Emily Elizabeth Dickinson (1830–86) was an American lyric poet. She played a leading role in redefining modern verse. She wrote 1775 short lyrics; only seven were published during her life, none with her consent.
Particulars of Dickinson’s life are as perplexing as some of her poems. Born in Amherst, Massachusetts, Dickenson was vigorous, witty, and outgoing during her early years. However, in her mid-twenties, she gradually withdrew into an inner world and ultimately refused to leave her home. She lived with her unmarried sister Lavinia in “The Homestead.” Emily read voraciously and exchanged letters with a small circle of friends.
Dickinson’s reclusive life and her inner struggles are reflected in her mystical poems. She referred to herself as “The Queen of Calvary” and wrote in an elliptical language, with great stress on assonance and alliteration than rhyme. Her verse is full of references to storms, shipwrecks, volcanoes, funerals, imprisonments, and other expressions of natural and human ferocity.
Today, Dickenson’s lyrical poetry ranks among the most significant works in American literature. Poems by Emily Dickinson appeared in 1890. A complete scholarly edition of her works first appeared only in 1955. A facsimile of her manuscripts was published in The Manuscript Books of Emily Dickinson (1982.)
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Emily Dickinson
To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee,
One clover, and a bee,
And revery.
The revery alone will do,
If bees are few.
—Emily Dickinson
Topics: Imagination
I’ll tell you how the sun rose a ribbon at a time.
—Emily Dickinson
Topics: Light
Heaven is so far of the mind that were the mind dissolved—the site of it by architect could not again be proved.
—Emily Dickinson
Topics: Heaven
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.
—Emily Dickinson
Topics: Giving, Meaning, Kindness, Living, Purpose, Heart, Helpfulness, Service
Great Spirit, give to me a heaven not so large as yours but large enough for me.
—Emily Dickinson
Topics: Heaven
I’m Nobody! Who are you?
Are you—Nobody—too?
Then there’s a pair of us?
Don’t tell! they’d advertise—you know!
—Emily Dickinson
Topics: Friendship
Dogs are better than human beings because they know but do not tell.
—Emily Dickinson
Topics: Dogs
Fame is a fickle food upon a shifting plate.
—Emily Dickinson
Topics: One liners, Fame
I tasted – careless – then –
I did not know the Wine
Came once a World – Did you?
Oh, had you told me so –
This Thirst would blister – easier – now
—Emily Dickinson
Topics: Wine
Let us go in; the fog is rising.
—Emily Dickinson
Topics: Death, Dying
Dying is a wild night and a new road.
—Emily Dickinson
Topics: Nature, Dying, Death
They say that God is everywhere, and yet we always think of Him as somewhat of a recluse.
—Emily Dickinson
Topics: God
Surgeons must be very careful. When they take the knife, underneath their fine incisions, stirs the culprit—life!
—Emily Dickinson
Topics: Medicine, Doctors
Tell the truth, but tell it slant.
—Emily Dickinson
Topics: Truth
Unable are the loved to die. For love is immortality.
—Emily Dickinson
Topics: Sympathy
That love is all there is is all we know of love.
—Emily Dickinson
Topics: Romance
Opinion is a flitting thing
But Truth outlasts the Sun.
—Emily Dickinson
Topics: Truth
Beauty is not caused, – it is;
Chase it and it ceases,
Chase it not and it abides…
—Emily Dickinson
This is the Hour of Lead—
Remembered, if outlived,
As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow—
First—Chill—then Stupor—then the letting go—.
—Emily Dickinson
Topics: Snow
The Brain – is wider than the Sky –
For – put them side by side –
The one the other will contain
With ease – and You – beside….
The Brain is just the weight of God –
For – Heft them – Pound for Pound –
And they will differ – if they do –
As Syllable from Sound.
—Emily Dickinson
Topics: Mind
Proud of my broken heart since thou didst break it,
Proud of the pain I did not feel till thee,
Proud of my night since thou with moons dost slake it,
Not to partake thy passion, my humility.
—Emily Dickinson
Topics: Heart
I argue thee that love is life. And life hath immortality.
—Emily Dickinson
Topics: Love
Parting is all we know of heaven and all we need of hell.
—Emily Dickinson
Topics: Last Words
Assent—and you are sane—, demur—you’re straightway dangerous—, and handled with a Chain—.
—Emily Dickinson
Topics: Dissent
Eden is that old-fashioned house we dwell in every day without suspecting our abode until we drive away.
—Emily Dickinson
Topics: Gratitude, Happiness, Appreciation, Blessings
A mother is one to whom you hurry when you are troubled.
—Emily Dickinson
Topics: Mothers
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.
—Emily Dickinson
Topics: Potential, Possibilities, Hope
‘Tis so much joy! ‘Tis so much joy! If I should fail, what poverty! And yet, as poor as I Have ventured all upon a throw; Have gained! Yes! Hesitated so this side the victory!
—Emily Dickinson
Topics: Excitement, Joy
To live is so startling it leaves little time for anything else.
—Emily Dickinson
A letter always seemed to me like Immortality, for is it not the Mind alone, without corporeal friend?
—Emily Dickinson
Topics: Letters
Beauty is not caused. It is.
—Emily Dickinson
Topics: Beauty, Virtues
I measure every grief I meet with narrow, probing eyes – I wonder if it weighs like mine – or has an easier size.
—Emily Dickinson
Topics: Grief
How the old mountains drip with sunset,
And the brake of dun!
How the hemlocks are tipped in tinsel
By the wizard sun!
How the old steeples hand the scarlet,
Till the ball is full,—
Have I the lip of the flamingo
That I dare to tell?
Then, how the fire ebbs like billows,
Touching all the grass
With a departing, sapphire feature,
As if a duchess pass!
How a small dusk crawls on the village
Till the houses blot;
And the odd flambeaux no men carry
Glimmer on the spot!
Now it is night in nest and kennel,
And where was the wood,
Just a dome of abyss is nodding
Into solitude!—
These are the visions baffled Guido;
Titian never told;
Domenichino dropped the pencil,
Powerless to unfold.
—Emily Dickinson
The Gleam of an heroic act,
Such strange illumination—
The Possible’s slow fuse it lit
By the Imagination.
—Emily Dickinson
Topics: Possibilities, Imagination
Truth is such a rare thing, it is delightful to tell it.
—Emily Dickinson
Topics: Truth, Honesty
The soul should always stand ajar, ready to welcome the ecstatic experience.
—Emily Dickinson
Topics: Experience
The Brain is wider than the sky-.
—Emily Dickinson
Topics: Mind, The Mind
A word is dead
When it is said,
Some say.
I say it just
Begins to live
That day.
—Emily Dickinson
Topics: Words
For Love is Immortality.
—Emily Dickinson
Topics: Romance
That it will never come again is what makes life so sweet.
—Emily Dickinson
Topics: Carpe-diem
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