Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series, Complete · Emily Dickinson
Chapter 24
Chapter 24 of 146 · 1 min read
THE WIND.
Of all the sounds despatched abroad, There's not a charge to me Like that old measure in the boughs, That phraseless melody
The wind does, working like a hand Whose fingers brush the sky, Then quiver down, with tufts of tune Permitted gods and me.
When winds go round and round in bands, And thrum upon the door, And birds take places overhead, To bear them orchestra,
I crave him grace, of summer boughs, If such an outcast be, He never heard that fleshless chant Rise solemn in the tree,
As if some caravan of sound On deserts, in the sky, Had broken rank, Then knit, and passed In seamless company.
XXV.
DEATH AND LIFE.
Apparently with no surprise To any happy flower, The frost beheads it at its play In accidental power. The blond assassin passes on, The sun proceeds unmoved To measure off another day For an approving God.
XXVI.
'T WAS later when the summer went Than when the cricket came, And yet we knew that gentle clock Meant nought but going home.
'T was sooner when the cricket went Than when the winter came, Yet that pathetic pendulum Keeps esoteric time.
