"I BRING AN UNUSUAL WINE

I bring an unusual wine
To lips long parched -
Close to my own,
And beg them to drink;
Caked with fever, they try -
I turn away, a brimming eye,
And come again an hour.

Hands still clasp the tardy glass -
Lips I would have cooled - alas -
Are so superfluous cold -

I would try to warm them one -
Shivers where the ivy has mossed them -
Centuries of stalls -

Might not some be thirsty then -
Toward whom the two might lean again -
If they could speak -

Should the play prove piercing -
Would not some cry "Little Girl -
My little Girl" to me -

I could not die with that one thirst
Oppressing me that here and there
A beverage grew -

That other minds could drink at
And go madder than the sea
Did I possess the spot -

So I bear it, tho' above me
It close - I cannot go
Under it, for awe."

Emily Dickinson

Poetess • United States • 19th century

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