The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson

Can human nature not survive
Without a listener?

I ‘m glad I don’t believe it,
For it would stop my breath

Why joys so scantily disburse,
Why Paradise defer,
Why floods are served to us in bowls,
— I speculate no more.

A word is dead
When it is said,
Some say.
I say it just
Begins to live
That day.

I never hear the word “escape”
Without a quicker blood,
A sudden expectation,
A flying attitude.

I lost a world the other day.
Has anybody found?

The lightning that preceded it
Struck no one but myself,
But I would not exchange the bolt
For all the rest of life.

But no man moved me till the tide
Went past my simple shoe,
And past my apron and my belt,
And past my bodice too

The grass so little has to do, —
A sphere of simple green,
With only butterflies to brood,
And bees to entertain,
And stir all day to pretty tunes
The breezes fetch along,
And hold the sunshine in its lap
And bow to everything;

So we must keep apart,
You there, I here,
With just the door ajar
That oceans are,
And prayer,
And that pale sustenance,
Despair!