The White Election - A Song Cycle for soprano and piano on 32 poems of Emily Dickinson, Part 2 : So We Must Meet Apart

There came a day at Summer's full
Entirely for me;
I thought that such were for the saints,
Where revelations be.

The sun, as common, went abroad,
The flowers, accustomed, blew,
As if no soul the solstice passed
That maketh all things new.

The time was scarce profaned by speech;
The symbol of a word
Was needless, as at sacrament
The wardrobe of our Lord.

Each was to each the sealed church,
Permitted to commune this time,
Lest we too awkward show
At supper of the Lamb.

The hours slid fast, as hours will,
Clutched tight by greedy hands;
So faces on two decks look back,
Bound to opposing lands.

And so, when all the time had failed,
Without external sound,
Each bound the other's crucifix,
We gave no other bond.

Sufficient troth that we shall rise -
Deposed, at length, the grave -
To that new marriage, justified
Through Calvaries of Love!

The first day's night had come,
And grateful that a thing
So terrible had been endured,
I told my soul to sing.
 
She said her strings were snapped,
Her bow to atoms blown,
And so to mend her gave me work
Until another morn.
 
And then a day as huge
As yesterdays in pairs
Unrolled its horror in my face
Until it blocked my eyes,
 
My brain began to laugh,
I mumbled like a fool,
And though 'tis years ago, that day,
My brain keeps giggling still.
 
And something's odd within;
That person that I was
And this one do not feel the same,
Could it be madness, this?

The soul selects her own society,
Then shuts chariots no more.

Unmoved, she notes the chariots pausing
At her low gate;
Unmoved, an emperor is kneeling
Upon her mat.

I've known her from an ample nation
Choose one;
Then close the valves of her attention
Like stone.

It was not Death, for I stood up,
And all the Dead, lie down --
It was not Night, for all the Bells
Put out their Tongues, for Noon.

It was not Frost, for on my Flesh
I felt Siroccos -- crawl --
Nor Fire -- for just my Marble feet
Could keep a Chancel, cool --

And yet, it tasted, like them all,
The Figures I have seen
Set orderly, for Burial,
Reminded me, of mine --

As if my life were shaven,
And fitted to a frame,
And could not breathe without a key,
And 'twas like Midnight, some -

When everything that ticked -- has stopped --
And Space stares all around --
Or Grisly frosts -- first Autumn morns,
Repeal the Beating Ground --

But, most, like Chaos - Stopless -- cool --
Without a Chance, or Spar --
Or even a Report of Land --
To justify -- Despair.

When I was small, a woman died;
Today her only boy
Went up from the Potomac,
His face all victory
 
To look at her.  How slowly
The seasons must have turned,
Till bullets clipped an angle
And he passed quickly round.
 
If pride shall be in paradise,
Ourself cannot decide;
Of their imperial conduct
No person testified.
 
But proud in apparition,
That woman and her boy
Pass back and forth before my brain,
As even in the sky
 
I'm confident that bravos
Perpetual break abroad
For braveries remote as this
In scarlet Maryland.

I cried at pity, not at pain,
I heard a woman say
"Poor child,"and something in her voice
Convicted me of me.
 
So long I fainted, to myself
It seemed the common way,
And health and laughter, curious things
To look at, like a toy.
 
To sometimes hear "rich people" buy,
And see the parcel rolled
And carried, I supposed, to heaven,
For children made of gold,
 
But not to touch, or wish for,
Or think of, with a sigh,
And so and so had been to me,
Had God willed differently.
 
I wish I knew that woman's name,
So when she comes this way,
To hold my life, and hold my ears
For fear I hear her say
 
She's "sorry I am dead" again,
Just when the grave and I
Have sobbed ourselves almost to sleep,
Our only lullaby.

The night was wide, and furnished scant
With but a single star
That often as a cloud it met
Blew out itself for fear.
 
The wind pursued the little bush
And drove away the leaves
November left, then clambered up
And fretted in the eaves.
 
No squirrel went abroad.
A dog's belated feet,
Like intermittent plush, he heard
Adown the empty street.
 
To feel if blinds be fast,
And closer to the fire
Her little rocking chair to draw,
And shiver for the poor,
 
The housewife's gentle task.
"How pleasanter," said she
Unto the sofa opposite,
"The sleet than May, no thee."

I cannot live with you.
It would be life,
And life is over there
Behind the shelf
 
The sexton keeps the key to,
Putting up
Our life, his porcelain,
Like a cup
 
Discarded of the housewife,
Quaint or broke.
A newer Sevres pleases,
Old ones crack.
 
I could not die with you,
For one must wait
To shut the other's gaze down,
You could not.
 
And I, could I stand by
And see you freeze,
Without my right of frost,
Death's privilege?
 
Nor could I rise with you,
Because your face
Would put out Jesus',
That new grace
 
Glow plain and foreign
On my homesick eye,
Except that you than he
Shone closer by.
 
They'd judge us.  How?
For you served heaven, you know,
Or sought to.
I could not,
 
Because you saturated sight,
And I had no more eyes
For sordid excellence
As paradise.
 
And were you lost, I would be,
Though my name
Rang loudest
On the heavenly fame.
 
And were you saved,
And I condemned to be
Where you were not,
That self were hell to me.
 
So we must meet apart,
You there, I here,
With just the door ajar
That oceans are, and prayer,
And that white sustenance,
Despair.