Emily Dickinson: Quite Empty Quite at Rest

Quite Empty Quite at Rest


Quite empty, quite at rest,
The Robin locks her Nest, and tries her Wings.
She does not know a Route
But puts her Craft about
For rumored Springs
She does not ask for Noon
She does not ask for Boon,
Crumbless and homeless, of but one request
The Birds she lost

Emily Dickinson: I had been hungry all the years

I had been hungry all the years


I had been hungry all the years;
My noon had come, to dine;
I, trembling, drew the table near,
And touched the curious wine.

‘Twas this on table I had seen,
When turning, hungry, lone,
I looked in windows, for the wealth
I could not hope to own.

I did not know the ample bread,
‘Twas so unlike the crumb
The birds and I had often shared
In Nature’s dining-room.

The plenty hurt me, ‘twas so new,
Myself felt ill and odd,
As berry of a mountain bush
Transplanted near the sod.

Nor was I hungry; so I found
That hunger was a way
Of persons outside windows,
The entering takes away.

Emily Dickinson: Come slowly

Come slowly

Come slowly, Eden
Lips unused to thee.
Bashful, sip thy jasmines,
As the fainting bee,
Reaching late his flower,
Round her chamber hums,
Counts his nectars -alights,
And is lost in balms!

Emily Dickinson: A bird came down the walk

A bird came down the walk:
He did not know I saw;
He bit an angle-worm in halves
And ate the fellow, raw.

And then he drank a dew
From a convenient grass,
And then hopped sidewise to the wall
To let a beetle pass.

He glanced with rapid eyes
That hurried all abroad,--
They looked like frightened beads, I thought;
He stirred his velvet head

Like one in danger; cautious,
I offered him a crumb,
And he unrolled his feathers
And rowed him softer home

Than oars divide the ocean,
Too silver for a seam,
Or butterflies, off banks of noon,
Leap, splashless, as they swim.