Emily Dickinson

I heard a Fly buzz – when I died – The Stillness in the Room Was like the Stillness in the Air – Between the Heaves of Storm –

The Soul selects her own Society – Then – shuts the Door – To her divine Majority – Present no more –

Because I could not stop for Death – He kindly stopped for me – The Carriage held but just Ourselves – And Immortality.

Much Madness is divinest Sense – To a discerning Eye – Much Sense – the starkest Madness – 'Tis the Majority In this, as all, prevail – Assent – and you are sane – Demur – you're straightway dangerous – And handled with a Chain –

The Brain – is wider than the Sky – For – put them side by side – The one the other will contain With ease – and You – beside –

Publication – is the Auction Of the Mind of Man – Poverty – be justifying For so foul a thing

The only News I know Is Bulletins all Day From Immortality.

This is my letter to the World That never wrote to Me – The simple News that Nature told – With tender Majesty

How dreary – to be – Somebody! How public – like a Frog – To tell your name – the livelong June – To an admiring Bog!

I'm Nobody! Who are you? Are you – Nobody – too? Then there's a pair of us – don't tell! They'd banish us, you know.

The last of Summer is Delight – So exquisite – so rare – A minute – and it has Breathed itself – And what has been – is not –

A narrow Fellow in the Grass Occasionally rides – You may have met him – did you not His notice sudden is –

The Truth must dazzle gradually Or every man be blind –

To comprehend a Heaven – As ample as the Sun – Its spacious Circuits – to discern – As easy as a Child –

The Heart asks Pleasure – first – And then – Excuse from Pain – And then – the little Toil of Love – And then – an eager Vain –

Hope is the thing with feathers – That perches in the soul – And sings the tune without the words – And never stops – at all –

I measure every Grief I meet With narrow, probing, eyes – I wonder if It weighs like Mine – Or has an easier size.

The only Ghost I ever saw Was dressed in Mechlin lace – She stood there in the room alone I spoke to her of grace –

The Sea said 'Come' to the Brook – The Brook said 'No' to the Sea –

Nature – is what we see – The Hill – the Afternoon – Squirrel – Eclipse – the Bumble bee – Nay – Nature is what we hear – The Bobolink – the Sea – Thunder – the Cricket – Nay – Nature is what we know – Yet have no art to say – So impotent Our Wisdom is To her Sincerity.