I gave myself to him,    And took himself for pay.    The solemn contract of a life    Was ratified this way.     The wealth might disappoint,    Myself a poorer prove    Than this…

    How the old mountains drip with sunset,    And the brake of dun!    How the hemlocks are tipped in tinsel    By the wizard sun!     How the old steeples hand…

    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…

    From cocoon forth a butterfly    As lady from her door    Emerged — a summer afternoon —    Repairing everywhere,     Without design, that I could trace,    Except to stray abroad    On miscellaneous…

    The butterfiy’s assumption-gown,    In chrysoprase apartments hung,        This afternoon put on.     How condescending to descend,    And be of buttercups the friend        In a New England town!

    The bustle in a house    The morning after death    Is solemnest of industries    Enacted upon earth, —     The sweeping up the heart,    And putting love away    We shall not want…

    The brain is wider than the sky,    For, put them side by side,    The one the other will include    With ease, and you beside.     The brain is deeper…

    Read, sweet, how others strove,    Till we are stouter;    What they renounced,    Till we are less afraid;    How many times they bore    The faithful witness,    Till we are helped,    As if a…

    The bone that has no marrow;    What ultimate for that?    It is not fit for table,    For beggar, or for cat.     A bone has obligations,    A being has the…

    Before you thought of spring,    Except as a surmise,    You see, God bless his suddenness,    A fellow in the skies    Of independent hues,    A little weather-worn,    Inspiriting habiliments    Of indigo and brown….