A modest lot, a fame petite,
A brief campaign of sting and sweet
Is plenty! Is enough!
A sailor’s business is the shore,
A soldier’s — balls. Who asketh more
Must seek the neighboring life!
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If the foolish call them ‘flowers,’
Need the wiser tell?
If the savans ‘classify’ them,
It is just as well!
Those who read the Revelations
Must not criticise
Those who read the same edition
With beclouded eyes!
Could we stand with that old Moses
Canaan denied, –
Scan, like him, the stately landscape
On the other side, –
Doubtless we should deem superfluous
Many sciences
Not pursued by learnèd angels
In scholastic skies!
Low amid that glad _Belles lettres_
Grant that we may stand,
Stars, amid profound Galaxies,
At that grand ‘Right hand’!
Podcast music by Antonio Meneses
Tags: angels, cloud, eyes, flower, land, may, men, music, must, skies, star, stars
Drowning is not so pitiful
As the attempt to rise.
Three times, ‘t is said, a sinking man
Comes up to face the skies,
And then declines forever
To that abhorred abode
Where hope and he part company, –
For he is grasped of God.
The Maker’s cordial visage,
However good to see,
Is shunned, we must admit it,
Like an adversity.
Podcast music by Claire Fitch
Taken from men this morning,
Carried by men to-day,
Met by the gods with banners
Who marshalled her away.
One little maid from playmates,
One little mind from school, –
There must be guests in Eden;
All the rooms are full.
Far as the east from even,
Dim as the border star, –
Courtiers quaint, in kingdoms,
Our departed are.
She died, — this was the way she died;
And when her breath was done,
Took up her simple wardrobe
And started for the sun.
Her little figure at the gate
The angels must have spied,
Since I could never find her
Upon the mortal side.
I have not told my garden yet,
Lest that should conquer me;
I have not quite the strength now
To break it to the bee.
I will not name it in the street,
For shops would stare, that I,
So shy, so very ignorant,
Should have the face to die.
The hillsides must not know it,
Where I have rambled so,
Nor tell the loving forests
The day that I shall go,
Nor lisp it at the table,
Nor heedless by the way
Hint that within the riddle
One will walk to-day!
He put the belt around my life, –
I heard the buckle snap,
And turned away, imperial,
My lifetime folding up
Deliberate, as a duke would do
A kingdom’s title-deed, –
Henceforth a dedicated sort,
A member of the cloud.
Yet not too far to come at call,
And do the little toils
That make the circuit of the rest,
And deal occasional smiles
To lives that stoop to notice mine
And kindly ask it in, –
Whose invitation, knew you not
For whom I must decline?
The official Daily Dickinson 2008 Calendar is available, featuring poems and pictures that have been featured on this site.
Emily Dickinson’s 177th birthday arrives next Monday, December 10 (and she looks hardly a day over 150 . . .). Celebratory events are gearing up; we’ve already mentioned the reading and discussion at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, DC, on Monday evening.
Closer to home (at least, to Dickinson’s home), the Emily Dickinson Museum has a few events planned:
- “my Verse is aliveâ€, an exhibit that “explores the tangled private and public motives of several figures closely associated with Emily Dickinson,” closes on December 8.
- Emily Dickinson Birthday Lecture, at 4:00 PM today, Thursday, December 6, given by scholar and biographer Polly Longsworth; the title for her lecture is given as “‘Nothing but a Sword’: Austin and Mabel and the Publication of Emily Dickinson’s Poems.”
- Birthday Open House, 1:00 – 4:00 PM on Saturday, December 8; “the first 177 visitors will receive a rose, courtesy of an anonymous donor.”
The Amherst Bulletin lists some of the many entertainments to expect at the open house, including music, crafts, and a book signing by Barbara Dana and Cindy MacKenzie. If you find yourself in Amherst on Saturday, this is a must-see event!
Tags: alive, book, december, first, house, men, music, must, nothing, poem, rose, see
Keeping Up with Emily
