Emily Dickinson
Fascicle 25
c.1862

A precious – mouldering
pleasure – ’tis –
To meet an Antique Book –
In just the Dress his
Century wore –
A privilege – I think –

His venerable Hand to take –
And warming in our own –
A passage back – or two – to
make –
To Times when he – was young –

His quaint opinions – to inspect –
His thought to ascertain
On Themes concern our mutual
mind –
The Literature of Man –

What interested Scholars – most –
What Competitions ran –
When Plato – was a Certainty –
And Sophocles – a Man –

When Sappho – was a living
Girl –
And Beatrice wore
The Gown that Dante – deified –
Facts Centuries before

He traverses – familiar –
As One should come to Town –
And tell you all your Dreams –
were true –
He lived – where Dreams were born –

His presence is Enchantment –
You beg him not to go –
Old Volumes shake their
Vellum Heads
And tantalize – just so –

J 371
No.1

I tried to think a lonelier
Thing
Than any I had seen –
Some Polar Expiation – An
Omen in the Bone
Of Death's tremendous nearness –

I probed Retrieveless things
My Duplicate – to borrow –
A Haggard Comfort springs

From the belief that Somewhere –
Within the Clutch of Thought –
There dwells one other Creature
Of Heavenly Love – forgot –

I plucked at our Partition –
As One should pry the Walls –
Between Himself – and Horror’s
Twin –
Within Opposing Cells –

I almost strove to clasp
his Hand,
Such Luxury – it grew –
That as Myself – could pity
Him –
+Perhaps he – pitied me –

+ He – too – could pity me –

J 532
No.2

Two Butterflies went out at Noon –
And waltzed opon a Farm –
Then stepped straight through
the Firmament
And rested, on a Beam –

And then – together bore away
Opon a shining Sea –
Though never yet, in any Port –
Their coming, mentioned – be –

If spoken by the distant Bird –
If met in Ether Sea
By Frigate, or by Merchantman –
+No notice – was – to me –

Report was not – to me –

J 533
No.3

The Day came slow – till Five o'clock –
Then sprang before the Hills
Like Hindered Rubies – or the Light
A Sudden Musket – spills –

The Purple could not keep the East –
The Sunrise shook abroad
Like Breadths of Topaz – packed a
Night –
The Lady just unrolled –

The Happy Winds – their Timbrels took –
The Birds – in docile Rows
Arranged themselves around their Prince
The Wind – is Prince of Those –

The Orchard sparkled like a Jew –
How mighty ’twas – to be
A Guest in this stupendous place –
The Parlor – of the Day –

J 304
No.4

It was a quiet way –
He asked if I was His –
I made no answer of the
Tongue,
But answer of the Eyes –

And then he bore me on
Before this mortal noise
With Swiftness as of Chariots
And distance – as of Wheels –

This World did drop away
As Counties – from the feet
Of Him that leaneth in
Balloon –
Opon an Ether Street –

The Gulf behind – was not –
The Continents – were new –
Eternity – it was – before
Eternity was due –

No Seasons were – to us –
It was not Night – nor
Noon –

For Sunrise – stopped opon
the Place –
And fastened it – in Dawn.

J 1053
No.5

I know lives, I could miss
Without a Misery –
Others – whose instant’s wanting –
Would be Eternity –

The last – a scanty Number –
’Twould scarcely fill a Two –
The first – a Gnat’s Horizon
Could easily outgrow –

J 372
No.6

   I'm saying every day
“If I should be a Queen, tomorrow” –
I'd do this way –
And so I deck, a little,

If it be, I wake a Bourbon,
None on me, +bend supercilious –
With “This was she –
Begged in the Market place –
Yesterday”.

Court is a stately place –
I‘ve heard men say –
So I loop my apron, against
the Majesty
With bright Pins of Buttercup –
That not too plain –
Rank – overtake me –

And perch my Tongue
On Twigs of singing – rather high –
But this, might be my brief
Term
To qualify –

Put from my simple speech
all plain word –
Take other accents, as such
I heard
Though but for the Cricket –
just,
And but for the Bee –
Not in all the Meadow –
One accost me –

Better to be ready –
Than did next morn
Meet me in Aragon –
My old Gown – on –

And the surprised Air
Rustics – wear –
Summoned – unexpectedly –
To Exeter –

J 373
No.7

The difference between Despair
And Fear – is like the One
Between the instant of a Wreck –
And when the Wreck has
been –

The Mind is smooth – no
Motion –
Contented as the Eye
Opon the Forehead of a Bust –
That knows – it cannot see –

J 305
No.8

I went to Heaven –
’Twas a small Town –
Lit – with a Ruby –
Lathed – with Down –

Stiller – than the fields
At the full Dew –
Beautiful – as Pictures –
No Man drew –

