Grief is a Mouse

Grief is a Mouse -

And chooses Wainscot in the Breast

For His shy House -

And baffles quest -

Grief is a Thief - quick startled -

Pricks His Ear - report to hear

Of that Vast Dark -

That swept His Being - back -

Grief is a Juggler - boldest at the Play -

Lest if He flinch - the eye that way

Pounce on His Bruises - One - say - or Three -

Grief is a Gourmand - spare His luxury -

Best Grief is Tongueless - before He'll tell -

Burn Him in the Public square -

His Ashes - will

Possibly - if they refuse - How then know -

Since a Rack could'nt coax a syllable - now

Copyright Credit: Emily Dickinson, "Grief is a Mouse" from THE POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON: VARIORUM EDITION, edited by Ralph W. Franklin, Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Copyright © 1998 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. Copyright © 1951, 1955 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. Copyright © renewed 1979, 1983 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. Copyright © 1914, 1918, 1919, 1924, 1929, 1930, 1932,1935, 1937, 1942 by Martha Dickinson Bianchi. Copyright © 1952, 1957, 1958, 1963,1965 by Mary L. Hampson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Source: Poems of Emily Dickinson: Variorum Edition (The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1998)