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Emily Dickinson's Collected Poems

Part Four: Time and Eternity 69. One need not be a chamber to be haunted

GHOSTS.


One need not be a chamber to be haunted,

One need not be a house;

The brain has corridors surpassing

Material place.


Far safer, of a midnight meeting

External ghost,

Than an interior confronting

That whiter host.


Far safer through an Abbey gallop,

The stones achase,

Than, moonless, one's own self encounter

In lonesome place.


Ourself, behind ourself concealed,

Should startle most;

Assassin, hid in our apartment,

Be horror's least.


The prudent carries a revolver,

He bolts the door,

O'erlooking a superior spectre

More near.