Emily Dickinson
more poems
These are the poems on which Christanne Miller bases most of her
discussion of Dickinson's grammar. Some are also in your anthology.
Notes following each poem indicate alternate words in Dickinson's manuscripts.
Essential oils /
He
fumbles at your soul / This
was a poet / My life had stood
a loaded gun
To pile like thunder
/ It was not death for I stood up
Essential Oils -- are wrung --
The Attar from the Rose
Be not expressed by Suns -- alone --
It is the gift of Screws --
The General Rose -- decay
But this -- in Lady's Drawer
Make Summer -- When the Lady lie
In Ceaseless Rosemary+ (675)
+Spiceless Sepulchre
He fumbles at your Soul
As Players at the Keys
Before they drop full Music on --
He stuns you by degrees --
Prepares your brittle Nature
For the Ethereal Blow
By fainter Hammers -- further heard --
Then nearer -- Then so slow
Your Breath has time to straighten --
Your Brain -- but bubble Cool --
Deals -- One -- imperial -- Thunderbolt --
That scalps your naked Soul --
When Winds take Forests in their Paws --The Universe -- is still --
(315)
Nature/substance time/chance
scalps/peels take/hold
Universe - is/Firmaments - are
This was a Poet -- It is That
Distills amazing sense
From ordinary Meanings --
And Attar so immense
From the familiar species
That perished by the Door --
We wonder it was not Ourselves
Arrested it -- before
Of Pictures, the Discloser --
The Poet -- it is He --
Entitles Us -- by Contrast --
To ceaseless Poverty --
Of Portion -- so unconscious --
The Robbing -- could not harm --
Himself -- to Him, -- a Fortune --
Exterior -- to Time -- (448)
My Life had stood -- a Loaded Gun --
In Corners -- till a Day
the Owner passed -- identified --
And carried Me away --
And now We roam in Sovreign Woods --
And now We hunt the Doe --
And every time I speak for Him --
The Mountains straight reply --
And do I smile, such cordial lift
Upon the Valley glow --
It is as a Vesuvian face
Had let it's pleasure through --
And when at Night -- Our good Day done --
I guard My Master's Head --
'Tis better than the Eider-Duck's
Deep Pillow -- to have shared --
To foe of His -- I'm deadly foe --
None stir the second time --
On whom I lay a Yellow Eye --
Or an emphatic Thumb --
Though I than He -- may longer live
He longer must -- than I --
For I have but the power to kill,
Without -- the power to die -- (754)
L.5 in/the Deep.low
stir/harm power/art
To pile like Thunder to it's close
Then crumble grand away
While Everything created hid
This -- would be Poetry --
Or Love -- the two coeval come --
We both and neither prove --
Experience either and consume --
For None see God and live -- (1247)
It was not Death, for I stood up,
And all the Dead, lie down --
It was not Night, for all the Bells
Put out their Tongues, for Noon.
It was not Frost, for on my Flesh
I felt Siroccos -- crawl --
Nor Fire -- for just my Marble feet
Could keep a Chancel, cool --
And yet, it tasted, like them all,
The Figures I have seen
Set orderly, for Burial,
Reminded me, of mine --
As if my life were shaven,
And fitted to a frame,
And could not breathe without a key,
And 'twas like Midnight, some -
When everything that ticked -- has stopped --
And Space stares all around --
Or Grisly frosts -- first Autumn morns,
Repeal the Beating Ground --
But, most, like Chaos - Stopless -- cool --
Without a Change, or Spar --
Or even a Report of Land --
To justify -- Despair. (#510)
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