A precious - mouldering pleasure - 'tis -
To meet an Antique Book -
In just the Dress his Century wore -
A privilege - I think -
His venerable Hand to take -
And warming in our own -
A passage back - or two - to make -
To Times when he - was young -
His quaint opinions - to inspect -
His thought to ascertain
On Them[e]s concern our mutual mind -
The Literature of Man -
What interested Scholars - most -
What Competitions ran -
When Plato - was a Certainty -
And Sophocles - a Man -
When Sappho - was a living Girl -
And Beatrice wore
The Gown that Dante - deified -
Facts Centuries before
He traverses - familiar -
As One should come to Town -
And tell you all your Dreams - were true -
He lived - where Dreams were born -
His presence is Enchantment -
You beg him not to go -
Old Volume shake their Vellum Heads
And tantalize - just so.
Emily Dickinson
Musicians wrestle everywhere -
All day - among the crowded air
I hear the silver strife -
And - waking - long before the morn -
Such transport breaks upon the town
I think it that "New life"...
No Notice gave She, but a Change -
No Message, but a Sigh -
For Whom, the Time did not suffice
That She should specify.
She was not warm, though Summer shone
Nor scrupulous of cold
Though Rime by Rime...
Within my Garden, rides a Bird
Upon a single Wheel -
Whose spokes a dizzy Music make
As 'twere a travelling Mill -
He never stops, but slackens
Above the Ripest Rose -
Partakes without alighting
And p...