Emily Dickinson: Verses about Hope

Could Hope inspect her Basis
Her Craft were done -
Has a fictitious Charter
Or it has none -

Balked in the vastest instance
But to renew -
Felled by but one assassin -
Prosperity -

807

Expectation—is Contentment—
Gain—Satiety—
But Satiety—Conviction
Of Necessity

Of an Austere trait in Pleasure—
Good, without alarm
Is a too established Fortune—
Danger—deepens Sum—

Hope is a strange invention -
A Patent of the Heart -
In unremitting action
Yet never wearing out -

Of this electric Adjunct
Not anything is known
But its unique momentum
Embellish all we own -

March is the Month of Expectation.
The things we do not know -
The Persons of prognostication
Are coming now -
We try to show becoming firmness -
But pompous Joy
Betrays us, as his first Betrothal
Betrays a Boy.

779

The Service without Hope—
Is tenderest, I think—
Because 'tis unsustained
By stint—Rewarded Work—

Has impetus of Gain—
And impetus of Goal—
There is no Diligence like that
That knows not an Until—

'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.

A great Hope fell
You heard no noise
The Ruin was within
Oh cunning wreck that told no tale
And let no Witness in

The mind was built for mighty Freight
For dread occasion planned
How often foundering at Sea
Ostensibly, on Land

A not admitting of the wound
Until it grew so wide
That all my Life had entered it
And there were troughs beside

A closing of the simple lid
That opened to the sun
Until the tender Carpenter
Perpetual nail it down -

522

Had I presumed to hope—
The loss had been to Me
A Value—for the Greatness' Sake—
As Giants—gone away—

Had I presumed to gain
A Favor so remote—
The failure but confirm the Grace
In further Infinite—

'Tis failure—not of Hope—
But Confident Despair—
Advancing on Celestial Lists—
With faint—Terrestial power—

'Tis Honor—though I die—
For That no Man obtain
Till He be justified by Death—
This—is the Second Gain—

499

Those fair—fictitious People—
The Women—plucked away
From our familiar Lifetime—
The Men of Ivory—

Those Boys and Girls, in Canvas—
Who stay upon the Wall
In Everlasting Keepsake—
Can Anybody tell?

We trust—in places perfecter—
Inheriting Delight
Beyond our faint Conjecture—
Our dizzy Estimate—

Remembering ourselves, we trust—
Yet Blesseder—than We—
Through Knowing—where We only hope—
Receiving—where we—pray—

Of Expectation—also—
Anticipating us
With transport, that would be a pain
Except for Holiness—

Esteeming us—as Exile—
Themself—admitted Home—
Through easy Miracle of Death—
The Way ourself, must come—