Veiled

I misquoted a poem yesterday.
I didn’t get it too wrong but enough
to make me cringe after I said the stuff
since my heart and brain both wanted their say

and I was frightened, desperate, for a way
to indulge my heart without speaking fluff,
to indulge my brain without sounding rough,
to make time for just one second wait, stay.

I’m sure the person I was talking to
knew exactly which two words I got wrong.
I’ll never know if she thought me a fool

for attempting what I couldn’t quite do,
or was she touched by my zeal to belong.
Between heaven and hell veiled is the rule.

MY life closed twice before its close;
    It yet remains to see
If Immortality unveil
    A third event to me,

So huge, so hopeless to conceive,
    As these that twice befell.
Parting is all we know of heaven,
    And all we need of hell.

Emily Dickinson