Sweet Pirate of the heart, by Emily Dickinson

Приятный сердцу тать,
с чем, не морской пират,
ждёшь крах на дне?
Иль острых чувств мятеж,
измена ль всех надежд?
Доверься мне.



[David Preest:
This poem completes a short letter (L745) of January 1882
to Mrs Edward Tuckerman. The letter begins,
‘The Gray Afternoon – the sweet knock,
and the ebbing voice of the Boys are a pictorial
Memory – and then the Little Bins and the Purple
Kernels – twas like the Larder of a Doll.
To the inditing heart we wish no sigh had come (L745).’
Thomas Johnson suggests that the ‘Boys’ may have been
Mrs Tuckerman’s four young orphaned nephews, whom she
was bringing up. Perhaps Mrs Tuckerman was ill, and so
had sent her nephews with a New Year note and a gift
of fruit. Emily wishes that no sadness had come to the
Heart which had written or indited the note, and in the
poem asks Mrs Tuckerman, the pirate who has stolen her
heart and the hearts of others, what shipwreck she has
suffered. Could it be that one of her other dear friends
has upset her, ‘Spice’ and ‘Attar’ though they be?]

********************************************
Sweet Pirate of the heart, by Emily Dickinson

Sweet Pirate of the heart,    
Not Pirate of the Sea,         
What wrecketh thee?            
Some spice's Mutiny --         
Some Attar's perfidy?         
Confide in me.