Poems by Emily Dickinson, Series One, Emily Dickinson [read novel full TXT] 📗

POEMS

by EMILY DICKINSON

Series One


Edited by two of her friends

MABEL LOOMIS TODD and T.W.HIGGINSON


PREFACE.

THE verses of Emily Dickinson belong emphatically to what Emerson
long since called "the Poetry of the Portfolio,"--something produced
absolutely without the thought of publication, and solely by way of
expression of the writer's own mind. Such verse must inevitably
forfeit whatever advantage lies in the discipline of public criticism
and the enforced conformity to accepted ways. On the other hand, it
may often gain something through the habit of freedom and the
unconventional utterance of daring thoughts. In the case of the
present author, there was absolutely no choice in the matter; she
must write thus, or not at all. A recluse by temperament and habit,
literally spending years without setting her foot beyond the
doorstep, and many more years during which her walks were strictly
limited to her father's grounds, she habitually concealed her mind,
like her person, from all but a very few friends; and it was with
great difficulty that she was persuaded to print, during her
lifetime, three or four poems. Yet she wrote verses in great
abundance; and though brought curiously indifferent to all
conventional rules, had yet a rigorous literary standard of her own,
and often altered a word many times to suit an ear which had its own
tenacious fastidiousness.

Miss Dickinson was born in Amherst, Mass., Dec. 10, 1830, and died
there May 15, 1886. Her father, Hon. Edward Dickinson, was the
leading lawyer of Amherst, and was treasurer of the well-known
college there situated. It was his custom once a year to hold a large
reception at his house, attended by all the families connected with
the institution and by the leading people of the town. On these
occasions his daughter Emily emerged from her wonted retirement and
did her part as gracious hostess; nor would any one have known from
her manner, I have been told, that this was not a daily occurrence.
The annual occasion once past, she withdrew again into her seclusion,
and except for a very few friends was as invisible to the world as if
she had dwelt in a nunnery. For myself, although I had corresponded
with her for many years, I saw her but twice face to face, and
brought away the impression of something as unique and remote as
Undine or Mignon or Thekla.

This selection from her poems is published to meet the desire of her
personal friends, and especially of her surviving sister. It is
believed that the thoughtful reader will find in these pages a
quality more suggestive of the poetry of William Blake than of
anything to be elsewhere found,--flashes of wholly original and
profound insight into nature and life; words and phrases exhibiting
an extraordinary vividness of descriptive and imaginative power, yet
often set in a seemingly whimsical or even rugged frame. They are
here published as they were written, with very few and superficial
changes; although it is fair to say that the titles have been
assigned, almost invariably, by the editors. In many cases these
verses will seem to the reader like poetry torn up by the roots, with
rain and dew and earth still clinging to them, giving a freshness and
a fragrance not otherwise to be conveyed. In other cases, as in the
few poems of shipwreck or of mental conflict, we can only wonder at
the gift of vivid imagination by which this recluse woman can
delineate, by a few touches, the very crises of physical or mental
struggle. And sometimes again we catch glimpses of a lyric strain,
sustained perhaps but for a line or two at a time, and making the
reader regret its sudden cessation. But the main quality of these
poems is that of extraordinary grasp and insight, uttered with an
uneven vigor sometimes exasperating, seemingly wayward, but really
unsought and inevitable. After all, when a thought takes one's
breath away, a lesson on grammar seems an impertinence. As Ruskin
wrote in his earlier and better days, "No weight nor mass nor beauty
of execution can outweigh one grain or fragment of thought."

---Thomas Wentworth Higginson


TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE

As is well documented, Emily Dickinson's poems were edited in these
early editions by her friends, better to fit the conventions of the
times. In particular, her dashes, often small enough to appear
as dots, became commas and semi-colons.

In the second series of poems published, a facsimile of her
handwritten poem which her editors titled "Renunciation" is given,
and I here transcribe that manuscript as faithfully as I can,
showing _underlined_ words thus.


There came a day - at Summer's full -
Entirely for me -
I thought that such were for the Saints -
Where Resurrections - be -

The sun - as common - went abroad -
The flowers - accustomed - blew,
As if no soul - that solstice passed -
Which maketh all things - new -

The time was scarce profaned - by speech -
The falling of a word
Was needless - as at Sacrament -
The _Wardrobe_ - of our Lord!

Each was to each - the sealed church -
Permitted to commune - _this_ time -
Lest we too awkward show
At Supper of "the Lamb."

The hours slid fast - as hours will -
Clutched tight - by greedy hands -
So - faces on two Decks look back -
Bound to _opposing_ lands.

And so, when all the time had leaked,
Without external sound,
Each bound the other's Crucifix -
We gave no other bond -

Sufficient troth - that we shall _rise_,
Deposed - at length the Grave -
To that new marriage -
_Justified_ - through Calvaries - of Love!


From the handwriting, it is not always clear which are dashes,
which are commas and which are periods, nor it is entirely
clear which initial letters are capitalized.

However, this transcription may be compared with the edited
version in the main text to get a flavor of the changes made
in these early editions.

---JT


This is my letter to the world,
That never wrote to me, --
The simple news that Nature told,
With tender majesty.

Her message is committed
To hands I cannot see;
For love of her, sweet countrymen,
Judge tenderly of me!


I.


LIFE.


I.

SUCCESS.

[Published in "A Masque of Poets"
at the request of "H.H.," the author's
fellow-townswoman and friend.]

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!


II.

Our share of night to bear,
Our share of morning,
Our blank in bliss to fill,
Our blank in scorning.

Here a star, and there a star,
Some lose their way.
Here a mist, and there a mist,
Afterwards -- day!


III.

ROUGE ET NOIR.

Soul, wilt thou toss again?
By just such a hazard
Hundreds have lost, indeed,
But tens have won an all.

Angels' breathless ballot
Lingers to record thee;
Imps in eager caucus
Raffle for my soul.


IV.

ROUGE GAGNE.

'T is so much joy! 'T is 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!

Life is but life, and death but death!
Bliss is but bliss, and breath but breath!
And if, indeed, I fail,
At least to know the worst is sweet.
Defeat means nothing but defeat,
No drearier can prevail!

And if I gain, -- oh, gun at sea,
Oh, bells that in the steeples be,
At first repeat it slow!
For heaven is a different thing
Conjectured, and waked sudden in,
And might o'erwhelm me so!


V.


Glee! The great storm is over!
Four have recovered the land;
Forty gone down together
Into the boiling sand.

Ring, for the scant salvation!
Toll, for the bonnie souls, --
Neighbor and friend and bridegroom,
Spinning upon the shoals!

How they will tell the shipwreck
When winter shakes the door,
Till the children ask, "But the forty?
Did they come back no more?"

Then a silence suffuses the story,
And a softness the teller's eye;
And the children no further question,
And only the waves reply.


VI.

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.


VII.

ALMOST!

Within my reach!
I could have touched!
I might have chanced that way!
Soft sauntered through the village,
Sauntered as soft away!
So unsuspected violets
Within the fields lie low,
Too late for striving fingers
That passed, an hour ago.


VIII.

A wounded deer leaps highest,
I've heard the hunter tell;
'T is 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 the mail of anguish,
In which it cautions arm,
Lest anybody spy the blood
And "You're hurt" exclaim!


IX.

The heart asks pleasure first,
And then, excuse from pain;
And then, those little anodynes
That deaden suffering;

And then, to go to sleep;
And then, if it should be
The will of its Inquisitor,
The liberty to die.


X.