A daily poem from the complete works of Emily Dickinson.
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Frequently the woods are pink,
Frequently are brown;
Frequently the hills undress
Behind my native town.
Oft a head is crested
I was wont to see,
And as oft a cranny
Where it used to be.
And the earth, they tell me,
On its axis turned, –
Wonderful rotation
By but twelve performed!
Arcturus is his other name, –
I’d rather call him star!
It’s so unkind of science
To go and interfere!
I pull a flower from the woods, –
A monster with a glass
Computes the stamens in a breath,
And has her in a class.
Whereas I took the butterfly
Aforetime in my hat,
He sits erect in cabinets,
The clover-bells forgot.
What once was heaven, is zenith now.
Where I proposed to go
When time’s brief masquerade was done,
Is mapped, and charted too!
What if the poles should frisk about
And stand upon their heads!
I hope I ‘m ready for the worst,
Whatever prank betides!
Perhaps the kingdom of Heaven ‘s changed!
I hope the children there
Won’t be new-fashioned when I come,
And laugh at me, and stare!
I hope the father in the skies
Will lift his little girl, –
Old-fashioned, naughty, everything, –
Over the stile of pearl!
Tags: children, flower, fly, hope, Love, men, skies, star, woods
Who robbed the woods,
The trusting woods?
The unsuspecting trees
Brought out their burrs and mosses
His fantasy to please.
He scanned their trinkets, curious,
He grasped, he bore away.
What will the solemn hemlock,
What will the fir-tree say?
The official Daily Dickinson 2008 Calendar is available, featuring poems and pictures that have been featured on this site.
I dreaded that first robin so,
But he is mastered now,
And I ‘m accustomed to him grown, –
He hurts a little, though.
I thought if I could only live
Till that first shout got by,
Not all pianos in the woods
Had power to mangle me.
I dared not meet the daffodils,
For fear their yellow gown
Would pierce me with a fashion
So foreign to my own.
I wished the grass would hurry,
So when ‘t was time to see,
He ‘d be too tall, the tallest one
Could stretch to look at me.
I could not bear the bees should come,
I wished they ‘d stay away
In those dim countries where they go:
What word had they for me?
They ‘re here, though; not a creature failed,
No blossom stayed away
In gentle deference to me,
The Queen of Calvary.
Each one salutes me as he goes,
And I my childish plumes
Lift, in bereaved acknowledgment
Of their unthinking drums.
The official Daily Dickinson 2008 Calendar is available, featuring poems and pictures that have been featured on this site.
Tags: away, bee, dare, fear, first, men, poem, see, think, thought, woods
“Whose are the little beds,” I asked,
“Which in the valleys lie?”
Some shook their heads, and others smiled,
And no one made reply.
“Perhaps they did not hear,” I said;
“I will inquire again.
Whose are the beds, the tiny beds
So thick upon the plain?”
“‘T is daisy in the shortest;
A little farther on,
Nearest the door to wake the first,
Little leontodon.
“‘T is iris, sir, and aster,
Anemone and bell,
Batschia in the blanket red,
And chubby daffodil.”
Meanwhile at many cradles
Her busy foot she plied,
Humming the quaintest lullaby
That ever rocked a child.
“Hush! Epigea wakens! –
The crocus stirs her lids,
Rhodora’s cheek is crimson, –
She’s dreaming of the woods.”
Then, turning from them, reverent,
“Their bed-time ‘t is,” she said;
“The bumble-bees will wake them
When April woods are red.”
The official Daily Dickinson 2008 Calendar is available, featuring poems and pictures that have been featured on this site.
An altered look about the hills;
A Tyrian light the village fills;
A wider sunrise in the dawn;
A deeper twilight on the lawn;
A print of a vermilion foot;
A purple finger on the slope;
A flippant fly upon the pane;
A spider at his trade again;
An added strut in chanticleer;
A flower expected everywhere;
An axe shrill singing in the woods;
Fern-odors on untravelled roads, –
All this, and more I cannot tell,
A furtive look you know as well,
And Nicodemus’ mystery
Receives its annual reply.
The official Daily Dickinson 2008 Calendar is available, featuring poems and pictures that have been featured on this site.
Tags: april, bee, flower, fly, hills, poem, sing, singing, sun, woods
Yvonne Hudson, whose one-woman show “Mrs. Shakespeare” received critical acclaim when it played the Tribeca Playhouse in NYC and the Cathedral of Learning in Pittsburgh, turns her attention now to Emily Dickinson in her new show, “The Poet Lights the Lamp”. As Pittsburgh Live notes about the upcoming performance at the Cathedral of Learning on the University of Pittsburgh campus:
Hudson, appearing as Emily, shares the inspirations and tribulations of the writing life. Drawn from Emily’s letters and works, and the observations of those who knew the prolific and reclusive poet, this solo presentation features a replica of the writer’s white dress, designed by Pitt Theatre’s Cindy Albert. Hudson reveals the poet’s sly wit and passion for publishing through Emily’s own words and her original script.
Note that this is NOT “The Belle of Amherst”, the well-known one-woman show about Emily Dickinson that has been revived this season by the Woods Hole Theater Company on Cape Code, the Independent Players in Elgin, IL, Hope College in Holland, MI, and, perhaps most buzz-worthy, Lindsay Crouse with the Gloucester Stage.
Dickinson certainly lends herself well to the intimacy of the one-woman-show format. There is a wink and a nod in most of her poems; they’re not chatty, but they do suggest that the reader lean forward a little bit, listen a little closer, and take away some pearls of wit.
I’ve found precious little about this new show–only a few notes of its October 20 performance–but the title is evocative. It suggests illumination and insight, and also that sort of close intimacy that comes when people sit down together in a dark room with just a dim lamp to cast shadows while they discuss nlife, love, nature, time, and eternity.
If you’re in Pittsburgh for homecoming weekend, swing over to the show ($5 with a student ID!), and then drop us a line here at the Daily Dickinson; we’d love for someone to share a review of this new work if they’ve got a moment to spare.
Tags: away, bee, buzz, drop, eternity, hope, house, land, Life, Love, men, Nature, october, poem, sea, woods
It makes no difference abroad,
The seasons fit the same,
The mornings blossom into noons,
And split their pods of flame.
Wild-flowers kindle in the woods,
The brooks brag all the day;
No blackbird bates his jargoning
For passing Calvary.
Auto-da-fe and judgment
Are nothing to the bee;
His separation from his rose
To him seems misery.
Tags: bee, bird, brook, flower, men, morning, noon, nothing, rose, sea, see, sing, woods
