We shun it ere it comes, by Emily Dickinson

Наитий сторонюсь,
боясь отрад,
чтоб мешкать, запросив,
как ни летят,
прельстив их всякий раз...
Не с ними ль тот
Небес Давнишний Гость,
как мой испуг при Вас?




(Эмили - в письме к профессору Чикерингу.)
[Manuscript: Late 1882 or early 1883.
The lines are incorporated in a letter to Professor J. K. Chickering.
Chickering had been very helpful at the time of her mother's death
in November 1882, and shortly thereafter he asked if he might call
on her. She asked for a postponement, planning to see him later,
after his return from a trip, but when the time came she found herself,
as the poem is intended to acknowledge, panicked with "dismay."
Her difficulty about seeing people, which had steadily increased
during the seventies, was now becoming absolute. For a poem
similarly inspired in the late seventies, see
"I shall not murmur if at last."]

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We shun it ere it comes, by Emily Dickinson

We shun it ere it comes,       
Afraid of Joy,               
Then sue it to delay            
And lest it fly,               
Beguile it more and more --    
May not this be               
Old Suitor Heaven,             
Like our dismay at thee?