Revolution is the pod (33)

Revolution is the pod
Systems rattle from;
When the winds of
Will are stirred,
Excellent is bloom.

But except its russet
Base
Every summer be
The entomber of itself;
So of Liberty.

Left inactive on the
Stalk,
All its purple fled,
Revolution shakes it
For
Test if it be dead.

From The Further Poems of Emily Dickinson (Little, Brown, And Company, 1929) by Emily Dickinson. © 1929 Martha Dickinson Bianchi. This poem is in the public domain.