(A poem by Emily Dickinson)
The feet of people walking home
With gayer sandals go –
The crocus – till she rises –
The vassal of the snow –
The lips at Hallelujah
Long years of practise bore –
Till bye and bye, these Bargemen
Walked – singing – on the shore
Pearls are the Diver’s farthings
Extorted form the sea –
Pinions – the Seraph’s wagon –
Pedestrian once – as we –
Night is the morning’s canvas –
Larceny – legacy –
Death – but our rapt attention
To immortality.
My figures fail to tell me
How far the village lies –
Whose peasants are the angels –
Whose cantons dot the skies –
My Classics vail their faces –
My faith that Dark adores –
Which from it’s solemn abbeys –
Such resurrection pours!
Emily Dickinson was an American poet who is widely considered one of the most original and influential poets of the 19th century. That despite the fact that less than a dozen of her nearly eighteen hundred poems were published during her lifetime.