Emily Dickinson (1830–86). Complete Poems. 1924. |
Part Four: Time and Eternity
CXXX
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| THERE’S been a death in the opposite house | |
| As lately as to-day. | |
| I know it by the numb look | |
| Such houses have alway. | |
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| The neighbors rustle in and out, | 5 |
| The doctor drives away. | |
| A window opens like a pod, | |
| Abrupt, mechanically; | |
| |
| Somebody flings a mattress out,— | |
| The children hurry by; | 10 |
| They wonder if It died on that,— | |
| I used to when a boy. | |
| |
| The minister goes stiffly in | |
| As if the house were his, | |
| And he owned all the mourners now, | 15 |
| And little boys besides; | |
| |
| And then the milliner, and the man | |
| Of the appalling trade, | |
| To take the measure of the house. | |
| There ’ll be that dark parade | 20 |
| |
| Of tassels and of coaches soon; | |
| It ’s easy as a sign,— | |
| The intuition of the news | |
| In just a country town. | |
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