Poems by Emily Dickinson, Series Two. Эмили Дикинсон

      I took my power in my hand.

      And went against the world;

      'T was not so much as David had,

      But I was twice as bold.

      I aimed my pebble, but myself

      Was all the one that fell.

      Was it Goliath was too large,

      Or only I too small?

      A shady friend for torrid days

      Is easier to find

      Than one of higher temperature

      For frigid hour of mind.

      The vane a little to the east

      Scares muslin souls away;

      If broadcloth breasts are firmer

      Than those of organdy,

      Who is to blame? The weaver?

      Ah! the bewildering thread!

      The tapestries of paradise

      So notelessly are made!

      Each life converges to some centre

      Expressed or still;

      Exists in every human nature

      A goal,

      Admitted scarcely to itself, it may be,

      Too fair

      For credibility's temerity

      To dare.

      Adored with caution, as a brittle heaven,

      To reach

      Were hopeless as the rainbow's raiment

      To touch,

      Yet persevered toward, surer for the distance;

      How high

      Unto the saints' slow diligence

      The sky!

      Ungained, it may be, by a life's low venture,

      But then,

      Eternity enables the endeavoring

      Again.

      Before I got my eye put out,

      I liked as well to see

      As other creatures that have eyes,

      And know no other way.

      But were it told to me, to-day,

      That I might have the sky

      For mine, I tell you that my heart

      Would split, for size of me.

      The meadows mine, the mountains mine, —

      All forests, stintless stars,

      As much of noon as I could take

      Between my finite eyes.

      The motions of the dipping birds,

      The lightning's jointed road,

      For mine to look at when I liked, —

      The news would strike me dead!

      So safer, guess, with just my soul

      Upon the window-pane

      Where other creatures put their eyes,

      Incautious of the sun.

      Talk with prudence to a beggar

      Of 'Potosi' and the mines!

      Reverently to the hungry

      Of your viands and your wines!

      Cautious, hint to any captive

      You have passed enfranchised feet!

      Anecdotes of air in dungeons

      Have sometimes proved deadly sweet!

      He preached upon "breadth" till it argued him narrow, —

      The broad are too broad to define;

      And of "truth" until it proclaimed him a liar, —

      The truth never flaunted a sign.

      Simplicity fled from his counterfeit presence