The Brain Within It’s Groove, par Emily Dickinson

The Brain Within It’s Groove

The brain within its groove

Runs evenly and true;

But let a splinter swerve,

‘T were easier for you

To put the water back

When floods have slit the hills,

And scooped a turnpike for themselves,

And blotted out the mills!

355 ’Tis Opposites—entice— Deformed Men—ponder Grace— Bright fires—the Blanketless— The Lost—Day’s face—

I like to see it lap the miles, And lick the valleys up, And stop to feed itself at tanks; And then, prodigious, step Around a pile of mountains,

825 An Hour is a Sea Between a few, and me— With them would Harbor be—

51 I often passed the village When going home from school— And wondered what they did there— And why it was so still—

IX THE heart asks pleasure first, And then, excuse from pain; And then, those little anodynes That deaden suffering;

901 Sweet, to have had them lost For news that they be saved— The nearer they departed Us The nearer they, restored,

723 It tossed—and tossed— A little Brig I knew—o’ertook by… It spun—and spun— And groped delirious, for Morn—

443 I tie my Hat—I crease my Shawl— Life’s little duties do—precisely— As the very least Were infinite—to me—

329 So glad we are—a Stranger’d deem ’Twas sorry, that we were— For where the Holiday should be There publishes a Tear—

LVIII PORTRAITS are to daily faces As an evening west To a fine, pedantic sunshine In a satin vest.

LX The grass so little has to do,— A sphere of simple green, With only butterflies to brood, And bees to entertain,

434 To love thee Year by Year— May less appear Than sacrifice, and cease— However, dear,

661 Could I but ride indefinite As doth the Meadow Bee And visit only where I liked And No one visit me

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

XXIX THE nearest dream recedes, unreal… The heaven we chase Like the June bee Before the school—boy