When I started to read Ms. Dickinson’s Complete Poems, I knew that I wouldn’t want to create commentary on each one, but that some would strike me more than others. So I tore strips from a pad of sticky notes and marked each one I liked. Of 1775 poems, these are the ones I marked. You can see that I became more enthusiastic about them the more I read.
And of the lot, #1176 is my favorite:
We never know how high we are
Till we are asked to rise
And then if we are true to plan
Our statures touch the skies —The Heroism we recite
Would be a normal thing
Did not ourselves the Cubits warp
For fear to be a King —
These 68 would make up (based on but one reading and no scholarship, to be certain), my Selected edition of her work…
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- 70 – “Arcturus” is his other name—
- 254 – Hope is the thing with feathers
- 323 – As if I asked a common Alms –
- 341 – After great pain, a formal feeling comes –
- 371 – A precious — mouldering pleasure — ’tis —
- 435 – Much madness is divinest sense
- 451 – The Outer — from the Inner
- 480 – “Why do I love” You, Sir?
- 512 – The Soul has Bandaged moments —
- 520 – I started Early — Took my Dog —
- 521 – Endow the Living — with the Tears —
- 530 – You cannot put a Fire out —
- 570 – I could die — to know —
- 584 – It ceased to hurt me, though so slow
- 587 – Empty my Heart, of Thee —
- 595 – Like Mighty Foot Lights — burned the Red
- 660 – ‘Tis good — the looking back on Grief —
- 670 – One need not be a Chamber — to be Haunted —
- 686 – They say that “Time assuages” —
- 695 – As if the Sea should part
- 703 – Out of sight? What of that?
- 747 – Drama’s Vitallest Expression is the Common Day
- 771 – None can experience sting
- 822 – This Consciousness that is aware
- 823 – Not that We did, shall be the test
- 851 – When the Astronomer stops seeking
- 869 – Because the Bee may blameless hum
- 912 – Peace is a fiction of our Faith —
- 923 – How the Waters closed above Him
- 947 – Of Tolling Bell I ask the cause?
- 949 – Under the Light, yet under,
- 958 – We met as Sparks — Diverging Flints
- 959 – A loss of something ever felt I —
- 969 – He who in Himself believes —
- 1010 – Up Life’s Hill with my little Bundle
- 1035 – Bee! I’m expecting you!
- 1054 – Not to discover weakness is
- 1058 – Bloom — is Result — to meet a Flower
- 1129 – Tell all the Truth but tell it slant —
- 1142 – The Props assist the House
- 1146 – When Etna basks and purrs
- 1176 – We never know how high we are
- 1207 – He preached upon “Breadth” till it argued him narrow —
- 1219 – Now I knew I lost her —
- 1227 – My Triumph lasted till the Drums
- 1263 – There is no Frigate like a Book
- 1304 – Not with a Club, the Heart is broken
- 1379 – His Mansion in the Pool
- 1380 – How much the present moment means
- 1383 – Long Years apart — can make no
- 1392 – Hope is a strange invention —
- 1397 – It sounded as if the Streets were running
- 1451 – Whoever disenchants
- 1498 – Glass was the Street — in tinsel Peril
- 1507 – The Pile of Years is not so high
- 1521 – The Butterfly upon the Sky,
- 1530 – A Pang is more conspicuous in Spring
- 1545 – The Bible is an antique Volume —
- 1551 – Those — dying then,
- 1563 – By homely gift and hindered Words
- 1633 – Still own thee — still thou art
- 1640 – Take all away from me, but leave me Ecstasy,
- 1664 – I did not reach Thee
- 1670 – In Winter in my Room
- 1706 – When we have ceased to care
- 1717 – Did life’s penurious length
- 1731 – Love can do all but raise the Dead
- 1755 – To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee,