An Emily Dickinson Mosaic

To be alive is power,
Existence in itself,
Without a further function,
Omnipotence enough.

To be alive and Will -
'T is able as a God!
The Further of ourselves be what -
Such being Finitude?

The Heart is the Capital of the Mind --
The Mind is a single State --
The Heart and the Mind together make
A single Continent --

One -- is the Population --
Numerous enough --
This ecstatic Nation
Seek -- it is Yourself.

Each life converges to some centre
Expressed or still;
Exists in every human nature
A goal,

Admitted scarcely to itself, it may be,
Too fair
For credibility's temerity
To dare.

Adored with caution, as a brittle heaven,
To reach
Were hopeless as the rainbow's raiment
To touch,

Yet persevered toward, surer for the distance;
How high
Unto the saints' slow diligence
The sky!

Ungained, it may be, by a life's low venture,
But then,
Eternity enables the endeavoring
Again.

The Mind lives on the Heart
Like any Parasite --
If that is full of Meat
The Mind is fat.

But if the Heart omit
Emaciate the Wit --
The Aliment of it
So absolute.

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 than the sea,
For, hold them, blue to blue,
The one the other will absorb,
As sponges, buckets do.

The brain is just the weight of God,
For, lift them, pound for pound,
And they will differ, if they do,
As syllable from sound.

Exhilaration is the Breeze
That lifts us from the Ground,
And leaves us in another place
Whose statement is not found --

Returns us not, but after time
We soberly descend
A little newer for the term
Upon Enchanted Ground --