In honor of World Poetry Day, March 21st, here are 21 incredible Dickinson snippets pulled from both her well-known and lesser-known works:
Remorse—is Memory—awake—
Her Parties all astir—
A Presence of Departed Acts—
At window—and at Door—
It’s Past—set down before the Soul
And lighted with a match—
Perusal—to facilitate—
And help Belief to stretch—
[…]
* * * *
A Doubt if it be Us
Assists the staggering Mind
In an extremer Anguish
Until it footing find—
[…]
* * * *
When One has given up One’s life
The parting with the rest
Feels easy, as when Day lets go
Entirely the West
[…]
* * * *
And this, of all my Hopes
This, is the silent end
Bountiful colored, My Morning rose
Early and sere, its end
[…]
* * * *
I cannot be ashamed
Because I cannot see
The love you offer—
Magnitude
Reverses modesty
[…]
* * * *
Will pass without the parting
So to spare
Certificate of Absence—
Deeming where
I left Her I could find her
If I tried—
This way, I keep from missing
Those that died
* * * *
The missing All, prevented Me
From missing minor Things.
If nothing larger than a World’s
Departure from a Hinge
[…]
* * * *
Bind me—I still can sing—
[…]
* * * *
Crumbling is not an instant’s Act
A fundamental pause
Dilapidation’s processes
Are organized Decays—
[…]
* * * *
Best Things dwell out of Sight
The Pearl—the Just—Our Thought—
Most shun the Public Air
Legitimate, and Rare
[…]
* * * *
Older feel than the Hope that prompted—
Spotless be from blame
Heart that proposed as Heart that accepted
Homelessness, for Home—
[…]
* * * *
Too scanty ‘twas to die for you,
The merest Greek could that.
The living, Sweet, is costlier—
I offer even that—
[…]
* * * *
The Dying need but little, Dear,
A Glass of Water’s all,
A Flower’s unobtrusive Face
To Punctuate the Wall,
A Fan, perhaps, a Friend’s Regret
And Certainty that one
No color in the Rainbow
Perceive, when you are gone—
* * * *
‘Twas my one Glory—
Let it be
Remembered
I was owned of Thee—
* * * *
To Whom the Mornings stand for Nights,
What must the Midnights—be!
[…]
* * * *
Elder, Today, A session wiser,
And fainter, too as Wiseness is
[…]
* * * *
To make Routine a Stimulus
Remember it can cease—
[…]
* * * *
So much of Heaven has gone from Earth
That there must be a Heaven
[…]
* * * *
We do not know the time we lose—
The awful moment is
And takes its fundamental place
Among the certainties—
A firm appearance still inflates
The card—the chance—the friend—
The spectre of solidities
Whose substances are sand
* * * *
The smouldering embers blush—
Oh Cheek within the Coal
Hast thou survived so many nights?
The smouldering embers smile—
[…]
* * * *
The Day She goes
Or Day she stays
Are equally supreme—
Existence has a stated width
Departed, or at Home—
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