Source: Project Gutenberg eBook #12242, Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series, Complete
Source URL: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/12242
Public domain basis: Complete text of the three posthumous series edited by Mabel Loomis Todd and T. W. Higginson (1890, 1891, 1896), with their editorial titles and regularized punctuation. Public domain.
Coverage: Complete individual poem extracted from parent edition poems-of-emily-dickinson at bytes 8862-9219; checksum f95a5b7eb6b84c2d643a0c68dcb5bef273348187589eca8e85e334a7f0d05c7c.


# A Wounded Deer Leaps Highest

VIII.

A wounded deer leaps highest,
I've heard the hunter tell;
'T is but the ecstasy of death,
And then the brake is still.

The smitten rock that gushes,
The trampled steel that springs;
A cheek is always redder
Just where the hectic stings!

Mirth is the mail of anguish,
In which it cautions arm,
Lest anybody spy the blood
And "You're hurt" exclaim!