Emily Dickinson,Because I could not stop for Death

He kindly stopped for me

The Carriage held but just Ourselves

And Immortality

We slowly drove – He knew no haste

And I had put away

My labor and my leisure too

For His Civility

We passed the School, where Children strove

At Recess – in the Ring 

We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain

We passed the Setting Sun

Or rather – He passed u

The Dews drew quivering and chill

For only Gossamer, my Gown

We paused before a House that seemed

A Swelling of the Ground

The Roof was scarcely visible

The Cornice – in the Ground

Since then – ‘tis Centuries – and yet

Feels shorter than the Day

I first surmised the Horses’ Heads

Were toward Eternity

I leant upon a coppice gate

 When Frost was spectre-grey,

And Winter's dregs made desolate

The weakening eye of day

The tangled bine-stems scored the sky

  Like strings of broken lyres,

And all mankind that haunted nigh

Had sought their household fires.

The land's sharp features seemed to be

The Century's corpse outleant

His crypt the cloudy canopy,

The wind his death-lament.

The ancient pulse of germ and birth

Was shrunken hard and dry,

And every spirit upon earth

      Seemed fervourless as I.

At once a voice arose among

The bleak twigs overhead

In a full-hearted evensong

Of joy illimited;

An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small,

In blast-beruffled plume,

Had chosen thus to fling his soul

Upon the growing gloom.

So little cause for carolings

Of such ecstatic sound

Was written on terrestrial things

Afar or nigh around,

That I could think there trembled through

His happy good-night air

Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew

And I was unaware.

He sat in a wheeled chair, waiting for dark,

And shivered in his ghastly suit of grey,

Legless, sewn short at elbow. Through the park 

Voices of boys rang saddening like a hymn,

Voices of play and pleasure after day, 

Till gathering sleep had mothered them from him.

About this time Town used to swing so gay 

When glow-lamps budded in the light-blue trees, 

And girls glanced lovelier as the air grew dim,

In the old times, before he threw away his knees.

Now he will never feel again how slim 

Girls' waists are, or how warm their subtle hands,

All of them touch him like some queer disease. 

There was an artist silly for his face,

For it was younger than his youth, last year. 

Now, he is old; his back will never brace;

He's lost his colour very far from here,

Poured it down shell-holes till the veins ran dry,

And half his lifetime lapsed in the hot race 

And leap of purple spurted from his thigh.

One time he liked a blood-smear down his leg,

After the matches carried shoulder-high.

It was after football, when he'd drunk a peg,

He thought he'd better join. He wonders why.

Someone had said he'd look a god in kilts. 

That's why; and maybe, too, to please his Meg,

Aye, that was it, to please the giddy jilts, 

He asked to join. He didn't have to beg;

Smiling they wrote his lie: aged nineteen years.

Germans he scarcely thought of, all their guilt,

And Austria's, did not move him. And no fears 

Of Fear came yet. He thought of jewelled hilts

For daggers in plaid socks; of smart salutes; 

And care of arms; and leave; and pay arrears;

Esprit de corps; and hints for young recruits. 

And soon, he was drafted out with drums and cheers.

Only a solemn man who brought him fruits

Thanked him; and then inquired about his soul

Now, he will spend a few sick years in institutes,

And do what things the rules consider wise,

And take whatever pity they may dole.

Tonight he noticed how the women's eyes

Passed from him to the strong men that were whole.

How cold and late it is! Why don't they come 

And put him into bed? Why don't they come?

Turning and turning in the widening gyre 

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere 

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst  

Are full of passionate intensity

Surely some revelation is at hand;

Surely the Second Coming is at hand.  

The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out

When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi

Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert 

A shape with lion body and the head of a man, 

A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,

Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it

Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.

The darkness drops again; but now I know 

That twenty centuries of stony sleep

Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,

Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,

Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone, 

Silence the pianos and with muffled drum 

Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead

Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,

Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves, 

Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves. 