People – like the Moth –
Of Mechlin – frames –
Duties – of Gossamer –
And Eider – names –
Almost – contented –
I – could be –
’Mong such unique
Society –

J 374
No.9

  The Angle of a Landscape –
That every time I wake –
Between my Curtain and
the Wall
Opon an ample Crack –

Like a Venetian – waiting –
Accosts my open eye –
Is just a Bough of Apples –
Held slanting, in the Sky –

The Pattern of a Chimney –
The Forehead of a Hill –
Sometimes – a Vane's
Forefinger –
But that’s – Occasional –

The Seasons – shift – my Picture –
Opon my Emerald Bough,
I wake – to find no – Emeralds –
Then – Diamonds – which the Snow

From Polar Caskets – fetched
me –
The Chimney – and the Hill –
And just the Steeple’s finger –
These – never stir at all –

J 375
No.10

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 –

J 683
No.11

We see – Comparatively –
The Thing so towering high
We could not grasp it’s
+segment
Unaided – Yesterday –

This Morning’s finer Verdict –
Makes scarcely worth the toil –
A furrow – Our Cordillera –
Our Apennine – a Knoll –

Perhaps ’tis kindly – done us –
The Anguish – and the loss –
The wrenching – for His Firmament
The Thing belonged to us –

To spare these +Striding Spirits
Some Morning of Chagrin –
The waking in a Gnat’s – embrace –
Our Giants – further on –

+ Angle  + shrinking – wincing natures –

J 534
No.12

Of Course – I prayed –
And did God Care?
He cared as much as
on the Air
A Bird – had stamped
her foot –
And cried “Give Me” –
My Reason – Life –
I had not had – but for
Yourself
’Twere better Charity
To leave me in the Atom’s
Tomb –
Merry, and Nought, and gay,
and numb –
Than this smart Misery.

J 376
No.13

I'm sorry for the Dead – Today –
It’s such congenial +times
Old Neighbors have at fences –
It’s time o’ year for Hay,

And Broad – Sunburned Ac-
quaintance
Discourse between the Toil –
And laugh, a homely species
That makes the Fences smile –

It seems so straight to lie
away
From all of the +noise of Fields –
The Busy Carts – the fragrant
Cocks –
The Mower’s Metre – Steals

A Trouble lest theyre homesick –
Those Farmers – and their Wives –
+Set separate from the Farming –
And all the Neighbor’s lives –

A Wonder if the Sepulchre
Don't feel a lonesome way –
When Men – and Boys – and
+Carts – and June,
Go down the Fields to “Hay” –

+ Way + Sound + Put quiet –
+ Larks –

J 529
No.14

+You cannot put a Fire out –
A Thing that can ignite
Can go, itself, without a Fan –
Upon the slowest Night –

You cannot fold a Flood –
And put it in a Drawer –
Because the Winds would find it out –
And tell your Cedar Floor –

+ No man

J 530
No.15

   +We dream – it is good
+we are dreaming –
It +would hurt us – were
we awake –
But since+ it is playing – kill
us,
And we are playing – shriek –

What harm? Men die – exter-
nally –
It is a+ truth – of Blood –
But we – are dying in Drama –
And Drama – is+ never dead –

Cautious – We jar each other –
And either – open +the eyes –
Lest the Phantasm – prove+ the
Mistake – just –
And the livid Surprise

Cool us to Shafts of Granite –
With just an Age – and Name –
And perhaps+ a phrase in
Egyptian –
It's prudenter – to dream –

+ We are dreaming + should –
+ They + Fact + Seldom –
+ it’s + latin inscription –

J 531
No.16

If ever the lid gets off my head
And lets the brain away
The fellow will go where he belonged –
Without a hint from me,

And the world – if the world be looking on –
Will see how far from home
It is possible for sense to live
The soul there – all the time.

J 1727
No.17

Some say goodnight – at night –
I say goodnight by day –
Good-bye – the Going utter me –
Goodnight, I still reply –

For parting, that is night,
And presence, simply dawn –
Itself, the purple on the height
Denominated morn.

J 1739
No.18

She’s happy, with a new
Content –
That feels to her – like
Sacrament –
She’s busy – with an altered
Care –
As just apprenticed to the
Air –

She’s tearful – if she weep
at all –
For blissful Causes – Most of
all
That Heaven permit so +meek
as her –
To such a Fate – to
Minister –

+ faint

J 535
No.19

The Heart asks +Pleasure –
first –
And then – Excuse from Pain –
And then – those little
Anodynes
That deaden suffering –

And then – to go to sleep –
And then – if it should
be
The will of its Inquisitor
The +privilege to die –

+ Blessing + liberty + luxury .

J 536
No.20