I years had been from home

Emily Dickinson

I years had been from home,
And now, before the door,
I dared not open, lest a face
I never saw before

Stare vacant into mine
And ask my business there.
My business,—just a life I left,
Was such still dwelling there?

I fumbled at my nerve,
I scanned the windows near;
The silence like an ocean rolled,
And broke against my ear.

I laughed a wooden laugh
That I could fear a door,
Who danger and the dead had faced,
But never quaked before.

I fitted to the latch
My hand, with trembling care,
Lest back the awful door should spring,
And leave me standing there.

I moved my fingers off
As cautiously as glass,
And held my ears, and like a thief
Fled gasping from the house.

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TEXT PROVENANCE · First published 1891 in Poems by Emily Dickinson: Second Series · Text from Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series, Complete, a Project Gutenberg compilation of the 1890, 1891, and 1896 series.

Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series, Complete

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