He was my North, my South, my East and West,

My working week and my Sunday rest, 

My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;

I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one; 

Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun; 

Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood; 

For nothing now can ever come to any good.

O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being, 

Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead 

Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing, 

Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red, 

Pestilence-stricken multitudes: O thou, 

Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed 

The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low, 

Each like a corpse within its grave, until 

Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow 

Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth, and fill 

(Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air) 

With living hues and odours plain and hill: 

Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere; 

Destroyer and preserver; hear, oh hear! 

Thou on whose stream, mid the steep sky's commotion, 

Loose clouds like earth's decaying leaves are shed, 

Shook from the tangled boughs of Heaven and Ocean, 

Angels of rain and lightning: there are spread 

On the blue surface of thine aëry surge, 

Like the bright hair uplifted from the head 

Of some fierce Maenad, even from the dim verge 

Of the horizon to the zenith's height, 

The locks of the approaching storm. Thou dirge 

Of the dying year, to which this closing night 

Will be the dome of a vast sepulchre, 

Vaulted with all thy congregated might 

Of vapours, from whose solid atmosphere 

Black rain, and fire, and hail will burst: oh hear! 

Thou who didst waken from his summer dreams 

The blue Mediterranean, where he lay, 

Lull'd by the coil of his crystalline streams,

Beside a pumice isle in Baiae's bay, 

And saw in sleep old palaces and towers 

Quivering within the wave's intenser day, 

All overgrown with azure moss and flowers 

So sweet, the sense faints picturing them! Thou 

For whose path the Atlantic's level powers 

Cleave themselves into chasms, while far below 

The sea-blooms and the oozy woods which wear 

The sapless foliage of the ocean, know 

Thy voice, and suddenly grow gray with fear, 

And tremble and despoil themselves: oh hear! 

If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear; 

If I were a swift cloud to fly with thee; 

A wave to pant beneath thy power, and share 

The impulse of thy strength, only less free 

Than thou, O uncontrollable! If even 

I were as in my boyhood, and could be 

The comrade of thy wanderings over Heaven, 

As then, when to outstrip thy skiey speed 

Scarce seem'd a vision; I would ne'er have striven 

As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need. 

Oh, lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud! 

I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed! 

A heavy weight of hours has chain'd and bow'd 

One too like thee: tameless, and swift, and proud. 

Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is: 

What if my leaves are falling like its own! 

The tumult of thy mighty harmonies 

Will take from both a deep, autumnal tone, 

Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit fierce, 

My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one! 

Drive my dead thoughts over the universe 

Like wither'd leaves to quicken a new birth! 

And, by the incantation of this verse, 

Scatter, as from an unextinguish'd hearth 

Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind! 

Be through my lips to unawaken'd earth 

The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind, 

If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?

My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains

My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,

Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains

One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:

'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,

But being too happy in thine happiness,—

That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees

In some melodious plot

Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,

Singest of summer in full-throated ease.

O, for a draught of vintage! that hath been

Cool'd a long age in the deep-delved earth,

Tasting of Flora and the country green,

Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth!

O for a beaker full of the warm South,

Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,

With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,

And purple-stained mouth;

That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,

And with thee fade away into the forest dim:

Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget

What thou among the leaves hast never known,

The weariness, the fever, and the fret

Here, where men sit and hear each other groan;

Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs,

Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies;

Where but to think is to be full of sorrow

And leaden-eyed despairs,

Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes,

Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow.

Away! away! for I will fly to thee,

Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards,

But on the viewless wings of Poesy,

Though the dull brain perplexes and retards:

Already with thee! tender is the night,

And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne,

Cluster'd around by all her starry Fays;

But here there is no light,

Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown

Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways.

I cannot see what flowers are at my feet,

Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs,

But, in embalmed darkness, guess each sweet

Wherewith the seasonable month endows

The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild;

White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine;

Fast fading violets cover'd up in leaves;

And mid-May's eldest child,

The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine,

The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves.

Darkling I listen; and, for many a time

I have been half in love with easeful Death,

Call'd him soft names in many a mused rhyme,

To take into the air my quiet breath;

Now more than ever seems it rich to die,

To cease upon the midnight with no pain,

While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad

In such an ecstasy!

Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain—

To thy high requiem become a sod.

Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!

No hungry generations tread thee down;

The voice I hear this passing night was heard

In ancient days by emperor and clown:

Perhaps the self-same song that found a path

Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,

She stood in tears amid the alien corn;

The same that oft-times hath

Charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam

Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.

Forlorn! the very word is like a bell

To toll me back from thee to my sole self!

Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well

As she is fam'd to do, deceiving elf.

Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades

Past the near meadows, over the still stream,

Up the hill-side; and now 'tis buried deep

In the next valley-glades:

Was it a vision, or a waking dream?

Fled is that music:—Do I wake or sleep?

Five years have past; five summers, with the length 

Of five long winters! and again I hear 

These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs 

With a soft inland murmur.—Once again 

Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs, 

That on a wild secluded scene impress 

Thoughts of more deep seclusion; and connect 

The landscape with the quiet of the sky. 

The day is come when I again repose 

Here, under this dark sycamore, and view 

These plots of cottage-ground, these orchard-tufts, 

Which at this season, with their unripe fruits, 

Are clad in one green hue, and lose themselves 

'Mid groves and copses. Once again I see 

These hedge-rows, hardly hedge-rows, little lines 

Of sportive wood run wild: these pastoral farms, 

Green to the very door; and wreaths of smoke 

Sent up, in silence, from among the trees! 

With some uncertain notice, as might seem 

Of vagrant dwellers in the houseless woods, 

Or of some Hermit's cave, where by his fire 

The Hermit sits alone. 

These beauteous forms, 

Through a long absence, have not been to me 

As is a landscape to a blind man's eye: 

But oft, in lonely rooms, and 'mid the din 

Of towns and cities, I have owed to them, 

In hours of weariness, sensations sweet, 

Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart; 

And passing even into my purer mind 

With tranquil restoration:—feelings too 

Of unremembered pleasure: such, perhaps, 

As have no slight or trivial influence 

On that best portion of a good man's life, 

His little, nameless, unremembered, acts 

Of kindness and of love. Nor less, I trust, 

To them I may have owed another gift, 

Of aspect more sublime; that blessed mood, 

In which the burthen of the mystery, 

In which the heavy and the weary weight 

Of all this unintelligible world, 

Is lightened:—that serene and blessed mood, 

In which the affections gently lead us on,— 

Until, the breath of this corporeal frame 

And even the motion of our human blood 

Almost suspended, we are laid asleep 

In body, and become a living soul: 

While with an eye made quiet by the power 

Of harmony, and the deep power of joy, 

We see into the life of things. 

         If this 

Be but a vain belief, yet, oh! how oft— 

In darkness and amid the many shapes 

Of joyless daylight; when the fretful stir 

Unprofitable, and the fever of the world, 

Have hung upon the beatings of my heart— 

How oft, in spirit, have I turned to thee, 

O sylvan Wye! thou wanderer thro' the woods, 

         How often has my spirit turned to thee! 

   And now, with gleams of half-extinguished thought, 

With many recognitions dim and faint, 

And somewhat of a sad perplexity, 

The picture of the mind revives again: 

While here I stand, not only with the sense 

Of present pleasure, but with pleasing thoughts 

That in this moment there is life and food 

For future years. And so I dare to hope, 

Though changed, no doubt, from what I was when first 

I came among these hills; when like a roe 

I bounded o'er the mountains, by the sides 

Of the deep rivers, and the lonely streams, 

Wherever nature led: more like a man 

Flying from something that he dreads, than one 

Who sought the thing he loved. For nature then 

(The coarser pleasures of my boyish days 

And their glad animal movements all gone by) 

To me was all in all.—I cannot paint 

What then I was. The sounding cataract 

Haunted me like a passion: the tall rock, 

The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood, 

Their colours and their forms, were then to me 

An appetite; a feeling and a love, 

That had no need of a remoter charm, 

By thought supplied, not any interest 

Unborrowed from the eye.—That time is past, 

And all its aching joys are now no more, 

And all its dizzy raptures. Not for this 

Faint I, nor mourn nor murmur; other gifts 

Have followed; for such loss, I would believe, 

Abundant recompense. For I have learned 

To look on nature, not as in the hour 

Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes 

The still sad music of humanity, 

Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power 

To chasten and subdue.—And I have felt 

A presence that disturbs me with the joy 

Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime 

Of something far more deeply interfused, 

Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, 

And the round ocean and the living air, 

And the blue sky, and in the mind of man: 

A motion and a spirit, that impels 

All thinking things, all objects of all thought, 

And rolls through all things. Therefore am I still 

A lover of the meadows and the woods 

And mountains; and of all that we behold 

From this green earth; of all the mighty world 

Of eye, and ear,—both what they half create, 

And what perceive; well pleased to recognise 

In nature and the language of the sense 

The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse, 

The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul 

Of all my moral being. 

Nor perchance, 

If I were not thus taught, should I the more 

Suffer my genial spirits to decay: 

For thou art with me here upon the banks 

Of this fair river; thou my dearest Friend, 

My dear, dear Friend; and in thy voice I catch 

The language of my former heart, and read 

My former pleasures in the shooting lights 

Of thy wild eyes. Oh! yet a little while 

May I behold in thee what I was once, 

My dear, dear Sister! and this prayer I make, 

Knowing that Nature never did betray 

The heart that loved her; 'tis her privilege, 

Through all the years of this our life, to lead 

From joy to joy: for she can so inform 

The mind that is within us, so impress 

With quietness and beauty, and so feed 

With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues, 

Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men, 

Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all 

The dreary intercourse of daily life, 

Shall e'er prevail against us, or disturb 

Our cheerful faith, that all which we behold 

Is full of blessings. Therefore let the moon 

Shine on thee in thy solitary walk; 

And let the misty mountain-winds be free 

To blow against thee: and, in after years, 

When these wild ecstasies shall be matured 

Into a sober pleasure; when thy mind 

Shall be a mansion for all lovely forms, 

Thy memory be as a dwelling-place 

For all sweet sounds and harmonies; oh! then, 

If solitude, or fear, or pain, or grief, 

Should be thy portion, with what healing thoughts 

Of tender joy wilt thou remember me, 

And these my exhortations! Nor, perchance— 

If I should be where I no more can hear 

Thy voice, nor catch from thy wild eyes these gleams 

Of past existence—wilt thou then forget 

That on the banks of this delightful stream 

We stood together; and that I, so long 

A worshipper of Nature, hither came 

Unwearied in that service: rather say 

With warmer love—oh! with far deeper zeal 

Of holier love. Nor wilt thou then forget, 

That after many wanderings, many years 

Of absence, these steep woods and lofty cliffs, 

And this green pastoral landscape, were to me 

More dear, both for themselves and for thy sake! 

The curfew tolls the knell of parting day, 

         The lowing herd wind slowly o'er the lea, 

The plowman homeward plods his weary way, 

         And leaves the world to darkness and to me. 

Now fades the glimm'ring landscape on the sight, 

         And all the air a solemn stillness holds, 

Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight, 

         And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds; 

Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tow'r 

         The moping owl does to the moon complain 

Of such, as wand'ring near her secret bow'r, 

         Molest her ancient solitary reign. 

Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade, 

         Where heaves the turf in many a mould'ring heap, 

Each in his narrow cell for ever laid, 

         The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep. 

Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield, 

         Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke; 

How jocund did they drive their team afield! 

         How bow'd the woods beneath their sturdy stroke! 

Let not Ambition mock their useful toil, 

         Their homely joys, and destiny obscure; 

Nor Grandeur hear with a disdainful smile 

         The short and simple annals of the poor. 

