Emily Dickinson (1830-1886): selected poems
Billy Collins (1941-): “Taking Off Emily Dickinson’s Clothes”
Selected Poems by Dickinson
[112]
“Success is counted sweetest”
[135]
“Water, is taught by thirst.”
[214]
“I taste a liquor never brewed,”
[254]
“Hope is the thing with feathers”
[258]
“There’s a certain Slant of light,”
[303]
“The Soul selects her own Society—“
[328]
“A bird came down the walk:”
[340]
I felt a Funeral, in my Brain,
[465]
“I heard a Fly buzz—when I died—“
[520]
“I started Early—Took my Dog—“
[632]
“The Brain—is wider than the Sky—“
[712]
“Because I could not stop for Death—“
[754]
“My Life had stood—a Loaded Gun—“
[1695]
“There is a solitude of space”
[1732]
“My life closed twice before its close—“
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English 10 Advanced
Mosiondz
Emily Dickinson (1830-1886): selected poems
Billy Collins (1941-): “Taking Off Emily Dickinson’s Clothes”
[112]
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.
English 10 Advanced
Mosiondz
And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.
I ‘ve heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.
[258]
There’s a certain Slant of light,
Winter Afternoons—
That oppresses, like the Heft
Of Cathedral Tunes—
[135]
Water, is taught by thirst.
Land—by the Oceans passed.
Transport—by throe—
Peace—by its battles told—
Love, by Memorial Mold—
Birds, by the Snow.
Heavenly Hurt, it gives us—
We can find no scar,
But internal difference,
Where the Meanings, are—
[214]
I taste a liquor never brewed,
From tankards scooped in pearl;
Not all the vats upon the Rhine
Yield such an alcohol!
When it comes, the Landscape listens—
Shadows—hold their breath—
When it goes, ‘tis like the Distance
On the look of Death—
Inebriate of air am I,
And debauchee of dew,
Reeling, through endless summer days,
From inns of molten blue.
[303]
The Soul selects her own Society—
Then—shuts the Door—
To her divine Majority—
Present no more—
When landlords turn the drunken bee
Out of the foxglove’s door,
When butterflies renounce their drams,
I shall but drink the more!
Till seraphs swing their snowy hats,
And saints to windows run,
To see the little tippler
Leaning against the sun!
[254]
Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,
None may teach it—Any—
‘Tis the Seal Despair—
An imperial affliction
Sent us of the Air—
Unmoved—she notes the Chariots—pausing—
At her low Gate—
Unmoved—an Emperor be kneeling
Upon her Mat—
I’ve known her—from an ample nation—
Choose One—
Then—close the Valves of her attention—
Like Stone—
[328]
A bird came down the walk:
He did not know I saw;
He bit an angle-worm in halves
And ate the fellow, raw.
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Emily Dickinson (1830-1886): selected poems
Billy Collins (1941-): “Taking Off Emily Dickinson’s Clothes”
English 10 Advanced
Mosiondz
And then he drank a dew
From a convenient grass,
And then hopped sidewise to the wall
To let a beetle pass.
The Eyes around—had wrung them dry—
And Breaths were gathering firm
For that last Onset—when the King
Be witnessed—in the Room—
He glanced with rapid eyes
That hurried all abroad,—
They looked like frightened beads, I thought
He stirred his velvet head
I willed my Keepsakes—Signed away
What portion of me be
Assignable—and then it was
There interposed a Fly—
Like one in danger; cautious,
I offered him a crumb,
And he unrolled his feathers
And rowed him softer home
With Blue—uncertain stumbling Buzz—
Between the light—and me—
And then the Windows failed—and then
I could not see to see—
Than oars divide the ocean,
Too silver for a seam,
Or butterflies, off banks of noon,
Leap, plashless, as they swim.
