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I remember liking Emily Dickinson in high
school. We studied some of her poems in English class, and
I think I still have some of my favorite ones from the textbook
memorized. I wanted to buy a book of her poems, but I
think the one I wanted was too expensive for me at the time, so
I never bought it. Last year, though, I bought a
new-looking used copy of The Collected Poems of Emily
Dickinson for $2. I ignored it for a while, but one
day the urge hit me to sit down and read the poems it contains. |
I have several comments about the work in general:
- The whole text is in the public domain, because Dickinson
wrote the poems long enough ago. Because they are in the
public domain, anyone can collect them into a book and publish
them with little editorial overhead. In this case, this was
done by Barnes & Noble Books.
- These are the original poems that were published after
Dickinson's death. They are not, however, the
original poems. I seem to recall that they were altered by
someone else when they were published. Without having made
really any investigation, I can say that both words and
punctuation have been altered, just because I remember the
originals from the textbook I had in high school, and the poems in
this book are different.
- There were originally three books published, and this book
contains them all, although I think they have been re-ordered
according to theme, or something. There are five parts:
Life, Nature, Love, Time & Eternity, and The Single Hound.
The first section, Life, is far superior to any and all of the
others, if you ask me.
- Dickinson never gave her poems titles. (Other people
did.) The poems in this book are numbered, although I'm not
sure whether these are the numbers that are always used for her
poems. In this edition there is an index of first lines at
the end of the book to make individual poems easier to find.
- Many of Dickinson's poems have a very regular meter: I think
she got the meter from hymns at church. The result is that
the poems are very easy to read because they have a predictable
pattern. The somewhat more obscure result is that you can
sing them if you know a tune with the same meter. One such
tune is "Amazing Grace," which has the same meter as "Gilligan's
Island." (Yes, you can sing "Amazing Grace" to the tune of
"Gilligan's Island"! I find this rather amusing. Of
all the things to remember from confirmation class (9th grade
Sunday school), that fact still stands out.)
| LIFE |
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| I.
SUCCESS is counted sweetest
By those who ne'er succeed.
To comprehend a nectar
Requires sorest need.
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.
|
This reminds me of two
other poems: Paul Lawrence Dunbar's "Life's Tragedy" and Edgar
Lee Masters's "George Gray". |
|
X.
A PRECIOUS,
mouldering pleasure ’t is
To meet an antique book,
In just the dress his century wore;
A privilege, I think,
His venerable hand to take,
And warming in our own,
A passage back, or two, to make
To times when he was young.
His quaint opinions to inspect,
His knowledge to unfold
On what concerns our mutual mind,
The literature of old;
What interested scholars most,
What competitions ran
When Plato was a certainty,
And Sophocles a man;
When Sappho was a living girl,
And Beatrice wore
The gown that Dante deified.
Facts, centuries before,
He traverses familiar,
As one should come to town
And tell you all your dreams were true:
He lived where dreams were born.
His presence is enchantment,
You beg him not to go;
Old volumes shake their vellum heads
And tantalize, just so.
|
Oh, the love of books. |
| XI.
MUCH madness is divinest
sense
To a discerning eye;
Much sense the starkest madness.
'T is the majority
In this, as all, prevails.
Assent, and you are sane;
Demur,--you're straightway dangerous,
And handled with a chain.
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| XVI.
TO fight aloud is very
brave,
But gallanter, I know,
Who charge within the bosom,
The cavalry of woe.
Who win, and nations do not see,
Who fall, and none observe,
Whose dying eyes no country
Regards with patriot love.
We trust, in plumed procession,
For such the angels go,
Rank after rank, with even feet
And uniforms of snow.
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XIX.
PAIN has an element of
blank;
It cannot recollect
When it began, or if there were
A day when it was not.
It has no future but itself,
Its infinite realms contain
Its past, enlightened to perceive
New periods of pain.
|
There is a long story
connected with this poem. It's a story about
the terrible
art class I took in college. |
XX.
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, through 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 swig their snowy hats,
And saints to windows run,
To see the little tippler
Leaning against the sun!
|
I really love the
phrase "inebriate of air am I." I get really tired of
Emily's many many references to bees, though. |
| XXI.
HE ate and drank the
precious words,
His spirit grew robust;
He knew no more that he was poor,
Nor that his frame was dust.
He danced along the dingy days,
And this bequest of wings
Was but a book. What liberty
A loosened spirit brings!
|
Oh, the love of books. |
XXVII.
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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| XXXII.
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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| XXXVI.
I NEVER hear the word
"escape"
Without a quicker blood,
A sudden expectation,
A flying attitude.
I never hear of prisons broad
By soldiers battered down,
But I tug childish at my bars,--
Only to fail again!
|
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| XXXVII.
FOR each ecstatic instant
We must an anguish pay
In keen and quivering ratio
To the ecstasy.
For each beloved hour
Sharp pittances of years,
Bitter contested farthings
And coffers heaped with tears.
|
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XXXIX.
I MEANT to have but modes needs,
Such as content, and heaven;
Within my income these could lie,
And life and I keep even.
But since the last included both,
It would suffice my prayer
But just for one to stipulate,
And grace would grand the pair.
And so, upon this wise I prayed,--
Great Spirit, give to me
A heaven not so large as yours,
But large enough for me.
A smile suffused Jehovah's face;
The cherubim withdrew;
Grave saints stole out to look at me,
And showed their dimples too.
I left the place with all my might,--
My prayer away I threw;
The quiet ages picked it up,
And Judgment twinkled, too,
That one so honest be extant
As take the tale for true
That "Whatsoever you shall ask,
Itself be given you."
But I, grown shrewder, scan the skies
With a suspicious air,--
As children, swindled for the first,
All swindlers be, infer.
|
I like this longer,
narrative poem. |
XLI.
THE soul unto itself
Is an imperial friend,--
Or the most agonizing spy
An enemy could send.
Secure against its own,
No treason it can fear;
Itself its sovereign, of itself
The soul should stand in awe.
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XLVI.
A THOUGHT went up my mind to-day
That I have had before,
But did not finish,--some way back,
I could not fix the year,
Nor where it went, nor why it came
The second time to me,
Nor definitely what it was,
Have I the art to say.
But somewhere in my soul, I know
I've met the thing before;
It just reminded me--'t was all--
And came my way no more.
|
Emily has written a
poem about deja vu! |
XLVIII.
Though I get home how late, how late!
So I get home, 't will compensate.
Better will be the ecstasy
That they have done expecting me,
When, night descending, dumb and dark,
They hear my unexpected knock.
Transporting must the moment be,
Brewed from decades of agony!
To think just how the fire will burn,
Just how long-cheated eyes will turn
To wonder what myself will say,
And what itself will say to me,
Beguiles the centuries of way!
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| LIV. |
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