Poems by Emily Dickinson, Series Two. Эмили Дикинсон

needle to the north degree

      Wades so, through polar air.

      XIII.

      A PRAYER

      I meant to have but modest needs,

      Such as content, and heaven;

      Within my income these could lie,

      And life and I keep even.

      But since the last included both,

      It would suffice my prayer

      But just for one to stipulate,

      And grace would grant the pair.

      And so, upon this wise I prayed, —

      Great Spirit, give to me

      A heaven not so large as yours,

      But large enough for me.

      A smile suffused Jehovah's face;

      The cherubim withdrew;

      Grave saints stole out to look at me,

      And showed their dimples, too.

      I left the place with all my might, —

      My prayer away I threw;

      The quiet ages picked it up,

      And Judgment twinkled, too,

      That one so honest be extant

      As take the tale for true

      That "Whatsoever you shall ask,

      Itself be given you."

      But I, grown shrewder, scan the skies

      With a suspicious air, —

      As children, swindled for the first,

      All swindlers be, infer.

      XIV

      The thought beneath so slight a film

      Is more distinctly seen, —

      As laces just reveal the surge,

      Or mists the Apennine.

      XV

      The soul unto itself

      Is an imperial friend, —

      Or the most agonizing spy

      An enemy could send.

      Secure against its own,

      No treason it can fear;

      Itself its sovereign, of itself

      The soul should stand in awe.

      XVI

      Surgeons must be very careful

      When they take the knife!

      Underneath their fine incisions

      Stirs the culprit, – Life!

      XVII.

      THE RAILWAY TRAIN

      I like to see it lap the miles,

      And lick the valleys up,

      And stop to feed itself at tanks;

      And then, prodigious, step

      Around a pile of mountains,

      And, supercilious, peer

      In shanties by the sides of roads;

      And then a quarry pare

      To fit its sides, and crawl between,

      Complaining all the while

      In horrid, hooting stanza;

      Then chase itself down hill

      And neigh like Boanerges;

      Then, punctual as a star,

      Stop – docile and omnipotent —

      At its own stable door.

      XVIII.

      THE SHOW

      The show is not the show,

      But they that go.

      Menagerie to me

      My neighbor be.

      Fair play —

      Both went to see.

      XIX

      Delight becomes pictorial

      When viewed through pain, —

      More fair, because impossible

      That any gain.

      The mountain at a given distance

      In amber lies;

      Approached, the amber flits a little, —

      And that 's the skies!

      XX

      A thought went up my mind to-day

      That I have had before,

      But did not finish, – some way back,

      I could not fix the year,

      Nor where it went, nor why it came

      The second time to me,

      Nor definitely what it was,

      Have I the art to say.

      But somewhere in my soul, I know

      I 've met the thing before;

      It just reminded me – 't was all —

      And came my way no more.

      XXI

      Is Heaven a physician?

         They say that He can heal;

      But medicine posthumous

         Is unavailable.

      Is Heaven an exchequer?

         They speak of what we owe;

      But that negotiation

         I 'm not a party to.

      XXII.

      THE RETURN

      Though I get home how late, how late!

      So I get home, 't will compensate.

      Better will be the ecstasy

      That they have done expecting me,

      When, night descending, dumb and dark,

      They hear my unexpected knock.

      Transporting must the moment be,

      Brewed from decades of agony!

      To think just how the fire will burn,

      Just how long-cheated eyes will turn

      To wonder what myself will say,

      And what itself will say to me,

      Beguiles the centuries of way!

      XXIII

      A poor torn heart, a tattered heart,

      That sat it down to rest,

      Nor noticed that the ebbing day

      Flowed silver to the west,

      Nor noticed night did soft descend

      Nor constellation burn,

      Intent upon the vision

      Of latitudes unknown.

      The angels, happening that way,

      This