Dictionary Poems

THE trees are in their autumn beauty,The woodland paths are dry,Under the October twilight the waterMirrors a still sky;Upon the brimming water among the stonesAre nine-and-fifty Swans.The nineteenth autumn has come upon meSince I first made my count;I saw, before I had well finished,All suddenly mountAnd scatter wheeling in great broken ringsUpon their clamorous wings.I … Continued

We outgrow love like other things And put it in the drawer,Till it an antique fashion shows Like costumes grandsires wore. – We outgrow love like other things by Emily Dickinson

I could have sold him up because His rent was long past due;And Grimes, my lawyer, said it was The proper thing to do:But how could I be so inhuman? And me a gentle-woman. Yet I am poor as chapel mouse, Pinching to make ends meet,And have to let my little house To buy enough … Continued

Indeed this very love which is my boast,And which, when rising up from breast to brow,Doth crown me with a ruby large enowTo draw men’s eyes and prove the inner cost,–This love even, all my worth, to the uttermost,I should not love withal, unless that thouHadst set me an example, shown me how,When first thine … Continued

A year to live, the Doctor said;There is no cure, and shook his head.Ah me! I felt as good as dead.Yet quite resigned to fate was I,Thinking: Well, since I have to die‘Twill be beneath the open sky. And so I sought a wildsome woodWherein a lonely cabin stood,And doomed myself to solitude,And there was … Continued

I AM the people–the mob–the crowd–the mass.Do you know that all the great work of the world is done through me?I am the workingman, the inventor, the maker of the world’s food and clothes.I am the audience that witnesses history. The Napoleons come from me and the Lincolns. They die. And then I send forth … Continued

THE blunder is to estimate,–Eternity is Then,We say, as of a station.Meanwhile he is so near,He joins me in my ramble,Divides abode with me,No friend have I that so persistsAs this Eternity. – THE blunder is to estimate by Emily Dickinson

I AM the mist, the impalpable mist,Back of the thing you seek.My arms are long,Long as the reach of time and space. Some toil and toil, believing,Looking now and again on my face,Catching a vital, olden glory. But no one passes me,I tangle and snare them all.I am the cause of the Sphinx,The voiceless, baffled, … Continued

But I would rather be horizontal.I am not a tree with my root in the soilSucking up minerals and motherly loveSo that each March I may gleam into leaf,Nor am I the beauty of a garden bedAttracting my share of Ahs and spectacularly painted,Unknowing I must soon unpetal.Compared with me, a tree is immortalAnd a … Continued

I’m wife; I’ve finished that,That other state;I’m Czar, I’m woman now:It’s safer so. How odd the girl’s life looksBehind this soft eclipse!I think that earth seems soTo those in heaven now. This being comfort, thenThat other kind was pain;But why compare?I’m wife! stop there! – APOCALYPSE – I’m wife; I’ve finished that by Emily Dickinson