| Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). An American Anthology, 1787–1900. 1900. |
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| 538. Time and Eternity |
| | | By Emily Dickinson |
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TOO LATE
DELAYED till she had ceased to know, | |
| Delayed till in its vest of snow | |
| Her loving bosom lay: | |
| An hour behind the fleeting breath, | |
| Later by just an hour than death,— | 5 |
| Oh, lagging yesterday! | |
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| Could she have guessed that it would be; | |
| Could but a crier of the glee | |
| Have climbed the distant hill; | |
| Had not the bliss so slow a pace,— | 10 |
| Who knows but this surrendered face | |
| Were undefeated still? | |
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| Oh, if there may departing be | |
| Any forgot by victory | |
| In her imperial round, | 15 |
| Show them this meek apparelled thing, | |
| That could not stop to be a king, | |
| Doubtful if it be crowned! | |
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CHARTLESS
I NEVER saw a moor, | |
| I never saw the sea; | 20 |
| Yet know I how the heather looks, | |
| And what a wave must be. | |
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| I never spoke with God, | |
| Nor visited in heaven; | |
| Yet certain am I of the spot | 25 |
| As if the chart were given. | |
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THE BATTLE-FIELD
THEY dropped like flakes, they dropped like stars, | |
| Like petals from a rose, | |
| When suddenly across the June | |
| A wind with finger goes. | 30 |
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| They perished in the seamless grass,— | |
| No eye could find the place; | |
| But God on his repealless list | |
| Can summon every face. | |
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VANISHED
SHE died,—this was the way she died; | 35 |
| And when her breath was done, | |
| Took up her simple wardrobe | |
| And started for the sun. | |
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| Her little figure at the gate | |
| The angels must have spied, | 40 |
| Since I could never find her | |
| Upon the mortal side. | |
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THAT SUCH HAVE DIED
THAT such have died enables us | |
| The tranquiller to die; | |
| That such have lived, certificate | 45 |
| For immortality. | |
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THE SECRET
I HAVE not told my garden yet, | |
| Lest that should conquer me; | |
| I have not quite the strength now | |
| To break it to the bee. | 50 |
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| I will not name it in the street, | |
| For shops would stare, that I, | |
| So shy, so very ignorant, | |
| Should have the face to die. | |
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| The hillsides must not know it, | 55 |
| Where I have rambled so, | |
| Nor tell the loving forests | |
| The day that I shall go, | |
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| Nor lisp it at the table, | |
| Nor heedless by the way | 60 |
| Hint that within the riddle | |
| One will walk to-day! | |
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ETERNITY
ON this wondrous sea, | |
| Sailing silently, | |
| Ho! pilot, ho! | 65 |
| Knowest thou the shore | |
| Where no breakers roar, | |
| Where the storm is o’er? | |
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| In the silent west | |
| Many sails at rest, | 70 |
| Their anchors fast; | |
| Thither I pilot thee,— | |
| Land, ho! Eternity! | |
| Ashore at last! | |
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