Poems by Emily Dickinson
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Emily Dickinson
Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) was an American poet. Born in Amherst, Massachusetts, Dickinson was raised in a prominent family of lawyers and politicians alongside two siblings. For seven years, she studied at Amherst Academy, excelling in English, classics, and the sciences. Dickinson suffered from melancholy and poor health from a young age, taking several breaks from school to stay with family in Boston. After graduation, Dickinson enrolled at Mount Holyoke Female Seminary, withdrawing ten months later to return home to Amherst. Through her friend Benjamin Franklin Newton, she was introduced to the poetry of William Wordsworth and Ralph Waldo Emerson, whose influence would prove profound as she embarked on a literary life of her own. Despite her status as one of the greatest American poets of the nineteenth century, Dickinson published only ten poems and one letter during her lifetime, only a sampling of nearly two thousand poems discovered after her death. Cast as an eccentric by contemporaries and later critics alike, Dickinson was an enigmatic figure whose experimental forms and extensive use of symbols have inspired generations of readers and poets. By the 1870s, following the death of her father, Dickinson had largely withdrawn from public life. Spending much of her time caring for her ailing mother, she still managed to write poems and send letters to friends and family. In 1886, following her death, Dickinson’s younger sister Lavinia discovered her collection of poems and began the long and arduous process of bringing them to print.
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Poems by Emily Dickinson - Emily Dickinson
dwell.
PREFACE.
The intellectual activity of Emily Dickinson was so great that a large and characteristic choice is still possible among her literary material, and this third volume of her verses is put forth in response to the repeated wish of the admirers of her peculiar genius. Much of Emily Dickinson’s prose was rhythmic, —even rhymed, though frequently not set apart in lines.
Also many verses, written as such, were sent to friends in letters; these were published in 1894, in the volumes of her Letters. It has not been necessary, however, to include them in this Series, and all have been omitted, except three or four exceptionally strong ones, as A Book,
and With Flowers.
There is internal evidence that many of the poems were simply spontaneous flashes of insight, apparently unrelated to outward circumstance. Others, however, had an obvious personal origin; for example, the verses I had a Guinea golden,
which seem to have been sent to some friend travelling in Europe, as a dainty reminder of letter-writing delinquencies. The surroundings in which any of Emily Dickinson’s verses are known to have been written usually serve to explain them clearly; but in general the present volume is full of thoughts needing no interpretation to those who apprehend this scintillating spirit.
M. L. T.
AMHERST, October, 1896.
PART I. LIFE.
I.
REAL RICHES.
‘T is little I could care for pearls
Who own the ample sea;
Or brooches, when the Emperor
With rubies pelteth me;
Or gold, who am the Prince of Mines;
Or diamonds, when I see
A diadem to fit a dome
Continual crowning me.
II.
SUPERIORITY TO FATE.
Superiority to fate
Is difficult to learn.
‘T is not conferred by any,
But possible to earn
A pittance at a time,
Until, to her surprise,
The soul with strict economy
Subsists till Paradise.
III.
HOPE.
Hope is a subtle glutton;
He feeds upon the fair;
And yet, inspected closely,
What abstinence is there!
His is the halcyon table
That never seats but one,
And whatsoever is consumed
The same amounts remain.
IV.
FORBIDDEN FRUIT.
I.
Forbidden fruit a flavor has
That lawful orchards mocks;
How luscious lies the pea within
The pod that Duty locks!
V.
FORBIDDEN FRUIT.
II.
Heaven is what I cannot reach!
The apple on the tree,
Provided it do hopeless hang,
That ‘heaven’ is, to me.
The color on the cruising cloud,
The interdicted ground
Behind the hill, the house behind, —
There Paradise is found!
VI.
A WORD.
A word is dead
When it is said,
Some say.
I say it just
Begins to live
That day.
VII.
To venerate the simple days
Which lead the seasons by,
Needs but to remember
That from you or me
They may take the trifle
Termed mortality!
To invest existence with a stately air,
Needs but to remember
That the acorn there
Is the egg of forests
For the upper air!
VIII.
LIFE’S