Search Results for: perspective

< Return to Emily Dickinson Poems I. MINE. Mine by the right of the white election! Mine by the royal seal! Mine by the sign in the scarlet prison Bars cannot conceal! Mine, here in vision and in veto! Mine, by the grave’s repeal Titled, confirmed, — delirious charter! Mine, while the ages steal! —Emily […]

< Return to Emily Dickinson Poems XXVI. The brain within its groove Runs evenly and true; But let a splinter swerve, ‘T were easier for you To put the water back When floods have slit the hills, And scooped a turnpike for themselves, And blotted out the mills! —Emily Dickinson From Poems by Emily Dickinson. […]

< Return to Emily Dickinson Poems XXV. Belshazzar had a letter, — He never had but one; Belshazzar’s correspondent Concluded and begun In that immortal copy The conscience of us all Can read without its glasses On revelation’s wall. —Emily Dickinson From Poems by Emily Dickinson. Edited by Mabel Loomis Todd and T.W. Higginson. BUY […]

< Return to Emily Dickinson Poems XXIV. Whether my bark went down at sea, Whether she met with gales, Whether to isles enchanted She bent her docile sails; By what mystic mooring She is held to-day, — This is the errand of the eye Out upon the bay. —Emily Dickinson From Poems by Emily Dickinson. […]

< Return to Emily Dickinson Poems XXIII. UNRETURNING. ‘T was such a little, little boat That toddled down the bay! ‘T was such a gallant, gallant sea That beckoned it away! ‘T was such a greedy, greedy wave That licked it from the coast; Nor ever guessed the stately sails My little craft was lost! […]

< Return to Emily Dickinson Poems XXII. I had no time to hate, because The grave would hinder me, And life was not so ample I Could finish enmity. Nor had I time to love; but since Some industry must be, The little toil of love, I thought, Was large enough for me. —Emily Dickinson […]

< Return to Emily Dickinson Poems XX. 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, through endless summer days, From inns of molten blue. When landlords turn the drunken bee Out […]

< Return to Emily Dickinson Poems XIX. THE MYSTERY OF PAIN. Pain has an element of blank; It cannot recollect When it began, or if there were A day when it was not. It has no future but itself, Its infinite realms contain Its past, enlightened to perceive New periods of pain. —Emily Dickinson From […]

< Return to Emily Dickinson Poems XVIII. THE BOOK OF MARTYRS. Read, sweet, how others strove, Till we are stouter; What they renounced, Till we are less afraid; How many times they bore The faithful witness, Till we are helped, As if a kingdom cared! Read then of faith That shone above the fagot; Clear […]

< Return to Emily Dickinson Poems XVII. DAWN. When night is almost done, And sunrise grows so near That we can touch the spaces, It ‘s time to smooth the hair And get the dimples ready, And wonder we could care For that old faded midnight That frightened but an hour. —Emily Dickinson From Poems […]

< Return to Emily Dickinson Poems XVI. To fight aloud is very brave, But gallanter, I know, Who charge within the bosom, The cavalry of woe. Who win, and nations do not see, Who fall, and none observe, Whose dying eyes no country Regards with patriot love. We trust, in plumed procession, For such the […]

< Return to Emily Dickinson Poems XV. THE LONELY HOUSE. I know some lonely houses off the road A robber ‘d like the look of, — Wooden barred, And windows hanging low, Inviting to A portico, Where two could creep: One hand the tools, The other peep To make sure all’s asleep. Old-fashioned eyes, Not […]

< Return to Emily Dickinson Poems XIV. THE SECRET. Some things that fly there be, — Birds, hours, the bumble-bee: Of these no elegy. Some things that stay there be, — Grief, hills, eternity: Nor this behooveth me. There are, that resting, rise. Can I expound the skies? How still the riddle lies! —Emily Dickinson […]

< Return to Emily Dickinson Poems XIII. EXCLUSION. The soul selects her own society, Then shuts the door; On her divine majority Obtrude no more. Unmoved, she notes the chariot’s pausing At her low gate; Unmoved, an emperor is kneeling Upon her mat. I’ve known her from an ample nation Choose one; Then close the […]

< Return to Emily Dickinson Poems XII. I asked no other thing, No other was denied. I offered Being for it; The mighty merchant smiled. Brazil? He twirled a button, Without a glance my way: “But, madam, is there nothing else That we can show to-day?” —Emily Dickinson From Poems by Emily Dickinson. Edited by […]

< Return to Emily Dickinson Poems XI. Much madness is divinest sense To a discerning eye; Much sense the starkest madness. ‘T is the majority In this, as all, prevails. Assent, and you are sane; Demur, — you’re straightway dangerous, And handled with a chain. —Emily Dickinson From Poems by Emily Dickinson. Edited by Mabel […]

< Return to Emily Dickinson Poems X. IN A LIBRARY. A precious, mouldering pleasure ‘t is To meet an antique book, In just the dress his century wore; A privilege, I think, His venerable hand to take, And warming in our own, A passage back, or two, to make To times when he was young. […]

< Return to Emily Dickinson Poems IX. The heart asks pleasure first, And then, excuse from pain; And then, those little anodynes That deaden suffering; And then, to go to sleep; And then, if it should be The will of its Inquisitor, The liberty to die. —Emily Dickinson From Poems by Emily Dickinson. Edited by […]

< Return to Emily Dickinson Poems 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 […]