Emily Dickinson
Emily Dickinson
Emily Elizabeth Dickinsonwas an American poet. Dickinson was born in Amherst, Massachusetts. Although part of a prominent family with strong ties to its community, Dickinson lived much of her life highly introverted. After studying at the Amherst Academy for seven years in her youth, she briefly attended the Mount Holyoke Female Seminary before returning to her family's house in Amherst. Considered an eccentric by locals, she developed a noted penchant for white clothing and became known for her reluctance to...
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth10 December 1830
CityAmherst, MA
What will the solemn Hemlock- What will the Oak tree say?
Eternity' is there, We say, as of a station. Meanwhile, he is so near, He joins me in my Ramble? Divides abode with me? No Friend have I that so persists As this Eternity.
A wounded deer leaps highest, I've heard the hunter tell; 'Tis 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 mail of anguish, In which its cautious arm Lest anybody spy the blood And, you're hurt exclaim.
For each ecstatic instant We must an anguish pay In keen and quivering ratio To the ecstasy.
Belshazzar had a letter,-- He never had but one; Belshazzar's correspondence Concluded and begun In that immortal copy The conscience of us all Can read without its glasses On revelation's wall.
The mountain at a given distance In amber lies; Approached, the amber flits a little,-- And that's the skies!
Not one of all the purple host Who took the flag to-day Can tell the definition So clear of victory, As he, defeated, dying, On whose forbidden ear The distant strains of triumph Break agonized and clear.
Renunciation-is a piercing Virtue-The letting go A Presence-for an Expectation-.
The Things that never can come back, are several- Childhood-some forms of Hope-the Dead- Though Joys-like Men-may sometimes make a Journey- And still abide-.
That short, potential stir That each can make but once, That bustle so illustrious Tis almost consequence, Is the eclat of death.
The distance that the dead have gone Does not at first appear- Their coming back seems possible For many an ardent year.
We never know we go when we are going- We jest and shut the Door- Fate-following-behind us bolts it- And we accost no more-.
You'll find it-when you try to die- The Easier to let go- For recollecting such as went- You could not spare-you know.
Take all away from me, but leave me Ecstasy, And I am richer then than all my Fellow Men-.