The Poetry of Emily Dickinson

So unsuspected violets
Within the fields lie low,
Too late for striving fingers
That passed, an hour ago.

If I can stop one heart from breaking,
I shall not live in vain;
If I can ease one life the aching,
Or cool one pain,
Or help one fainting robin
Unto his nest again,
I shall not live in vain.

DAWN.

When night is almost done,
And sunrise grows so near
That we can touch the spaces,
It 's time to smooth the hair

And get the dimples ready,
And wonder we could care
For that old faded midnight
That frightened but an hour.

If I can stop one heart from breaking,
I shall not live in vain;
If I can ease one life the aching,
Or cool one pain,
Or help one fainting robin
Unto his nest again,
I shall not live in vain.

The soul selects her own society,
Then shuts the door;

No rack can torture me,
My soul's at liberty
Behind this mortal bone
There knits a bolder one

I like a look of agony,
Because I know it 's true;
Men do not sham convulsion,
Nor simulate a throe.

APOTHEOSIS.

Come slowly, Eden!
Lips unused to thee,
Bashful, sip thy jasmines,
As the fainting bee,

Reaching late his flower,
Round her chamber hums,
Counts his nectars — enters,
And is lost in balms!

You left me boundaries of pain
Capacious as the sea,
Between eternity and time,
Your consciousness and me.

Soul, wilt thou toss again?
By just such a hazard
Hundreds have lost, indeed,
But tens have won an all.

Angels' breathless ballot
Lingers to record thee;
Imps in eager caucus
Raffle for my soul