Emily Dickinson (1830–86). Complete Poems. 1924. |
Part Four: Time and Eternity
LXXV
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| IT was not death, for I stood up, | |
| And all the dead lie down; | |
| It was not night, for all the bells | |
| Put out their tongues, for noon. | |
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| It was not frost, for on my flesh | 5 |
| I felt siroccos crawl,— | |
| Nor fire, for just my marble feet | |
| Could keep a chancel cool. | |
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| And yet it tasted like them all; | |
| The figures I have seen | 10 |
| Set orderly, for burial, | |
| Reminded me of mine, | |
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| As if my life were shaven | |
| And fitted to a frame, | |
| And could not breathe without a key; | 15 |
| And ’t was like midnight, some, | |
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| When everything that ticked has stopped, | |
| And space stares, all around, | |
| Or grisly frosts, first autumn morns, | |
| Repeal the beating ground. | 20 |
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| But most like chaos,—stopless, cool,— | |
| Without a chance or spar, | |
| Or even a report of land | |
| To justify despair. | |
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