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.Back to the Top!!
A word is dead When it is said, Some say. I say it just Begins to live That day.Back to the Top!!
We never know how high we are Till we are called to rise; And then, if we are true to plan, Our statures touch the skies. The heroism we recite Would be a daily thing, Did not ourselves the cubits warp For fear to be king.Back to the Top!!
I felt a clearing in my mind As if my brain had split; I tried to match it, seam by seam, But could not make them fit. The thought behind I strove to join Unto the thought before, But sequence ravelled out of reach Like balls upon the floor.Back to the Top!!
Who has not found the heaven below Will fail of it above. God's residence is next to mind, His furniture love.Back to the Top!!
Surgeons must be very careful When they take the knife! Underneath their fine incisions Stirs the Culprit,--Life!Back to the Top!!
This is my letter to the world, That never wrote to me,-- The simple news that Nature told, With tender majesty. Her message is committed To hands I cannot see; For love of her, sweet countrymen, Judge terderly of me!Back to the Top!!
Love is anterior to life, Posterior to death, Initial of creation, and The exponent of breath.Back to the Top!!
It's all I have to bring to-day, This, and my heart beside, This, and my heart, and all the fields, And all the meadows wide. Be sure you count, should I forget,-- Some one the sum could tell,-- This, and my heart, and all the bees Which in the clover dwell.Back to the Top!!
Where ships of purple gently toss On seas of daffodil, Fantastic sailors mingle, And then--the wharf is still.Back to the Top!!
How happy is the little stone That rambles in the road alone, And doesn't care about careers, And exigencies never fears; Whose coat of elemental brown A passing universe put on; And independent as the sun, Associates or glows alone, Fulfilling absolute decree In casual simplicity.Back to the Top!!
My nosegays are for captives; Dim, long-expectant eyes, Fingers denied the plucking, Patient till paradise. To such, if they should whisper Of morning and the moor, They bear no other errand, And I, no other prayer.Back to the Top!!
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 Us-- The Dews drew quivering and chill-- For only Gossamer, my Gown-- My Tippet--only Tulle-- 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--Back to the Top!!
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.Back to the Top!!
After a hundred years Nobody knows the place,-- Agony that enacted there, Motionless as peace. Weeds triumphant ranged, Strangers strolled and spelled At the lone orthography Of the elder dead. Winds of summer fields Recollect the way,-- Instinct picking up the key Dropped by memory.Back to the Top!!
From us she wandered now a year, Her tarrying unkown; If wilderness prevent her feet, Or that ethereal zone No eye hath seen and lived, We ignorant must be. We only know what time of year We took the mystery.Back to the Top!!
Look back on time with kindly eyes, He doubtless did his best; How softly sinks his trembling sun In human nature's west!Back to the Top!!
Tie the strings to my life, my Lord, Then I am ready to go! Just a look at the horses-- Rapid! That will do! Put me in on the firmest side, So I shall never fall; For we must ride to the Judgement, And it's partly down hill. But never I mind the bridges, And never I mind the sea; Held fast in everlasting race By my own choice and thee. Good-bye to the life I used to live, And the world I used to know; And kiss the hills for me, just once; Now I am ready to go!Back to the Top!!
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. How dreary to be somebody! How public, like a frog To tell your name the livelong day To an admiring bog!Back to the Top!!
I have not told my garden yet, Lest that should conquer me; I have not quite the strength now To break it to the bee. I will not name it in the street, For shops would stare, that I, So shy, so very ignorant, Should have the face to die. The hillsides must not know it, Where I have rambled so, Nor tell the loving forests The day that I shall go, Nor lisp it at the table, Nor heedless by the way Hint that within the riddle One will walk to-day!Back to the Top!!
The distance that the dead have gone Does not at first appear;' Their coming back seems possible For many an ardent year.'' And then, that we have followed them We more than half suspect, So intimate have we become With their dear retrospect.Back to the Top!!
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