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A continuing selection of classic and contemporary poems.

The reticent volcano keeps

Emily Dickinson

1748

The reticent volcano keeps
His never slumbering plan—
Confided are his projects pink
To no precarious man.

If nature will not tell the tale
Jehovah told to her
Can human nature not survive
Without a listener?

Admonished by her buckled lips
Let every babbler be
The only secret people keep
Is Immortality.
Online text © 1998-2008 Poetry X. All rights reserved.
From The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson
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