The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson/I bring an unaccustomed wine

by Emily Dickinson

 

XXVII

I’M nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?
Then there’s a pair of us—don’t tell!
They’d banish us, you know.

How dreary to be somebody!
How public, like a frog
To tell your name the livelong day
To an admiring bog!

XXVIII

I BRING an unaccustomed wine
To lips long parching, next to mine,
And summon them to drink.

Crackling with fever, they essay;
I turn my brimming eyes away,
And come next hour to look.

The hands still hug the tardy glass;
The lips I would have cooled, alas!
Are so superfluous cold,

I would as soon attempt to warm
The bosoms where the frost has lain
Ages beneath the mould.

Some other thirsty there may be
To whom this would have pointed me
Had it remained to speak.

And so I always bear the cup
If, haply, mine may be the drop
Some pilgrim thirst to slake,—

If, haply, any say to me,
“Unto the little, unto me,”
When I at last awake.

XXIX

THE nearest dream recedes, unrealized.
The heaven we chase
  Like the June bee
  Before the school-boy
  Invites the race;
  Stoops to an easy clover—
Dips—evades—teases—deploys;
  Then to the royal clouds
  Lifts his light pinnace
  Heedless of the boy
Staring, bewildered, at the mocking sky.

  Homesick for steadfast honey,
  Ah! the bee flies not
That brews that rare variety.