Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series, Complete · Emily Dickinson
Chapter 4
Chapter 30 of 146 · 2 min read
Safe in their alabaster chambers, Untouched by morning and untouched by noon, Sleep the meek members of the resurrection, Rafter of satin, and roof of stone.
Light laughs the breeze in her castle of sunshine; Babbles the bee in a stolid ear; Pipe the sweet birds in ignorant cadence, — Ah, what sagacity perished here!
Grand go the years in the crescent above them; Worlds scoop their arcs, and firmaments row, Diadems drop and Doges surrender, Soundless as dots on a disk of snow.
V.
On this long storm the rainbow rose, On this late morn the sun; The clouds, like listless elephants, Horizons straggled down.
The birds rose smiling in their nests, The gales indeed were done; Alas! how heedless were the eyes On whom the summer shone!
The quiet nonchalance of death No daybreak can bestir; The slow archangel's syllables Must awaken her.
VI.
FROM THE CHRYSALIS.
My cocoon tightens, colors tease, I'm feeling for the air; A dim capacity for wings Degrades the dress I wear.
A power of butterfly must be The aptitude to fly, Meadows of majesty concedes And easy sweeps of sky.
So I must baffle at the hint And cipher at the sign, And make much blunder, if at last I take the clew divine.
VII.
SETTING SAIL.
Exultation is the going Of an inland soul to sea, — Past the houses, past the headlands, Into deep eternity!
Bred as we, among the mountains, Can the sailor understand The divine intoxication Of the first league out from land?
VIII.
Look back on time with kindly eyes, He doubtless did his best; How softly sinks his trembling sun In human nature's west!
IX.
A train went through a burial gate, A bird broke forth and sang, And trilled, and quivered, and shook his throat Till all the churchyard rang;
And then adjusted his little notes, And bowed and sang again. Doubtless, he thought it meet of him To say good-by to men.
X.
I died for beauty, but was scarce Adjusted in the tomb, When one who died for truth was lain In an adjoining room.
He questioned softly why I failed? "For beauty," I replied. "And I for truth, — the two are one; We brethren are," he said.
And so, as kinsmen met a night, We talked between the rooms, Until the moss had reached our lips, And covered up our names.
