Tag: Emily Dickinson (Page 1 of 2)

The spider as an artist
Has never been employed
Though his surpassing merit
Is freely certified

By every broom and Bridget
Thought a Christian land.
Neglected son of genius,
I take thee by the hand.

(Selected Poems of Emily Dickinson, printed 2016)

A narrow fellow in the grass
Occasionally rides;
You may have met him, - did you not?
His notice sudden is.

The grass divides as with a comb,
A spotted shaft is seen;
And then it closes at your feet
And opens further on.

He likes a boggy acre,
A floor too cool for corn,
Yet when a child, and barefoot,
I more than once, at morn,

Have passed, I thought, a whip-lash
Unbraiding in the sun, - 
When, stooping to secure it, 
It wrinkled, and was gone.

Several of nature's people
I know, and they know me;
I feel for them a transport
Of cordiality;

But never met this fellow,
Attended or alone,
Without a tighter breathing,
And zero at the bone.

(Selected Poems of Emily Dickinson, printed 2016)

I believe she is talking about a snake. Don’t you?

I finished the Selected Poems of Emily Dickinson yesterday. This is small book, but it has about 175 poems in it. I still say that Emily Dickinson is not my favorite poet. Many of her works feel smashed together with sentences twisted to make the rhymes. But, then I read (or, rather, listened to) a small portion of her biography and realized that she never intended for most of her poems to be published. She could smash and twist words and sentences because she wan’t going to let anyone read her scribbles. She probably did not do much editing or rewriting either.

Emily Dickinson was a recluse and lived most of her life voluntarily shut in her room. Though she was never ungracious to visitors, she preferred solitude instead. You can tell from several of her poems, like these three, that she had quite a vivid imagination.

“I know some lonely houses off the road a robber’d like the look of…”

“Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul…”

“I started early, took me dog, and visited the sea…”

However, it is definitely worth your time to become aquatinted with Emily Dickinson’s poetry, especially if you would like to be a writer or poet. Though you may find some of her poems harder to understand, look for little one or two line phrases that catch your fancy. I think that is what I enjoyed most – looking for those little phrases that stood out to me, caught my eye, and made my imagination go, “Wow, how neat!”

The subjects Emily Dickinson wrote about were nature, life, death, eternity, and love. If you think about, are there any other subjects? Perhaps that is why she is loved by so many readers. She has a line or two for everyone. I’ve shared some of my favorites here on the blog (you can click the Emily Dickinson tag to find them). But I encourage you to read Dickinson’s poems and decide which ones are your own favorites.

It sifts from leaden sieves, 
It powders all the wood,
It fills with alabaster wool
The wrinkles of the road.

It makes an even face
Of mountain and of plain, - 
Unbroken forehead from the east
Unto the east again.

It reaches to the fence, 
It wraps it, rail by rail,
Till it is lost in fleeces;
It flings a crystal veil

On stump and stack and stem, - 
The summer's empty room,
Acres of seams where harvests were,
Recordless, but for them.

It ruffles wrists of poets,
As ankles of a queen, - 
Then stills its artisans like ghosts,
Denying they have been.

(from Selected Poems by Emily Dickinson, printed 2016)

She doesn’t really say, but I think Emily Dickinson is writing about fog. The poem seems to drift into the consciousness like a fog – wafting, rolling, billowing. My favorite part is how it engulfs the fence, “wraps it, rail by rail”. What do you think she is writing about in this poem?

I years had been from home,
And now, before the door,
I dared not open, lest a face
I never saw before

Stare vacant into mine
And ask my business there.
My business, - just a life I left,
Was such still swelling there?

I fumbled at my nerve,
I scanned the windows near;
The silence like an ocean rolled,
And broke against my ear.

I laughed a wooden laugh
That I could fear a door,
Who danger and the dead had faced,
But never quaked before.

I fitted to the latch
My hand, with trembling care,
Lest back the awful door should spring,
And leave me standing there.

I moved my fingers off 
As cautiously as glass,
And held my ears, and like a thief
Fled gasping from the house.

(from Selected Poems of Emily Dickinson, printed 2016)

I had a similar experience a few years ago when I travelled back to the home of my youth. Our little house still lay down a long, dirt drive. It was surrounded by trees – a woods that I used explore almost daily. But I couldn’t bring myself to drive all the way up to the house, so I turned around and left, with only a glimpse of the past. I think that we connect such good memories with the homes we lived in as children that we always want to go back. But is the house that we want to return to? Or could it be that we want to return to the youthful innocence and happiness that we knew there? I think Emily Dickinson expressed this desire when she said, “My business, – just a life I left, Was such still swelling there?”

The wind tapped like a tired man,
And like a host, "Come in,"
I boldly answered; entered then
My residence within.

A rapid, footless guest,
To offer whom a chair
Were as impossible as hand
A sofa to the air.

No bone had he to bind him,
His speech was like the push
Of numerous humming-birds at once
From a superior bush.

His countenance a billow,
His fingers, if he pass,
Let go a music, as of tunes
Blown tremulous in glass.

He visited, still flitting;
Then, like a timid man,
Again he tapped - 'twas flurriedly - 
And I became alone.

(from Selected Poems of Emily Dickinson, printed 2016)

I started early, took my dog,
And visited the sea;
The mermaid in the basement
Came out to look at me,

And frigates in the upper floor
Extended hempen hands. 
Presuming me to be a mouse
Aground, upon the sands.

But no man moved me till the tide
Went past my simple shoe,
And past my apron and my belt,
And past my bodice too,

And made as he would eat me up
As wholly as a dew
Upon a dandelion's sleeve - 
And then I started too.

And he - he followed close behind; 
I felt his silver heel
Upon my ankle, - then my shoes
Would overflow with pearl.

Until we met the solid town, 
No man he seemed to know;
And bowing with a mighty look
At me, the sea withdrew.

(from Selected Poems of Emily Dickinson, printed 2016)

Sometimes I have a hard time understanding Emily Dickinson’s poems. For me, many of them seem to be a smattering of words and rhymes without much meaning. I’m sure if I tried to analyze them deeply, I could figure it out, but I tend to be lazy when reading poetry. If the meaning seems unclear, I pass by and find one that is clearer.

However, with this poem, I can see the picture clearly. Can you see it? A lady on a walk by the shore. She looks out, imagining mermaids and ships. Then the waves crash in. They overtake her, covering her shoes, making their way up her skirts all the way to her belt, threatening to overtake her and drag her back with them to the deep. Then, they stop. As though with a bow, the waves recede back to the depths without the lady. This is truly a beautiful picture painted by Emily Dickinson.

I stepped from plank to plank
So slow and cautiously;
The stars about my head I felt,
About my feet the sea.

I knew not but the next
Would be my final inch, - 
This gave me that precarious gait
Some call experience.

(from Selected Poems of Emily Dickinson, printed 2016)

There is no frigate like a book
To take us to lands away,
Nor any coursers like a page
Of prancing poetry.

This traverse may the poorest take
Without oppress of toll;
How frugal is the chariot
That bears a human soul!

(from Selected Poems of Emily Dickinson, printed 2016)