EMILY DICKINSON XIII

THE SOUL selects her own society, Then shuts the door; On her divine majority Obtrude no more.

Unmoved, she notes the chariot’s pausing At her low gate; Unmoved, an emperor is kneeling Upon her mat.

I ’ve known her from an ample nation Choose one; Then close the valves of her attention Like stone.

Because I Could Not Stop For Death He kindly stopped for me; The carriage held but just ourselves And Immortality.

We slowly drove, he knew no haste, And I had put away My labor, and my leisure too, For his civility.

We passed the school where children played, Their lessons scarcely done; We passed the fields of gazing grain, We passed the setting sun.

We paused before a house that seemed A swelling of the ground; The roof was scarcely visible. The cornice but a mound.

Since then 'tis centuries but each Feels shorter than the day I first surmised the horses' heads Were toward eternity.

Hope is the Thing with Feathers That perches in the soul And sings the tune without the words And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard; And sore must be the storm That could abash the little bird That kept so many warm.

I've heard it in the chillest land And on the strangest sea, Yet never, in extremity, It asked a crumb of me.

The Road Not Taken Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair, And having perhaps the better claim Because it was grassy and wanted wear, Though as for that the passing there Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay In leaves no step had trodden black. Oh, I kept the first for another day! Yet knowing how way leads on to way I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I, I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.

FIRE AND ICE Some say the world will end in fire, Some say in ice. From what I've tasted of desire I hold with those who favor fire. But if it had to perish twice,

I think I know enough of hate To say that for destruction ice Is also great And would suffice.