Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul – and sings the tunes without the words – and never stops at all.

We turn not older with years but newer every day.

If you take care of the small things, the big things take care of themselves. You can gain more control over your life by paying closer attention to the little things.

What I see not, I better see.

There is another sky.

Fame is a bee. It has a song– It has a sting– Ah, too, it has a wing.

To put meaning in one’s life may end in madness, But life without meaning is the torture Of restlessness and vague desire.

I took my Power in my Hand – And went against the World – ‘Twas not so much as David – had – But I – was twice as bold –

Nature rarer uses yellow Than another hue; Saves she all of that for sunsets – Prodigal of blue.

There’s a certain slant of light, On winter afternoons, That oppresses, like the weight Of cathedral tunes.

I shall keep singing! Birds will pass me On their way to Yellower Climes — Each — with a Robin’s expectation — I — with my Redbreast —

The only Ghost I ever saw Was dressed in Mechlin — so —

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

I stepped from Plank to Plank, A slow and cautious way; The Stars about my Head I felt, About my Feet the Sea!

There is a pain so utter It swallows substance up Then covers the Abyss with Trance So Memory can step Around across upon it As one within a Swoon Goes safely where an open eye Would drop Him — Bone by Bone —

Tis not that Dying hurts us so — ‘Tis Living — hurts us more — But Dying — is a different way — A Kind behind the Door —

I’m ceded – I’ve stopped being Theirs – The name They dropped opon my face With water, in the country church Is finished using, now, And They can put it with my Dolls, My childhood, and the string of spools, I’ve finished threading – too

She slept beneath a tree — Remembered but by me. I touched her Cradle mute — She recognized the foot — And stirred her purple wings — But little evidence to show She lived among the things —

I think just how my shape will rise When I shall be forgiven – Til then – I wait – as roams the man Whose eyes are stapled in far lands – Their long – long finish – scanned –

The Moon was but a Chin of Gold A Night or two ago — And now she turns Her perfect Face Upon the World below —

Apparently with no surprise To any happy Flower The Frost beheads it at its play — In accidental power — The blonde Assassin passes on — The Sun proceeds unmoved To measure off another Day For an Approving God.

This quiet Dust was Gentleman and Lad

Adventure most unto itself The Soul condemned to be; Attended by a single Hound Its own identity.

Tis so much joy! ‘Tis so much joy! If I should fail, what poverty! And yet, as poor as I Have ventured all upon a throw; Have gained! Yes! Hesitated so This side the victory!

Your thoughts don’t have words every day. They come a single time Like signal esoteric sips Of the communion wine Which while you taste so native seems So emblematic, too, That all your other thoughts are poor And this is nectar now.

The abdication of Belief Makes the Behavior small — Better an ignis fatuus Than no illume at all —

I felt a Cleaving in my Mind – As if my Brain had split – I tried to match it – Seam by Seam – But could not make them fit.

To gain the sea, with one small sail, to venture in expertest ship, is Heavenly.

Tell all the truth but tell it slant.

How sick to wait in any place but thine.

To hang our head — ostensibly — And subsequent, to find That such was not the posture Of our immortal mind — Affords the sly presumption That, someplace, — we can hide —

The brain is just the weight of God, for, lift them, pound for pound, and they will differ, if they do, as syllable from sound.

The Soul has Bandaged moments- When too appalled to stir- She feels some ghastly Fright come up And stop to look at her-

A drop fell on the apple tree, another on the roof; a half a dozen kissed the eaves, and made the gables laugh.

Heavenly Father — take to thee The supreme iniquity Fashioned by thy candid Hand In a moment contraband — Though to trust us — seem to us More respectful — We esteem Thy Esteem of us, so vast, So incomprehensible, We touch the fingertips of Faith To an option so precise — The vasty distance magnifies T’other side the gulf of thee — Tho’ the Gulf be not so wide — That would be easier to span — We are used to Wandering Somewhat — Yet with Thee A little further on —

I cannot live with You – It would be Life – And Life is over there – Behind the Shelf.

