Jun 21 2008
Funeral Poems
Asleep
As far from pity as complaint,
As cool to speech as stone,
As numb to revelation
As if my trade were bone.
As far from time as history,
As near yourself to-day
As children to the rainbow’s scarf,
Or sunset’s yellow play
To eyelids in the sepulchre.
How still the dancer lies,
While color’s revelations break,
And blaze the butterflies!
Emily Dickinson,
(1830 – 1886)
Because I could not stop for Death
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 labour, and my leisure too,
For his civility.
We passed the school where children played,
Their lessons scarcely done;
We passed the fields of gazing grain,
We passed the setting sun.
We paused before a house that seemed
A swelling of the ground;
The roof was scarcely visible,
The cornice but a mound.
Since then ’tis centuries; but each
Feels shorter than the day
I first surmised the horses’ heads
Were toward eternity.
Emily Dickinson,
(1830 – 1886)
Dying
The sun kept setting, setting still;
No hue of afternoon
Upon the village I perceived, –
From house to house ‘t was noon.
The dusk kept dropping, dropping still;
No dew upon the grass,
But only on my forehead stopped,
And wandered in my face.
My feet kept drowsing, drowsing still,
My fingers were awake;
Yet why so little sound myself
Unto my seeming make?
How well I knew the light before!
I could not see it now.
‘T is dying, I am doing; but
I’m not afraid to know.
Emily Dickinson,
(1830 – 1886)
Farewell
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 Judgment,
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-by 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!
Emily Dickinson,
(1830 – 1886)
If anybody’s friend be dead
If anybody’s friend be dead,
It ’s sharpest of the theme
The thinking how they walked alive,
At such and such a time.
Their costume, of a Sunday,
Some manner of the hair, –
A prank nobody knew but them,
Lost, in the sepulchre.
How warm they were on such a day:
You almost feel the date,
So short way off it seems; and now,
They ‘re centuries from that.
How pleased they were at what you said;
You try to touch the smile,
And dip your fingers in the frost:
When was it, can you tell,
You asked the company to tea,
Acquaintance, just a few,
And chatted close with this grand thing
That don’t remember you?
Past bows and invitations,
Past interview, and vow,
Past what ourselves can estimate, –
That makes the quick of woe!
Emily Dickinson,
(1830 – 1886)
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