Part Four: Time and Eternity

LXIX

One need not be a chamber to be haunted,

One need not be a house;
The brain has corridors surpassing
Material place.
  
Far safer, of a midnight meeting         
External ghost,
Than an interior confronting
That whiter host.
  
Far safer through an Abbey gallop,
The stones achase,         
Than, moonless, one’s own self encounter
In lonesome place.
  
Ourself, behind ourself concealed,
Should startle most;
Assassin, hid in our apartment,         
Be horror’s least.
  
The prudent carries a revolver,
He bolts the door,
O’erlooking a superior spectre
More near.         

Emily Dickinson (1830–86) Complete Poems

Emily Dickinson - The Loneliness One Dare Not Sound