# Lounge > Chit Chat >  >  Emily Dickinson appreciation thread

## anonymid

It's Emily Dickinson's birthday today, which I think is a good enough excuse for an appreciation thread. Post your favorite Dickinson poems here, if you have any.



They say that "Time assuages" - 
Time never did assuage -
An actual suffering strengthens
As Sinews do, with Age -

Time is a Test of Trouble -
But not a Remedy -
If such it prove, it prove too
There was no Malady -

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## Anteros

*"We never know how high we are
Till we are asked to rise
And then if we are true to plan
Our statures touch the skies --"*

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## anonymid

“Hope” is the thing with feathers -
That perches in the soul -
And sings the tune without the words -
And never stops - at all -

And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -
And sore must be the storm -
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm -

I’ve heard it in the chillest land -
And on the strangest Sea -
Yet - never - in Extremity,
It asked a crumb - of me.

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## Meadowlark

Some keep the Sabbath going to Church â
I keep it, staying at Home â
With a Bobolink for a Chorister â
And an Orchard, for a Dome â

Some keep the Sabbath in Surplice â
I, just wear my Wings â
And instead of tolling the Bell, for Church,
Our little Sexton â sings.

God preaches, a noted Clergyman â
And the sermon is never long,
So instead of getting to Heaven, at last â
Iâm going, all along.

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## factmonger

Yay Emily! My boyfriend used to live right next to the graveyard she was buried in.

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## Meadowlark

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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## WineKitty

Wild Nights - Wild Nights!
Were I with thee
Wild Nights should be
Our luxury!

Futile - the Winds -
To a Heart in port -
Done with the Compass -
Done with the Chart!

Rowing in Eden -
Ah, the Sea!
Might I but moor -
Tonight - With Thee!


^^THIS has always been my favorite poem by Emily Dickinson.

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## Ironman

The Facts of Life did a whole episode on her.  :Rofl: 

"Beauty crowds me 'til I die...."

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## anonymid

She sights a Bird - she chuckles -
She flattens - then she crawls -
She runs without the look of feet -
Her eyes increase to Balls -

Her Jaws stir - twitching - hungry -
Her Teeth can hardly stand -
She leaps, but Robin leaped the first -
Ah, Pussy, of the Sand,

The Hopes so juicy ripening -
You almost bathed your tongue -
When Bliss disclosed a hundred Toes -
And fled with every one -

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## Meadowlark

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!

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## anonymid

I would not paint - a picture -
I'd rather be the One
Its bright impossibility
To dwell - delicious - on -
And wonder how the fingers feel
Whose rare - celestial - stir -
Evokes so sweet a torment -
Such sumptuous - Despair -

I would not talk, like Cornets -
I'd rather be the One
Raised softly to the Ceilings -
And out, and easy on -
Through Villages of Ether -
Myself endued Balloon
By but a lip of Metal -
The pier to my Pontoon -

Nor would I be a Poet -
It's finer - Own the ear -
Enamored - impotent - content -
The License to revere,
A privilege so awful
What would the Dower be,
Had I the Art to stun myself
With Bolts - of Melody!

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## Meadowlark

I measure every grief I meet	
  With analytic eyes;	
I wonder if it weighs like mine,	
  Or has an easier size.	

I wonder if they bore it long,	        
  Or did it just begin?	
I could not tell the date of mine,	
  It feels so old a pain.	

I wonder if it hurts to live,	
  And if they have to try,	        
And whether, could they choose between,	
  They would not rather die.	

I wonder if when years have piledâ	
  Some thousandsâon the cause	
Of early hurt, if such a lapse	        
  Could give them any pause;	

Or would they go on aching still	
  Through centuries above,	
Enlightened to a larger pain	
  By contrast with the love.	        

The grieved are many, I am told;	
  The reason deeper lies,â	
Death is but one and comes but once,	
  And only nails the eyes.	

Thereâs grief of want, and grief of cold,â	        
  A sort they call âdespairâ;	
Thereâs banishment from native eyes,	
  In sight of native air.	

And though I may not guess the kind	
  Correctly, yet to me	        
A piercing comfort it affords	
  In passing Calvary,	

To note the fashions of the cross,	
  Of those that stand alone,	
Still fascinated to presume	        
  That some are like my own.

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## anonymid

Of Bronze - and Blaze -
The North - tonight -
So adequate - it forms -
So preconcerted with itself -
So distant - to alarms -
An Unconcern so sovreign
To Universe, or me -
Infects my simple spirit
With Taints of Majesty -
Till I take vaster attitudes -
And strut upon my stem -
Disdaining Men, and Oxygen
For Arrogance of them -

My Splendors, are Menagerie -
But their Competeless Show
Will entertain the Centuries
When I, am long ago,
An Island in dishonored Grass -
Whom none but Beetles, know -

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## Meadowlark

I never lost as much but twice,	
And that was in the sod;	
Twice have I stood a beggar	
Before the door of God!	

Angels, twice descending,	        
Reimbursed my store.	
Burglar, banker, father,	
I am poor once more!

