Emily Dickinson Quotes

Presentiment is that long shadow on the lawn
Indicative that suns go down;
The notice to the startled grass
That darkness is about to pass.

Mirth is the Mail of Anguish —

Success is counted sweetest
By those who ne'er succeed.
To comprehend a nectar
Require 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.

That it will never come again
Is what makes life so sweet

GOING to him! Happy letter! Tell him — Tell him the page I did n’t write;
Tell him I only said the syntax,
And left the verb and the pronoun out.
Tell him just how the fingers hurried, 5
Then how they waded, slow, slow, slow;
And then you wished you had eyes in your pages,
So you could see what moved them so.

“Tell him it was n’t a practised writer,
You guessed, from the way the sentence toiled; 10
You could hear the bodice tug, behind you,
As if it held but the might of a child;
You almost pitied it, you, it worked so.
Tell him — No, you may quibble there,
For it would split his heart to know it, 15
And then you and I were silenter.

“Tell him night finished before we finished,
And the old clock kept neighing ‘day!’
And you got sleepy and begged to be ended — What could it hinder so, to say? 20
Tell him just how she sealed you, cautious,
But if he ask where you are hid
Until to-morrow, — happy letter!
Gesture, coquette, and shake your head!

I am out with lanterns, looking for myself.

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.

The Brain - is wider than the Sky -
For - put them side by side -
The one the other will contain
With ease - and You - beside -

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 - Heft them - Pound for Pound -
And they will differ - if they do -
As Syllable from Sound.

In a serener Bright,
In a more golden light
I see
Each little doubt and fear,
Each little discord here
Removed.

And somebody has lost the face
That made existence home!

Perhaps I asked too large — I take — no less than skies — For Earths, grow thick as
Berries, in my native town — My Basket holds — just — Firmaments — Those — dangle easy — on my arm,
But smaller bundles — Cram.

To see the Summer Sky
Is Poetry, though never in a Book it lie — True Poems flee —

Life is death we're lengthy at

To live is so startling it leaves little time for anything else.

I took one Draught of Life — I’ll tell you what I paid — Precisely an existence — The market price, they said.