Renunciation – is a piercing Virtue –
The letting go
A Presence – for an Expectation –
Not now –
The putting out of Eyes –
Just Sunrise –
Lest Day –
Day’s Great Progenitor –
Outvie
Renunciation – is the Choosing
Against itself –
Itself to justify
Unto itself –
When the larger function –
Make that appear –
Smaller – that Covered Vision – Here –
~ Emily Dickinson
(The Poems of Emily Dickinson, #782)
Interestingly, scholars have noticed that Emily’s dress seems to be out of date for the time period when this daguerreotype was taken. But this seems to make sense in light of what she wrote in a letter to her friend, Abiah Palmer Root (1830-1915): “I’m so old fashioned, Darling, that all your friends would stare.”
The following poem was included in a letter Emily wrote to Kate, about 1859. In the letter Emily noted: “All we are strangers, dear. The world is not acquainted with us because we are not acquainted with her.”
There are two Ripenings
One of sight –
Whose forces spheric wind,
Until the velvet product
Drops spicy to the Ground,
A Homelier Maturing,
A process in the Burr
That teeth of Frosts alone Disclose
On far October air.
Emelie.
~ Emily Dickinson
(Letters of Emily Dickinson)
We turn not older with years, but newer every day.
~ Emily Dickinson
(Letters of Emily Dickinson)
Happy Birthday, Emily!
I find ecstasy in living; the mere sense of living is joy enough. How do most people live without any thoughts? There are many people in the world – you must have noticed them in the streets – how do they live? How do they get the strength to put on their clothes in the morning?
~ Emily Dickinson
(The Letters of Emily Dickinson, 1845-1886)
We grow accustomed to the Dark –
When Light is put away –
As when the Neighbor holds the Lamp
To witness her Good bye –
A Moment – We uncertain step
For newness of the night –
Then – fit our Vision to the Dark –
And meet the Road – erect –
And so of larger – Darknesses –
Those Evenings of the Brain –
When not a Moon disclose a sign –
Or Star – come out – within –
The Bravest – grope a little –
And sometimes hit a Tree
Directly in the Forehead –
But as they learn to see –
Either the Darkness alters –
Or something in the sight
Adjusts itself to Midnight –
And Life steps almost straight.
~ Emily Dickinson
(The Poems of Emily Dickinson, #428)
Each that we lose takes a part of us;
A crescent still abides,
Which like the moon, some turbid night,
Is summoned by the tides.
~ Emily Dickinson
(The Poems of Emily Dickinson, #1634)
A word is dead, when it is said
Some say –
I say it just begins to live
That day
~ Emily Dickinson
(The Poems of Emily Dickinson, #278)
The gleam of an heroic act
Such strange illumination
The Possible’s slow fuse is lit
By the Imagination.
~ Emily Dickinson
(The Poems of Emily Dickinson, #1686)
The concern of the Primary Imagination, its only concern, is with sacred beings and events. The sacred is that to which it is obliged to respond; the profane is that to which it cannot respond and therefore does not know… A sacred being cannot be anticipated, it must be encountered… All imaginations do not recognize the same sacred beings or events, but every imagination responds to those it recognizes in the same way.
~ W. H. Auden
(The Dyer’s Hand)
Some keep the Sabbath going to Church –
I keep it, staying at Home –
With a Bobolink for a Chorister –
And an Orchard, for a Dome –
Some keep the Sabbath in Surplice –
I, just wear my Wings –
And instead of tolling the Bell, for Church,
Our little Sexton – sings.
God preaches, a noted Clergyman –
And the sermon is never long,
So instead of getting to Heaven, at last –
I’m going, all along.
~ Emily Dickinson
(The Poems of Emily Dickinson, #236)
Save your sermons for someone that’s afraid to love
If you knew what I feel then you couldn’t be so sure
I’ll be right here lying in the hands of God
If you feel angels in your head
Teardrop of joy runs down your face
You will rise
~ Dave Matthews
♫ (Lying in the Hands of God) ♫
I should not dare to be so sad
So many Years again —
A Load is first impossible
When we have put it down —
The Superhuman then withdraws
And we who never saw
The Giant at the other side
Begin to perish now.
~ Emily Dickinson
(The Poems of Emily Dickinson, #1233)