Page:Emily Dickinson Poems - third series (1896).djvu/100

 86 POEMS.

��XII. THE MASTER.

T T E fumbles at your spirit Before they drop full music on ; He stuns you by degrees,
 * As players at the keys

Prepares your brittle substance

For the ethereal blow, By fainter hammers, further heard,

Then nearer, then so slow

Your breath has time to straighten, Your brain to bubble cool,

Deals one imperial thunderbolt That scalps your naked soul.

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