12-10-12 Happy Birthday Emily

A few favorite Dickinson poems, on her birthday.

I've heard an Organ talk, sometimes
In a Cathedral Aisle,
And understood no word it said --
Yet held my breath, the while --

And risen up -- and gone away,
A more Bernardine Girl --
Yet -- know now what was done to me
In that old Chapel Aisle.

How happy is the little stone
That rambles in the road alone,
And doesn't care about careers
And exigencies never fears --
Whose cost of elemental brown
A passing universe put on,
And independent as the sun
Associates or glows alone,
Fulfilling absolute decree
In casual simplicity --

The Red -- Blaze -- is the Morning --
The Violet -- is Noon --
The Yellow -- Day -- is failling --
And after that -- is none --

But Miles of Sparks -- at Evening --
Reveal the Width that burned --
The Territory Argent -- that
Never yet -- consumed --

We never know how high we are
Till we are asked to rise
And then if we are true to plan
Our statures touch the skies --

The Heroism we recite
Would be a normal thing
Did not ourselves the Cubits warp
For fear to be a King --

After a hundred years
Nobody know 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.

Long Years apart -- can make no
Breach a second cannot fill --
The absence of the Witch does not
Invalidate the spell --
The embers of a Thousand Years
Uncovered by the Hand
That fondled them when they were Fire
Will stir and understand --

It's all I have to bring today --
This, and my heart beside --
This, and my heart, and all the fields --
And all the meadow 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.