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## Duke Silver

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 need to get back to reading more Dickinson.

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## anonymid

I dreaded that first Robin, so,
But He is mastered, now,
I'm some accustomed to Him grown,
He hurts a little, though -

I thought if I could only live
Till that first Shout got by - 
Not all Pianos in the Woods
Had power to mangle me -

I dared not meet the Daffodils -
For fear their Yellow Gown
Would pierce me with a fashion
So foreign to my own -

I wished the Grass would hurry -
So when 'twas time to see -
He'd be too tall, the tallest one
Could stretch to look at me -

I could not bear the Bees should come,
I wished they'd stay away
In those dim countries where they go,
What word had they, for me?

They're here, though; not a creature failed -
No Blossom stayed away
In gentle deference to me -
The Queen of Calvary -

Each one salutes me, as he goes,
And I, my childish Plumes,
Lift, in bereaved acknowledgment
Of their unthinking Drums -

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## Meadowlark

I cannot live with you,
It would be life,
And life is over there
Behind the shelf

The sexton keeps the key to,
Putting up
Our life, his porcelain,
Like a cup

Discarded of the housewife,
Quaint or broken;
A newer Sevres pleases,
Old ones crack.

I could not die with you,
For one must wait
To shut the other's gaze down,
You could not.

And I, could I stand by
And see you freeze,
Without my right of frost,
Death's privilege?

Nor could I rise with you,
Because your face
Would put out Jesus',
That new grace

Glow plain and foreign
On my homesick eye,
Except that you, than he
Shone closer by.

They'd judge us-how?
For you served Heaven, you know,
Or sought to;
I could not,

Because you saturated sight,
And I had no more eyes
For sordid excellence
As Paradise.

And were you lost, I would be,
Though my name
Rang loudest
On the heavenly fame.

And were you saved,
And I condemned to be
Where you were not,
That self were hell to me.

So we must keep apart,
You there, I here,
With just the door ajar
That oceans are,
And prayer,
And that pale sustenance,
Despair!

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## anonymid

The Emily Dickinson program from the PBS series Voices and Visions (circa the late '80s):

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## Meadowlark

I heard a fly buzz when I died;
The stillness round my form
Was like the stillness in the air
Between the heaves of storm.

The eyes beside had wrung them dry,
And breaths were gathering sure
For that last onset, when the king
Be witnessed in his power.

I willed my keepsakes, signed away
What portion of me I
Could make assignable,-and then
There interposed a fly,

With blue, uncertain, stumbling buzz,
Between the light and me;
And then the windows failed, and then
I could not see to see.

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## anonymid

I felt a Cleaving 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 Sound -
Like Balls - upon a Floor -

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## distancing

There is a Languor of the Life
More imminent than Painâ
'Tis Pain's SuccessorâWhen the Soul
Has suffered all it canâ

A Drowsinessâdiffusesâ
A Dimness like a Fog
Envelops Consciousnessâ
As Mistsâobliterate a Crag.

The Surgeonâdoes not blanchâat pain
His Habitâis severeâ
But tell him that it ceased to feelâ
The Creature lying thereâ

And he will tell youâskill is lateâ
A Mightier than Heâ
Has ministered before Himâ
There's no Vitality.

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## Meadowlark

A poor â torn heart â a tattered heart â
That sat it down to rest â
Nor noticed that the Ebbing Day
Flowed silver to the West â
Nor noticed Night did soft descend â
Nor Constellation burn â
Intent upon the vision
Of latitudes unknown.

The angels â happening that way
This dusty heart espied â
Tenderly took it up from toil
And carried it to God â
There â sandals for the Barefoot â
There â gathered from the gales â
Do the blue havens by the hand
Lead the wandering Sails.

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## WintersTale

I've never read Emily Dickinson. Where is a good place to start?

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## Meadowlark

> I've never read Emily Dickinson. Where is a good place to start?



I'd recommend _Collected Poems of Emily Dickinson_.  It highlights some of her best poems and breaks them up into categories such as life, love, nature, etc.  The entire collection of her poetry is 700+ pages, so I'd start with this condensed version.

In honor of National Poetry Month and the arrival of spring...

A LIGHT exists in spring	
Not present on the year	
At any other period.	
When March is scarcely here	

A color stands abroad	        
On solitary hills	
That silence cannot overtake,	
But human nature feels.	

It waits upon the lawn;	
It shows the furthest tree	       
Upon the furthest slope we know;	
It almost speaks to me.	

Then, as horizons step,	
Or noons report away,	
Without the formula of sound,	        
It passes, and we stay:	

A quality of loss	
Affecting our content,	
As trade had suddenly encroached	
Upon a sacrament.

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## WintersTale

Thanks for the recommendation. I will see if it is available for my kindle.

Sent from my HTC One S using Tapatalk 2

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## Meadowlark

There is no Frigate like a Book
To take us Lands away, 
Nor any Coursers like a Page
Of prancing Poetry â
This Traverse may the poorest take
Without oppress of Toll â  
How frugal is the Chariot
That bears a Human soul.

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