POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON
This is the sovereign anguish,This, the signal woe!These are the patient laureatesWhose voices, trained below,
Ascend in ceaseless carol,Inaudible, indeed,To us, the duller scholarsOf the mysterious bard!
LXXIX
I YEARS had been from home,And now, before the door,I dared not open, lest a faceI never saw before
Stare vacant into mineAnd ask my business there.My business,—just a life I left,Was such still dwelling there?
I fumbled at my nerve,I scanned the windows near;The silence like an ocean rolled,And broke against my ear.
I laughed a wooden laughThat I could fear a door,Who danger and the dead had faced,But never quaked before.
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