Collected Poems of Emily Dickinson (Barnes & Noble Classics Series)

PAIN has an element of blank;

It cannot recollect

When it began, or if there were

A day when it was not.

It has no future but itself,

Its infinite realms contain

Its past, enlightened to perceive

New periods of pain

That Love is all there is,

Is all we know of Love.

SUCCESS is counted sweetest

By those who ne‘er succeed.

To comprehend a nectar

Requires sorest need

THIS is my letter to the world,

That never wrote to me,—

If I can stop one heart from breaking,

I shall not live in vain.

If I can stop one heart from breaking,

I shall not live in vain.

You try to touch the smile,

And dip your fingers in the frost:

When was it, can you tell,

As by the dead we love to sit,

Become so wondrous dear,

As for the lost we grapple,

Though all the rest are here,—

In broken mathematics

We estimate our prize,

Vast, in its fading ratio,

To our penurious eyes!

Angels, twice descending,

Reimbursed my store.

Burglar, banker, father,

I am poor once more!

BECAUSE I could not stop for Death,

He kindly stopped for me;

The carriage held but just ourselves

And Immortality.