E-Text

Emily Dickinson's Collected Poems

Part One: Life 94. If the foolish call them 'flowers'

If the foolish call them 'flowers,'

Need the wiser tell?

If the savans 'classify' them,

It is just as well!


Those who read the Revelations

Must not criticise

Those who read the same edition

With beclouded eyes!


Could we stand with that old Moses

Canaan denied, --

Scan, like him, the stately landscape

On the other side, --


Doubtless we should deem superfluous

Many sciences

Not pursued by learnèd angels

In scholastic skies!


Low amid that glad _Belles lettres_

Grant that we may stand,

Stars, amid profound Galaxies,

At that grand 'Right hand'!