Emily Dickinson's Poems

OF all the souls that stand create
I have elected one.
When sense from spirit files away,
And subterfuge is done;

When that which is and that which was 5
Apart, intrinsic, stand,
And this brief tragedy of flesh
Is shifted like a sand;

When figures show their royal front
And mists are carved away,— 10
Behold the atom I preferred
To all the lists of clay!


HE touched me, so I live to know
That such a day, permitted so,
I groped upon his breast.
It was a boundless place to me,
And silenced, as the awful sea 5
Puts minor streams to rest.

And now, I ’m different from before,
As if I breathed superior air,
Or brushed a royal gown;
My feet, too, that had wandered so, 10
My gypsy face transfigured now
To tenderer renown.