Some
Favorite Poems
* Note -- Emily's
poems like some others, are without titles. So i used the poems
first line as title for index.
Emily or should I say Poetess Dickinson was born in Amherst, Massachuetts on December 10, 1830. Emily lived secluded in the house she was born in, except for the short time she attended Amhurst Academy and Holyoke Female Seminary, until her death on May 15, 1886 due to Bright's disease.
Emily was an energetic and outgoing woman while attending the Academy and Seminary. It was later, during her mid-twenties, that Emily began to grow reclusive. She attended almost exclusively to household chores and to writing poetry.
Many scholars have tried to understand why and theorize why Emily decided to seclude herself in her home and write about the most intimate experiences and feelings of life. I think that the best of these theories is that Emily could not write about the world with out first backing away from the it and contemplating it from a distance.
Emily had few friends and acquaintances from day to day. One of these aquaintances was Thomas Wentworth Higginson whom she sent a few pieces of her poetry to. He rejected her poems, but he was eventually the first to publish her work after her death. Emily only had a six or seven of her poems published during her lifetime--and those without her consent. The number is argued over because one poem was published more than once.
It was after her death that her poems were discovered. It is estimated that Emily wrote over 1700 poems.
If I can stop one heart from breaking, I shall not live in vain; If I can ease one life the aching, Or cool one pain, Or help one fainting robin Unto his nest again, I shall not live in vain.
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A word is dead When it is said, Some say. I say it just Begins to live That day.
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We never know how high we are Till we are called to rise; And then, if we are true to plan, Our statures touch the skies. The heroism we recite Would be a daily thing, Did not ourselves the cubits warp For fear to be king.
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I felt a clearing in my mind As if my brain had split; I tried to match it, seam by seam, But could not make them fit. The thought behind I strove to join Unto the thought before, But sequence ravelled out of reach Like balls upon the floor.
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Who has not found the heaven below Will fail of it above. God's residence is next to mind, His furniture love.
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Surgeons must be very careful When they take the knife! Underneath their fine incisions Stirs the Culprit,--Life!
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This is my letter to the world, That never wrote to me,-- The simple news that Nature told, With tender majesty. Her message is committed To hands I cannot see; For love of her, sweet countrymen, Judge terderly of me!
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Love is anterior to life, Posterior to death, Initial of creation, and The exponent of breath.
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It's all I have to bring to-day, This, and my heart beside, This, and my heart, and all the fields, And all the meadows wide. Be sure you count, should I forget,-- Some one the sum could tell,-- This, and my heart, and all the bees Which in the clover dwell.
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Where ships of purple gently toss On seas of daffodil, Fantastic sailors mingle, And then--the wharf is still.
How happy is the little stone That rambles in the road alone, And doesn't care about careers, And exigencies never fears; Whose coat of elemental brown A passing universe put on; Associates or glows alone, Fulfilling absolute decree In casual simplicity.
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My nosegays are for captives; Dim, long-expectant eyes, Fingers denied the plucking, Patient till paradise. To such, if they should whisper Of morning and the moor, They bear no other errand, And I, no other prayer.
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Because I could not stop for Death, He kindly stopped for me; The carriage held but just ourselves And Immortality. We slowly drove, he knew no haste, And I had put away My labor, and my leisure too, For his civility. We passed the school where children played, Their lessons scarcely done; We passd the fields of grazing grain, We passed the setting sun. We paused before a house that seemed A swelling of the ground; The roof was scarcely visible, The cornice but a mound. Since then 't is centuries; but each Feels shorter than the day I first surmised the horses' heads Were toward eternity.
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If I can stop one heart from breaking, I shall not live in vain; If I can ease one life the aching, Or cool one pain, Or help one fainting robin Unto his nest again, I shall not live in vain.
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The
Forgotten Grave
After a hundred years Nobody knows the place,-- Agony that enacted there, Motionless as peace. Weeds triumphant ranged, Strangers strolled and spelled At the lone orthography Of the elder dead. Winds of summer fields Recollect the way,-- Instinct picking up the key Dropped by memory.
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From us she wandered now a year, Her tarrying unkown; If wilderness prevent her feet, Or that ethereal zone No eye hath seen and lived, We ignorant must be. We only know what time of year We took the mystery.
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Look back on time with kindly eyes, He doubtless did his best; How softly sinks his trembling sun In human nature's west!
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Tie the strings to my life, my Lord, Then I am ready to go! Just a look at the horses-- Rapid! That will do! Put me in on the firmest side, So I shall never fall; For we must ride to the Judgement, And it's partly down hill. But never I mind the bridges, And never I mind the sea; Held fast in everlasting race By my own choice and thee. Good-bye to the life I used to live, And the world I used to know; And kiss the hills for me, just once; Now I am ready to go!
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I'm nobody! Who are you? Are you nobody, too? Then there's a pair of us--don't tell! They'd banish us, you know. How dreary to be somebody! How public, like a frog To tell your name the livelong day To an admiring bog!
I have not told my garden yet, Lest that should conquer me; I have not quite the strength now To break it to the bee. I will not name it in the street, For shops would stare, that I, So shy, so very ignorant, Should have the face to die. The hillsides must not know it, Where I have rambled so, Nor tell the loving forests The day that I shall go, Nor lisp it at the table, Nor heedless by the way Hint that within the riddle One will walk to-day!
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The Distance That
The Dead Have Gone
The distance that the dead have gone Does not at first appear;' Their coming back seems possible For many an ardent year.'' And then, that we have followed them We more than half suspect, So intimate have we become With their dear retrospect.
A grave not Forgotten!