[520]
I started Early—Took my Dog—
And visited the Sea—
The Mermaids in the Basement
Came out to look at me—
[340]
I felt a Funeral, in my Brain,
And Mourners to and fro
Kept treading—treading—till it seemed
That Sense was breaking through—
And Frigates—in the Upper Floor
Extended Hempen Hands—
Presuming Me to be a Mouse—
Aground—upon the Sands—
And when they all were seated,
A Service, like a Drum—
Kept beating—beating—till I thought
My mind was going numb —
But no Man moved Me—till the Tide
Went past my simple Shoe—
And past my Apron—and my Belt—
And past my Bodice—too—
And then I heard them lift a Box
And creak across my Soul
With those same Boots of Lead, again,
Then Space—began to toll,
And made as He would eat me up—
As wholly as a Dew
Upon a Dandelion’s Sleeve—
And then—I started—too—
As all the Heavens were a Bell,
And Being, but an Ear,
And I, and Silence, some strange Race
Wrecked, solitary, here—
And He—He followed—close behind—
I felt his Silver Heel
Upon my Ankle—Then my Shoes
Would overflow with Pearl—
And then a Plank in Reason, broke,
And I dropped down, and down—
And hit a World, at every plunge,
And Finished knowing—then—
Until We met the Solid Town—
No One He seemed to know—
And bowing—with a Mighty look—
At me—The Sea withdrew—
[465]
I heard a Fly buzz—when I died—
The Stillness in the Room
Was like the Stillness in the Air—
Between the Heaves of Storm—
[632]
The Brain—is wider than the Sky—
For—put them side by side—
The one the other will contain
With ease—and You—beside—
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Emily Dickinson (1830-1886): selected poems
Billy Collins (1941-): “Taking Off Emily Dickinson’s Clothes”
The Brain is deeper than the sea—
For—hold them—Blue to Blue—
The one the other will absorb—
As Sponges—Buckets—do—
The Brain is just the weight of God—
For—hold them—Pound for Pound—
And they will differ—if they do—
As Syllable from Sound—
[712]
Because I could not stop for Death—
He kindly stopped for me—
The carriage held but just Ourselves—
And Immortality.
We slowly drove—He knew no haste
And I had put away
My labor and my leisure too,
For His Civility—
We passed the School, where Children strove
At Recess—in the Ring—
We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain—
We passed the Setting Sun—
Or rather—He passed Us—
The Dews drew quivering and chill—
For only Gossamer, my Gown—
My Tippet, only Tulle—
We paused before a House that seemed
A Swelling of the Ground—
The Roof was scarcely visible—
The Cornice—in the Ground—
Since then—’tis Centuries—and yet
Feels shorter than the Day
I first surmised the Horses’ Heads
Were toward Eternity—
[754]
My Life had stood—a Loaded Gun—
In Corners—till a Day
The Owner passed—identified—
And carried Me away—
English 10 Advanced
Mosiondz
And now We roam in Sovereign Woods—
And now We hunt the Doe—
And every time I speak for Him—
The Mountains straight reply—
And do I smile, such cordial light
Upon the Valley glow—
It is as a Vesuvian face
Had let its 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—
[1695]
There is a solitude of space
A solitude of sea
A solitude of death, but these
Society shall be
Compared with that profounder site
That polar privacy
A soul admitted to itself—
Finite infinity.
[1732]
My life closed twice before its close—
It yet remains to see
If Immortality unveil
A third event to me
So huge, so hopeless to conceive
As these that twice befell.
Parting is all we know of heaven,
And all we need of hell.
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Emily Dickinson (1830-1886): selected poems
Billy Collins (1941-): “Taking Off Emily Dickinson’s Clothes”
English 10 Advanced
Mosiondz
“Taking Off Emily Dickinson’s Clothes”
First, her tippet made of tulle,
easily lifted off her shoulders and laid
on the back of a wooden chair.
And her bonnet,
the bow undone with a light forward pull.
Then the long white dress, a more
complicated matter with mother-of-pearl
buttons down the back,
so tiny and numerous that it takes forever
before my hands can part the fabric,
like a swimmer dividing water,
and slip inside.
You will want to know
that she was standing
by an open window in an upstairs bedroom,
motionless, a little wide-eyed,
looking out at the orchard below,
the white dress puddled at her feet
on the wide-board, hardwood floor.
The complexity of women’s undergarments
in nineteenth-century America
is not to be waved off,
and I proceeded like a polar explorer
through clips, clasps, and moorings,
catches, straps, and whalebone stays,
sailing toward the iceberg of her nakedness.
Later, I wrote in a notebook
it was like riding a swan into the night,
but, of course, I cannot tell you everything—
the way she closed her eyes to the orchard,
how her hair tumbled free of its pins,
how there were sudden dashes
whenever we spoke.
What I can tell you is
it was terribly quiet in Amherst
that Sabbath afternoon,
nothing but a carriage passing the house,
a fly buzzing in a windowpane.
So I could plainly hear her inhale
when I undid the very top
hook-and-eye fastener of her corset
and I could hear her sigh when finally it was unloosed,
the way some readers sigh when they realize
that Hope has feathers,
that reason is a plank,
that life is a loaded gun
that looks right at you with a yellow eye.
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