A daily poem from the complete works of Emily Dickinson.
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Before the ice is in the pools,
Before the skaters go,
Or any cheek at nightfall
Is tarnished by the snow,
Before the fields have finished,
Before the Christmas tree,
Wonder upon wonder
Will arrive to me!
What we touch the hems of
On a summer’s day;
What is only walking
Just a bridge away;
That which sings so, speaks so,
When there’s no one here, –
Will the frock I wept in
Answer me to wear?
Tags: away, christmas, fall, ice, night, sing, snow, summer, touch, tree
I sing to use the waiting,
My bonnet but to tie,
And shut the door unto my house;
No more to do have I,
Till, his best step approaching,
We journey to the day,
And tell each other how we sang
To keep the dark away.
Bereaved of all, I went abroad,
No less bereaved to be
Upon a new peninsula, –
The grave preceded me,
Obtained my lodgings ere myself,
And when I sought my bed,
The grave it was, reposed upon
The pillow for my head.
I waked, to find it first awake,
I rose, — it followed me;
I tried to drop it in the crowd,
To lose it in the sea,
In cups of artificial drowse
To sleep its shape away, –
The grave was finished, but the spade
Remained in memory.
Where every bird is bold to go,
And bees abashless play,
The foreigner before he knocks
Must thrust the tears away.
Daily Routines offers a look into the (often compulsive) schedules of “writers, artists, and other interesting people.” Subjects include Franz Kafka, Corbusier, Jasper Johns, and Karl Marx.
Emily Dickinson is represented with a schedule of her days at Mount Holyoke seminary. It’s a strict routine of studies, lectures, music practice, and meals.
It’s worth noting that during her time at Holyoke, Dickinson said of herself that “I am one of the lingering bad ones, and so do I slink away, and pause, and ponder, and ponder, and pause.” Perhaps that’s why she wrote of absence and tardiness and “ten thousand other things, which I will not take time or place to mention . . .”: to mention them in great detail would no doubt expose much of her inner life.
Tags: away, days, die, holyoke, ice, lapses, Life, music, pause, ponder, routine, rules, schedule, seminary
It is an honorable thought,
And makes one lift one’s hat,
As one encountered gentlefolk
Upon a daily street,
That we’ve immortal place,
Though pyramids decay,
And kingdoms, like the orchard,
Flit russetly away.
We cover thee, sweet face.
Not that we tire of thee,
But that thyself fatigue of us;
Remember, as thou flee,
We follow thee until
Thou notice us no more,
And then, reluctant, turn away
To con thee o’er and o’er,
And blame the scanty love
We were content to show,
Augmented, sweet, a hundred fold
If thou would’st take it now.
Tags: away, blame, content, cover, face, flee, follow, hundred, ice, Love, reluctant, scanty, show, sweet, turn
A sloop of amber slips away
Upon an ether sea,
And wrecks in peace a purple tar,
The son of ecstasy.
