Fame Is a Fickle Food (1659), by Emily Dickinson

Fame Is a Fickle Food (1659)

Fame is a fickle food

Upon a shifting plate

Whose table once a

Guest but not

The second time is set.

Whose crumbs the crows inspect

And with ironic caw

Flap past it to the Farmer’s Corn—

Men eat of it and die.

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584 It ceased to hurt me, though so sl… I could not feel the Anguish go— But only knew by looking back— That something—had benumbed the T…

108 Surgeons must be very careful When they take the knife! Underneath their fine incisions Stirs the Culprit—Life!

591 To interrupt His Yellow Plan The Sun does not allow Caprices of the Atmosphere— And even when the Snow

179 If I could bribe them by a Rose I’d bring them every flower that g… From Amherst to Cashmere! I would not stop for night, or sto…

A Sloop of Amber slips away Upon an Ether Sea, And wrecks in Peace a Purple Tar… The Son of Ecstasy -

A fuzzy fellow, without feet, Yet doth exceeding run! Of velvet, is his Countenance, And his Complexion, dun! Sometime, he dwelleth in the grass…

35 Nobody knows this little Rose— It might a pilgrim be Did I not take it from the ways And lift it up to thee.

767 To offer brave assistance To Lives that stand alone— When One has failed to stop them— Is Human—but Divine

24 There is a morn by men unseen— Whose maids upon remoter green Keep their Seraphic May— And all day long, with dance and g…

970 Color — Caste — Denomination — These — are Time's Affair — Death's diviner Classifying Does not know they are —

Remembrance has a Rear and Front… ’Tis something like a House - It has a Garret also For Refuse and the Mouse. Besides the deepest Cellar

44 If she had been the Mistletoe And I had been the Rose— How gay upon your table My velvet life to close—

393 Did Our Best Moment last— ‘Twould supersede the Heaven— A few—and they by Risk—procure— So this Sort—are not given—

XXV Wild nights—Wild nights! Were I with thee Wild nights should be Our luxury!

306 The Soul’s Superior instants Occur to Her—alone— When friend—and Earth’s occasion Have infinite withdrawn—