It’s all I have to bring today This, and my heart beside This, and my heart, and all the fields And all the meadows 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.

The pedigree of honey Does not concern the bee.

Water, is taught by thirst. Land – by the Oceans passed. Transport – by throe – Peace – by its battles told – Love, by Memorial Mold – Birds, by the Snow.

When roses cease to bloom, dear, And violets are done.

Publication – is the Auction Of the Mind of Man.

My worthiness is all my doubt.

Each Life Converges to some Centre – Expressed by that Degree It touches the Divinity –

The soul’s superior instants occur to the great and the small.

This is my letter to the world, that never wrote to me.

I’m Nobody! Who are you? Are you – Nobody – too?

Not one of all the purple Host who took the Flag today can tell the definition so clear of Victory as he defeated dying on whose forbidden ear the distant strains of triumph burst agonized and clear.

We never know how high we are Till we are called to rise; And then, if we are true to plan, Our statures touch the skies.

There is no Frigate like a Book to take us Lands away.

To shut our eyes is Travel.

Find ecstasy in life; the mere sense of living is joy enough.

Nature is a Haunted House – but Art – a House that tries to be haunted.

There are things we live among ‘that really have no real estimate in speech.’

The heart is the capital of the mind.

After great pain, a formal feeling comes.

Sorrow seems more general than it did.

I died for beauty, but was scarce adjusted in the tomb, when one who died for truth was lain in an adjoining room.

Because I could not stop for Death – He kindly stopped for me.

A wounded deer leaps the highest.

Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul – and sings the tunes without the words – and never stops at all.

When Death waits: Dare you look at Death? When Life stops: How can you start again?

A lonely, leaf-tossed tree—make me your confidante.

They leave us so to the way we took, as two in whom they were proved mistaken, that we sit sometimes in the wayside nook, with mischievous, vagrant, seraphic look, and try if we cannot feel forlorn.

Ample make this Bed. Make this Bed with Awe; In it wait till Judgment break. Excellent and Fair

Twas like a Maelstrom, with a notch, That nearer, every Day.

My Life had stood – a Loaded Gun – In Corners – till a Day.

Good morning Midnight, I’m coming home, Day got tired of me

To live is so startling, it leaves little time for anything else.

Pain has an element of blank.

Dying is a wild night and a new road.

We outgrow love, like other things and put it in the drawer, till it an antique fashion shows like costumes grandsires wore.

Poetry is not truth, rather it’s the finest kind of truth.

In this short life that only lasts an hour how much – how little – is within our power.

Poets are the only people to whom love is not promised, and not vouchsafed.

This world is not conclusion.

For each ecstatic instant we must an anguish pay in keen and quivering ratio to the ecstasy.

She rose to His requirement, dropped the playthings of her life to take the honorable work of woman and of wife.

Nature is a haunted house–but Art–is a house that tries to be haunted.

I taste a liquor never brewed, from tankards scooped in pearl; not all the vats upon the Rhine yield such an alcohol!

I dwell in Possibility – A fairer House than Prose – More numerous of Windows – Superior – for Doors –

There is no frigate like a book to take us lands away.

It’s all I have to bring today, this and my heart beside, this and my heart and all the fields and all the meadows wide.

Unable are the loved to die, for love is immortality.

Glee! The great storm is over!

The heart asks pleasure first, and then excuse from pain.

The soul selects her own society, then shuts the door.

Finding is the first act. The second, loss.

Saying nothing sometimes says the most.

A word is dead when it is said, some say. I say it just begins to live that day.

Death is a dialogue between the spirit and the dust.

My life closed twice before its close.

Beauty is not caused. It is.

The brain is wider than the sky.

If I can stop one heart from breaking, I shall not live in vain.

Parting is all we know of heaven, and all we need of hell.

The heart wants what it wants – or else it does not care.

Hope is a subtle glutton. She feeds on what we deem as lost.

The soul should always stand ajar.

Forever is composed of nows.

Success is counted sweetest by those who ne’er succeed.

That it will never come again is what makes life so sweet.