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Emily Dickinson's Collected Poems

Part Three: Nature 45. As imperceptibly as grief

As imperceptibly as grief

The summer lapsed away, --

Too imperceptible, at last,

To seem like perfidy.


A quietness distilled,

As twilight long begun,

Or Nature, spending with herself

Sequestered afternoon.


The dusk drew earlier in,

The morning foreign shone, --

A courteous, yet harrowing grace,

As guest who would be gone.


And thus, without a wing,

Or service of a keel,

Our summer made her light escape

Into the beautiful.