All the letters I can write
466. Although I put away his life,
467. And this of all my hopes—
468. As if the sea should part
469. At leisure is the Soul
470. Autumn overlooked my knitting;
471. Beauty is not caused,
472. Behind me dips Eternity,
473. By my window have I for scenery
474. Color, Caste, Denomination
475. Conjecturing a climate
476. Conscious am I in my chamber
477. Could I do more for thee
478. Defrauded I
479. Delight is as the flight,
480. Denial is the only fact
481. Don't put up my thread and needle,
482. Doom is the House Without the Door
483. Drama's vitalest expression
484. Empty my heart of thee—
485. Expectation is contentment;
486. Experience is the angled road
487. Faith is the pierless bridge
488. For every bird a nest,
489. Forever at his side to walk
490. Forever is composed of nows—
491. From blank to blank
492. Funny to be a Century
493. God is a distant, stately Lover,
494. Good morning, Midnight!
495. Growth of Man like growth
496. Had I presumed to hope.
497. Heaven has different signs to me;
498. Heaven is so far of the mind
499. How many flowers fail in wood,
500. How noteless men and
501. I'm the little "Hearts' Ease!"
502. I've known a Heaven like a tent
503. I've nothing else to bring, you know,
504. I am ashamed, I hide—
505. I came to buy a smile to-day
506. I cannot be ashamed
507. I cannot dance upon my toes,
508. I cautious scanned my little life,
509. I dwell in Possibility
510. I fear a man of scanty speech,
511. I got so I could hear his name
512. I had not minded walls
513. I know lives I could miss
514. I make his crescent fill or lack,
515. I never felt at home below,
516. I pay in satin cash—
517. I prayed at first—a little girl—
518. I reckon, when I count at all,
519. I rose because he sank.
520. I should not dare to be so sad
521. I tend my flowers for thee,
522. I tie my hat, I crease my shawl,
523. I took one draught of life,
524. If Nature smiles—the Mother must,
525. If he were living—dare I ask?
526. Inconceivably solemn,
527. It's coming—the postponeless Creature,
528. It's easy to invent a life,
529. It always felt to me a wrong
530. It ceased to hurt me, though
531. It feels a shame to be
532. It is dead. Find it—
533. It was a quiet way
534. It was not Saint,
535. It will be Summer eventually—
536. I'm sorry for the Dead to-day,
537. To disappear enhances;
538. Its hour with itself
539. Joy to have merited the pain
540. Just once! Oh, least request!
541. Life is what we make it,
542. Longing is like the seed
543. Love, thou art high,
544. Me from Myself to banish
545. Midsummer was it when they died,
546. Most she touched me
547. My faith is larger than the hills,
548. My life had stood a loaded gun
549. My period had come for prayer,
550. My portion is defeat to-day,
551. My soul accused me
552. No crowd that has occurred
553. Not any more to be lacked,
554. Not what we did shall be the test
555. Of course I prayed—
556. Of nearness to her sundered things
557. Oh, Shadow on the Grass!
558. On a columnar self
559. One Life of so much consequence
560. One and One are One,
561. Only a shrine
562. Out of sight? What of that?
563. Over and over, like a tune
564. Pain expands the time,
565. Publication is the auction
566. Rehearsal to ourselves
567. Renunciation is a piercing virtue,
568. Revolution is the pod
569. Savior! I've no one else to tell
570. She dealt her pretty
571. So the eyes accost and sunder
572. So well that I can live without—
573. Some say Good Night at night,
574. Some work for Immortality,
575. Strong draughts of their refreshing minds
576. Sunset at night is natural,
577. Suspense is hostiler than Death.
578. The Heart is the capital
579. The Robin's my criterion of tune
580. The Sun went down
581. The admirations and
582. The battle fought between the Soul
583. The child's faith is new,
584. The doomed regard the sunrise
585. The last of summer is delight
586. The lonesome for they know not what—
587. The love a life can show
588. The mountains grow unnoticed,
589. The only news I know
590. The popular Heart is a
591. The power to be true to you
592. The rainbow never tells me
593. The soul's distinct
594. The sunrise runs for Both,
595. The sweetest heresy received
596. The tint I cannot take is best,
597. The world feels dusty
598. The zeros taught us phosphorus,
599. There are two ripenings—
600. There is a languor of the life
601. There is a pain so utter
602. These are signs to Nature's inns,
603. These fair, fictitious people,
604. This was a Poet
605. Three times we parted,
606. Through the dark sod
607. To fill a gap—
608. To intercept his yellow plan
609. To make routine
610. To offer brave assistance,
611. Too much of proof affronts
612. We miss a kinsman more
613. We pray to Heaven,
614. We see comparatively.
615. We talked as girls do,
616. We—Bee and I—live
617. What I can do—I will,
618. What would I give to see
619. When I hoped, I recollect
620. When they come back,
621. Where Thou art—that is Home,
622. Who court obtain
623. Who giants know, with
624. Why do I love thee, Sir?
625. Why do they shut me
626. Why make it doubt—it hurts it so—
627. Within my garden rides a bird
628. You'll find it when you come to die
629. You see, I cannot see your lifetime,
630. You taught me waiting with myself
631. "Heavenly Father," take to thee
632. "Morning" means "Milking" to the Farmer
633. "Remember me" implored the Thief
634. "Sown in dishonor?"
