I thought the Train would never come by Emily Dick

Ввек, мнилось, поезд не придёт...
Как спет тягуче свист...
Не верится, весну ли льёт
та плакса среди птиц...
Мной сердцу речь вести о чём
преподано стократ...
Мучитель милый, ты пришёл -
развеяв мой трактат!..
И поздно планы мне скрывать,
и рано мудрой быть -
такой изыск страданий всех
да счастьем искупить...



(Эмили - к Отису Лорду.)

[Richard Sewall suggests that Emily’s ‘Provoking Lover’
in this poem is Judge Otis Lord. The Judge had been one
of Edward Dickinson’s closest friends and had frequently
visited the Homestead. After the death of Emily’s father,
Judge Lord had continued to visit Amherst, staying there
with his nieces, and he and Emily had fallen in love.
The death of his wife on 10 December 1877 meant that marriage
between him and Emily was a possibility. Around the time
of poem 1449 she wrote five ecstatic letters to him.
The first one (L559) begins, ‘My lovely Salem [= the town
where Lord lived] smiles at me. I seek his Face so often –
but I have done with guises. I confess that I love him –
I rejoice that I love him – I thank the maker of Heaven
and earth – that gave him me to love – the exultation floods me.’
As Sewall says, the poem has the same verve and excitement
as the letter. Waiting in her room for the Judge to arrive
by train at Amherst station at the bottom her garden, Emily
thought she would never hear the train’s whistle. She had taught
her heart exactly what to say (presumably ‘No! It won’t do.
We can’t carry on with it.’), but, as soon as she saw him,
the ‘strategy’ of this ‘Treatise’ flew away. As in the letter,
she had ‘done with guises.’ She did not even have time to hide
the ‘strategy’ somewhere on her person from where she could
use it later. It just ‘flew away.’ And, with him at her side,
it was too soon to return to the wisdom of that strategy.]

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I thought the Train would never come -- by Emily Dickinson

I thought the Train would never come --    
How slow the whistle sang --               
I don't believe a peevish Bird             
So whimpered for the Spring --             
I taught my Heart a hundred times          
Precisely what to say --               
Provoking Lover, when you came             
Its Treatise flew away               
To hide my strategy too late               
To wiser be too soon --               
For miseries so halcyon               
The happiness atone --