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| Emily |
| Dickinson |
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| To read from an abundant selection of Emily Dickinson's poems, click here: |
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| I taste a liquor never brewed-- From Tankards scooped in Pearl-- Not all the Vats upon the Rhine Yield such an Alcohol! Inebriate of Air--am I-- And Debauchee of Dew-- Reeling-thro endless summer days-- From inns of Molten Blue-- When "Landlords" turn the drunken Bee Out of the Foxglove's door-- When Butterflies--renounce their "drams"-- I shall but drink the more! Till Seraphs swing their snowy Hats-- And Saints--to windows run-- To see the little Tippler Leaning against the--Sun-- |
| I like a look of Agony, Because I know it's true-- Men do not sham Convulsion, Nor simulate, a Throe-- The Eyes glaze once--and that is Death-- Impossible to feign The Beads upon the Forehead By homely Anguish strung. |
| Much Madness is divinest Sense-- To a discerning Eye-- Much Sense--the starkest Madness-- 'Tis the Majority In this, as All, prevail-- Assent--and you are sane-- Demur--you're straightaway dangerous-- And handled with a Chain-- |
| Long Years apart--can make no Breach a second cannot fill-- The absence of the Witch does not Invalidate the spell-- The embers of a Thousand years Uncovered by the Hand That fondled them when they were Fire Will stir and understand-- |
| I never saw a Moor-- I never saw the Sea-- Yet know I how the Heather looks And what a Billow be. I never spoke with God Nor visited in Heaven-- Yet certain am I of the spot As if the Checks were given-- |
| Exultation is the going Of an inland soul to sea, Past the houses--past the headlands-- Into deep Eternity-- Bred as we, among the mountains, Can the sailor understand The divine intoxication Of the first league out from land? |
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| For a brief bio along with a few poems, click here: |
| A Man may make a Remark-- In Itself--a quiet thing that may furnish the fuse unto a Spark In dormant nature--lain-- Let us deport--with skill-- Let us discourse--with care-- Power exists in Charcoal-- Before it exists in Fire. |
| It bloomed and dropt, a Single Noon-- The Flower--disinct and Red-- I, passing, thought another Noon Another in its stead Will equal glow, and thought no More But came another Day To find the Species disappeared-- The Same Locality-- The Sun in place--no other fraud On Nature's perfect Sum-- Had I but lingered Yesterday-- Was my retrieveless blame-- Much Flowers of this and further Zones Have perished in my Hands For seeking its Resemblance-- But unapproached it stands-- The single Flower of the Earth That I, in passing by Unconcious was--Great Natures's Face Passed infinitely by Me-- |
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| "A near-recluse for most of her life, [she] was highly imaginative in her use of language and syntax, and concentrated on such themes as death, loss, and beauty with a disarming casualness. Though Dickinson is today regarded as one of America's greatest poets, fewer than ten of her poems were published during her lifetime." --D.T.E. |
| Death sets a thing significant The eye had hurried by, Except a perished creature Entreat us tenderly To ponder little workmanships In crayon or in wool, With, "This was last her fingers did," Industrious until The thimble weighed too heavy, The stitches stopped themselves, And then 't was put among the dust Upon the closet shelves. A book I have, a friend gave, Whose pencil, here and there, Had notched the place that pleased him,-- At rest his fingers are. Now, when I read, I read not, For interrupting tears Obliterate the etchings Too costly for repairs. |
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| (1830-1886) |
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