The boast of heraldry, the pomp of pow'r, 

         And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave, 

Awaits alike th' inevitable hour. 

         The paths of glory lead but to the grave. 

Nor you, ye proud, impute to these the fault, 

         If Mem'ry o'er their tomb no trophies raise, 

Where thro' the long-drawn aisle and fretted vault 

         The pealing anthem swells the note of praise. 

Can storied urn or animated bust 

         Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath? 

Can Honour's voice provoke the silent dust, 

         Or Flatt'ry soothe the dull cold ear of Death? 

Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid 

         Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire; 

Hands, that the rod of empire might have sway'd, 

         Or wak'd to ecstasy the living lyre. 

But Knowledge to their eyes her ample page 

         Rich with the spoils of time did ne'er unroll; 

Chill Penury repress'd their noble rage, 

         And froze the genial current of the soul. 

Full many a gem of purest ray serene, 

         The dark unfathom'd caves of ocean bear: 

Full many a flow'r is born to blush unseen, 

         And waste its sweetness on the desert air. 

Some village-Hampden, that with dauntless breast 

         The little tyrant of his fields withstood; 

Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest, 

         Some Cromwell guiltless of his country's blood. 

Th' applause of list'ning senates to command, 

         The threats of pain and ruin to despise, 

To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land, 

         And read their hist'ry in a nation's eyes, 

Their lot forbade: nor circumscrib'd alone 

         Their growing virtues, but their crimes confin'd; 

Forbade to wade through slaughter to a throne, 

         And shut the gates of mercy on mankind, 

The struggling pangs of conscious truth to hide, 

         To quench the blushes of ingenuous shame, 

Or heap the shrine of Luxury and Pride 

         With incense kindled at the Muse's flame. 

Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife, 

         Their sober wishes never learn'd to stray; 

Along the cool sequester'd vale of life 

         They kept the noiseless tenor of their way. 

Yet ev'n these bones from insult to protect, 

         Some frail memorial still erected nigh, 

With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture deck'd, 

         Implores the passing tribute of a sigh. 

Their name, their years, spelt by th' unletter'd muse, 

         The place of fame and elegy supply: 

And many a holy text around she strews, 

         That teach the rustic moralist to die. 

For who to dumb Forgetfulness a prey, 

         This pleasing anxious being e'er resign'd, 

Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day, 

         Nor cast one longing, ling'ring look behind? 

On some fond breast the parting soul relies, 

         Some pious drops the closing eye requires; 

Ev'n from the tomb the voice of Nature cries, 

         Ev'n in our ashes live their wonted fires. 

For thee, who mindful of th' unhonour'd Dead 

         Dost in these lines their artless tale relate; 

If chance, by lonely contemplation led, 

         Some kindred spirit shall inquire thy fate, 

Haply some hoary-headed swain may say, 

         "Oft have we seen him at the peep of dawn 

Brushing with hasty steps the dews away 

         To meet the sun upon the upland lawn. 

"There at the foot of yonder nodding beech 

         That wreathes its old fantastic roots so high, 

His listless length at noontide would he stretch, 

         And pore upon the brook that babbles by. 

"Hard by yon wood, now smiling as in scorn, 

         Mutt'ring his wayward fancies he would rove, 

Now drooping, woeful wan, like one forlorn, 

         Or craz'd with care, or cross'd in hopeless love. 

"One morn I miss'd him on the custom'd hill, 

         Along the heath and near his fav'rite tree; 

Another came; nor yet beside the rill, 

         Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood was he; 

"The next with dirges due in sad array 

         Slow thro' the church-way path we saw him borne. 

Approach and read (for thou canst read) the lay, 

         Grav'd on the stone beneath yon aged thorn." 

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

I love thee to the depth and breadth and height

My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight

For the ends of being and ideal grace.

I love thee to the level of every day’s

Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.

I love thee freely, as men strive for right.

I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.

I love thee with the passion put to use

In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.

I love thee with a love I seemed to lose

With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath,

Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose,

I shall but love thee better after death