635. 'Twas comfort in her dying room
636. A cap of lead across the sky
637. A little madness in the Spring
638. A little over Jordan
639. A prompt, executive Bird is the Jay
640. Adventure most unto itself
641. Ah Teneriffe! Retreating Mountain!
642. All I may, if small
643. All circumstances are the frame
644. Ambition cannot find him
645. Beauty crowds me till I die
646. Bloom upon the Mountain, stated
647. Candor, my tepid Friend
648. Crisis is sweet and, set the Heart
649. Distance is not the realm of Fox
650. Down Time's quaint stream
651. Dropped into the Ether Acre!
652. Dust is the only secret
653. Eden is that old fashioned House
654. Elijah's wagon knew no thill
655. Except the smaller size, no Lives are round
656. Exhilaration is the Breeze
657. Fame is a fickle food
658. Follow wise Orion
659. For Death,—or rather
660. Forever cherished be the tree
661. Glory is that bright tragic thing
662. Glowing is her Bonnet
663. Had this one day not been
664. Her "Last Poems"
665. Her Grace is all she has
666. His Cheek is his Biographer
667. His mind, of man a secret makes
668. How destitute is he
669. I'm thinking of that other morn
670. I bet with every Wind that blew
671. I can't tell you, but you feel it
672. I did not reach thee
673. I fit for them
674. I never told the buried gold
675. I see thee better in the dark
676. I send two Sunsets
677. I showed her heights she never saw
678. I think that the root of the Wind is Water
679. I watched her face to see which way
680. If I could tell how glad I was
681. If pain for peace prepares
682. If what we could were what we would
683. Immured in Heaven! What a Cell!
684. In Winter, in my room
685. Just so, Jesus raps—He does not weary
686. Lightly stepped a yellow star
687. Like Men and Women shadows walk
688. Like brooms of steel
689. Like some old fashioned miracle
690. Love reckons by itself alone
691. Low at my problem bending
692. March is the month of expectation
693. My Wheel is in the dark
694. Nature is what we see
695. No Autumn's intercepting chill
696. No matter where the Saints abide
697. No other can reduce
698. No romance sold unto
699. Not any sunny tone
700. Not one by Heaven defrauded stay
701. Not when we know
702. Of Death the sharpest function
703. Of so divine a loss
704. Of this is Day composed
705. On my volcano grows the grass
706. One Sister have I in our house
707. Papa above! Regard a Mouse
708. Perception of an Object costs
709. Peril as a possession
710. Reverse cannot befall that fine Prosperity
711. Safe Despair it is that raves
712. She died at play
713. So, from the mould
714. So gay a flower bereaved the mind
715. So set its sun in thee
716. Some Days retired from the rest
717. Speech is a symptom of affection
718. Summer begins to have the look
719. That Love is all there is
720. That she forgot me was the least
721. The Devil, had he fidelity
722. The Duties of the Wind are few
723. The Face we choose to miss
724. The Future never spoke
725. The Hills erect their purple heads
726. The Look of Thee, what is it like
727. The Moon upon her fluent route
728. The Ones that disappeared are back
729. The Sea said "Come" to the Brook
730. The Soul's superior instants
731. The Soul that hath a Guest
732. The Stars are old, that stood for me
733. The Winds drew off like hungry dogs
734. The blunder is to estimate
735. The butterfly obtains
736. The difference between despair
737. The feet of people walking home
738. The gleam of an heroic act
739. The healed Heart shows its shallow scar
740. The incidents of Love
741. The inundation of the Spring
742. The largest fire ever known
743. The long sigh of the Frog
744. The luxury to apprehend
745. The missing All prevented me
746. The overtakelessness of those
747. The props assist the house
748. The right to perish might be thought
749. The suburbs of a secret
750. The sweets of Pillage can be known
751. The treason of an accent
752. There is a solitude of space
753. There is another Loneliness
754. These are the days that Reindeer love
755. Those final Creatures,—who they are
756. To be alive is power
757. To love thee, year by year
758. To pile like Thunder to its close
759. To see her is a picture
760. To tell the beauty would decrease
761. To the staunch Dust we safe commit thee
762. To this apartment deep
763. Today or this noon
764. Too cold is this
765. Two lengths has every day
766. Volcanoes be in Sicily
767. We should not mind so small a flower
768. We spy the Forests and the Hills
769. When Etna basks and purrs
770. Who is it seeks my pillow nights?
771. Who were "the Father and the Son"
772. Witchcraft has not a pedigree
773. My nosegays are for captives
774. It's all I have to bring to-day

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