If you were coming in the Fall,
I’d brush the Summer by
With half a smile, and half a spurn,
As Housewives do, a Fly.
If I could see you in a year
I’d wind the months in balls —
And put them each in separate drawers
Until their time befalls —
If only Centuries, delayed,
I’d count them on my Hand,
Subtracting, till my fingers dropped
Into Van Diemen’s Land*.
If certain, when this life was out —
That yours and mine, should be
I’d toss it yonder, like a Rind,
And take Eternity —
But now, all ignorant of the length
Of time’s uncertain wing,
It goads me, like the Goblin Bee —
That will not state — its sting.
- Emily Dickinson (1830-1886), American poet
* Van Diemen’s Land – Tasmania, a part of Australia; in the early 19th-century it served as a penal colony for thousands of prisoners transported there from Great Britain.
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