Poetry Spring 2013 fiction all issues
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Walt Whitman
Song of Myself
Emily Dickinson
Four Poems
“I should not dare to leave my friend,”
“It was not death, for I stood up,”
“Presentiment is that long shadow on the lawn”
“I read my sentence steadily,”
Walt Whitman
Song of Myself
Emily Dickinson
Four Poems
“I should not dare to leave my friend,”
“It was not death, for I stood up,”
“Presentiment is that long shadow on the lawn”
“I read my sentence steadily,”
Walt Whitman
Song of Myself
Emily Dickinson
Four Poems
“I should not dare to leave my friend,”
“It was not death, for I stood up,”
“Presentiment is that long shadow on the lawn”
“I read my sentence steadily,”
Walt Whitman
Song of Myself
Emily Dickinson
Four Poems
“I should not dare to leave my friend,”
“It was not death, for I stood up,”
“Presentiment is that long shadow on the lawn”
“I read my sentence steadily,”
Walt Whitman
Song of Myself
Emily Dickinson
Four Poems
“I should not dare to leave my friend,”
“It was not death, for I stood up,”
“Presentiment is that long shadow on the lawn”
“I read my sentence steadily,”
Enjoy these works in place of the first issue’s writer-voted short stories and poetry.
Emily Dickinson“I should not dare to leave my friend,”
I should not dare to leave my friend,
Because — because if he should die
While I was gone, and I — too late —
Should reach the heart that wanted me;
If I should disappoint the eyes
That hunted, hunted so, to see,
And could not bear to shut until
They “noticed” me — they noticed me;
If I should stab the patient faith
So sure I ’d come — so sure I ’d come,
It listening, listening, went to sleep
Telling my tardy name, —
My heart would wish it broke before,
Since breaking then, since breaking then,
Were useless as next morning’s sun,
Where midnight frosts had lain!
“It was not death, for I stood up,”
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 ’t was 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.
“Presentiment is that long shadow on the lawn”
Presentiment is that long shadow on the lawn
Indicative that suns go down;
The notice to the startled grass
That darkness is about to pass.
“I read my sentence steadily,”
I read my sentence steadily,
Reviewed it with my eyes,
To see that I made no mistake
In its extremest clause, —
The date, and manner of the shame;
And then the pious form
That “God have mercy” on the soul
The jury voted him.
I made my soul familiar
With her extremity,
That at the last it should not be
A novel agony,
But she and Death, acquainted,
Meet tranquilly as friends,
Salute and pass without a hint —
And there the matter ends.
Emily Dickinson wrote these four poems. This is where a Sixfold author's name, photo or other image, and contributor note will appear as part of the first issue.