Explore "The Balloon" by Emily Dickinson on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
You've seen balloons set, haven't you?
So stately they ascend / It is as swans discarded you / For duties diamond.
Their liquid feet go softly out / Upon a sea of blond; / They spurn the air as 't were too mean / For creatures so renowned.
Their ribbons just beyond the eye, / They struggle some for breath, / And yet the crowd applauds below; / They would not encore death.
The gilded creature strains and spins, / Trips frantic in a tree, / Tears open her imperial veins / And tumbles in the sea.
The crowd retire with an oath / The dust in streets goes down, / And clerks in counting-rooms observe, / ''T was only a balloon. '