Emily Dickinson
Revolutionary American poet of interiority
Most quoted
"The Robin’s my Criterion for Tune – Because I grow – where Robins do – But, were I Cuckoo born – I’d swear by him – The ode familiar – rules the Noon – The Buttercup’s, my Whim for Bloom – Because, we’re Orchard sprung – But, were I Britain born, I’d Daisies spurn – None but the Nut – October fit – Because, through dropping it, The Seasons flit – I’m taught – Without the Snow’s Tableau Winter, were lie – to me – Because I had not seen it go – But, this – makes not the Robin poor – Nor, of the Nut, deprive the Jay – Because the seasons flit away –"
— from Poem 347, 1862
"If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can ever warm me, I know that is poetry. If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry. These are the only way I know it. Is there any other way?"
— from Letter to Thomas Wentworth Higginson
"I’m ceded – I’ve stopped being Theirs – The name They dropped upon my face With water, in the country church Is finished using, now, And They can put it with my Dolls, My childhood, and the string of spools, I’ve finished threading – too –"
— from Poem 508, 1862
All quotes by Emily Dickinson (267)
Nature rarer uses yellow Than another hue.
I have no life but this, To lead it here; Nor any death, but lest Dispelled from there;
The Sky is low – the Clouds are mean.
A Prison gets to be a friend –
Experiment escorts us last – His pungent company Will not allow an Axiom An Opportunity –
To see the Summer Sky Is Poetry, though never in a Book it lie –
Remorse – is Memory – awake –
Contemporaries of Emily Dickinson
Other Literatures born within 50 years of Emily Dickinson (1830–1886).