"And you read your Emily Dickinson / And I my Robert Frost"

• I was the slightest in the House — ⊹

I was the slightest in the House — / I took the smallest Room — / At night, my little Lamp, and Book — / And one Geranium —

So stationed I could catch the Mint / That never ceased to fall — / And just my Basket — / Let me think — I'm sure — / That this was all —

I never spoke — unless addressed — / And then, 'twas brief and low — / I could not bear to live — aloud — / The Racket shamed me so —

And if it had not been so far — / And any one I knew / Were going — I had often thought / How noteless — I could die —

• Best Witchcraft is Geometry ⊹

Best Witchcraft is Geometry / To the magician’s mind— / His ordinary acts are feats / To thinking of mankind.

• I held a Jewel in my fingers ⊹

I held a Jewel in my fingers / And went to sleep / The day was warm, and winds were prosy / I said, "Twill keep"

I woke - and chide my honest fingers, / The Gem was gone / And now, an Amethyst remembrance / Is all I own

• After great pain, a formal feeling comes — ⊹

After great pain, a formal feeling comes — / The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs — / The stiff Heart questions ‘was it He, that bore,’ / And ‘Yesterday, or Centuries before’?

The Feet, mechanical, go round — / A Wooden way/ Of Ground, or Air, or Ought — / Regardless grown, / A Quartz contentment, like a stone —

This is the Hour of Lead — / Remembered, if outlived, / As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow — / First — Chill — then Stupor — then the letting go —

• I like a look of Agony ⊹

I like a look of Agony, / Because I know it's true— / Men do not sham Convulsion, / Nor simulate, a Throe—

The Eyes glaze once—and that is Death— / Impossible to feign / The Beads upon the Forehead / By homely Anguish strung.

• I Died for Beauty, but was Scarce ⊹

I died for beauty, but was scarce / Adjusted in the tomb, / When one who died for truth was lain / In an adjoining room.

He questioned softly why I failed? / "For beauty," I replied. / "And I for truth, -the two are one; / We brethren are," he said.

And so, as kinsmen met a night, / We talked between the rooms, / Until the moss had reached our lips, / And covered up our names.

• Pain—expands the Time ⊹

Pain—expands the Time— / Ages coil within / The minute Circumference / Of a single Brain—

Pain contracts—the Time— / Occupied with Shot / Gamuts of Eternities / Are as they were not—