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Of bronze and blaze

by Emily Dickinson, 1896

Of bronze and blaze
  The north, to-night!
  So adequate its forms,
So preconcerted with itself,
  So distant to alarms, —
An unconcern so sovereign
  To universe, or me,
It paints my simple spirit
  With tints of majesty,
Till I take vaster attitudes,
  And strut upon my stem,
Disdaining men and oxygen,
  For arrogance of them.

My splendors are menagerie;
  But their competeless show
Will entertain the centuries
  When I am, long ago,
An island in dishonored grass,
  Whom none but daisies know.

Published in Poems by Emily Dickinson: Third Series
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