No More Learning

XXXVIII.

Sleep is supposed to be,
By souls of sanity,
The shutting of the eye.

Sleep is the station grand
Down which on either hand
The hosts of witness stand!

Morn is supposed to be,
By people of degree,
The breaking of the day.

Morning has not occurred!
That shall aurora be
East of eternity;

One with the banner gay,
One in the red array, --
That is the break of day.





XXXIX.

I shall know why, when time is over,
And I have ceased to wonder why;
Christ will explain each separate anguish
In the fair schoolroom of the sky.

He will tell me what Peter promised,
And I, for wonder at his woe,
I shall forget the drop of anguish
That scalds me now, that scalds me now.





XL.

I never lost as much but twice,
And that was in the sod;
Twice have I stood a beggar
Before the door of God!

Angels, twice descending,
Reimbursed my store.
Burglar, banker, father,
I am poor once more!






POEMS

by EMILY DICKINSON

Second Series




Edited by two of her friends

MABEL LOOMIS TODD and T. W.
HIGGINSON




PREFACE

The eagerness with which the first volume of Emily Dickinson's
poems has been read shows very clearly that all our alleged modern
artificiality does not prevent a prompt appreciation of the
qualities of directness and simplicity in approaching the greatest
themes,--life and love and death. That "irresistible needle-touch,"
as one of her best critics has called it, piercing at once the very
core of a thought, has found a response as wide and sympathetic as
it has been unexpected even to those who knew best her compelling
power. This second volume, while open to the same criticism as to
form with its predecessor, shows also the same shining beauties.

Although Emily Dickinson had been in the habit of sending
occasional poems to friends and correspondents, the full extent of
her writing was by no means imagined by them. Her friend "H. H. "
must at least have suspected it, for in a letter dated 5th
September, 1884, she wrote:--


MY DEAR FRIEND,-- What portfolios full of verses
you must have! It is a cruel wrong to your "day and
generation" that you will not give them light.

If such a thing should happen as that I should outlive
you, I wish you would make me your literary legatee
and executor. Surely after you are what is called
"dead" you will be willing that the poor ghosts you
have left behind should be cheered and pleased by your
verses, will you not? You ought to be. I do not think
we have a right to withhold from the world a word or
a thought any more than a deed which might help a
single soul. . . .

Truly yours,

HELEN JACKSON.