Emily Dickinson - Dickinson - The Complete Works

Table of Contents

Lay this laurel on the one

Too intrinsic for renown.

Laurel! veil your deathless tree, —

Him you chasten, that is he!

Table of Contents Table of Contents Poems: First Series Poems: Second Series Poems: Third Series The Single Hound The Life and Letters of Emily Dickinson

It's all I have to bring to-day,

This, and my heart beside,

This, and my heart, and all the fields,

And all the meadows wide.

Be sure you count, should I forget, —

Some one the sum could tell, —

This, and my heart, and all the bees

Which in the clover dwell.

PREFACE.

BOOK I. LIFE

I. Real Riches

II. Superiority to Fate

III. Hope

IV. Forbidden Fruit (1)

V. Forbidden Fruit (2)

VI. A Word

VII. "To venerate the simple days"

VIII. Life's Trades

IX. "Drowning is not so pitiful"

X. "How still the bells in steeples stand"

XI. "If the foolish call them 'flowers'"

XII. A Syllable

XIII. Parting

XIV. Aspiration

XV. The Inevitable

XVI. A Book

XVII. "Who has not found the heaven below"

XVIII. A Portrait

XIX. I had a Guinea Golden

XX. Saturday Afternoon

XXI. "Few get enough, enough is one"

XXII. "Upon the gallows hung a wretch"

XXIII. The Lost Thought

XXIV. Reticence

XXV. With Flowers

XXVI. "The farthest thunder that I heard"

XXVII. "On the bleakness of my lot"

XXVIII. Contrast

XXIX. Friends

XXX. Fire

XXXI. A Man

XXXII. Ventures

XXXIII. Griefs

XXXIV. "I have a king who does not speak"

XXXV. Disenchantment

XXXVI. Lost Faith

XXXVII. Lost Joy

XXXVIII. "I worked for chaff, and earning wheat"

XXXIX. "Life, and Death, and Giants"

XL. Alpine Glow

XLI. Remembrance

XLII. "To hang our head ostensibly"

XLIII. The Brain

XLIV. "The bone that has no marrow"

XLV. The Past

XLVI. "To help our bleaker parts"

XLVII. "What soft, cherubic creatures"

XLVIII. Desire

XLIX. Philosophy

L. Power

LI. "A modest lot, a fame petite"

LII "Is bliss, then, such abyss "

LII. Experience

LIV. Thanksgiving Day

LV. Childish Griefs

BOOK II. LOVE

I. Consecration

II. Love's Humility

III. Love

IV. Satisfied

V. With a Flower

VI. Song

VII. Loyalty

VIII. "To lose thee, sweeter than to gain"

IX. "Poor little heart I"

X. Forgotten

XI. "I 've got an arrow here"

XII. The Master

XIII. "Heart, we will forget him!"

XIV. "Father, I bring thee not myself"

XV. "We outgrow love, like other things"

XVI. "Not with a club the heart is broken"

XVII. Who?

XVIII. "He touched me, so I live to know"

XIX. Dreams

XX. Numen Lumen

XXI. Longing

XXII. Wedded

BOOK III. NATURE

I. Nature's Changes

II. The Tulip

III. "A light exists in spring"

IV. The Waking Year

V. To March

VI. March

VII. Dawn

VIII. "A murmur in the trees to note"

IX. "Morning is the place for dew"

X. "To my quick ears the leaves conferred"

XI. A Rose

XII. "High from the earth I heard a bird"

XIII. Cobwebs

XIV. A Well

XV. "To make a prairie it takes a clover"

XVI. The Wind

XVII. "A dew sufficed itself"

XVIII. The Woodpecker

XIX. A Snake

XX. "Could I but ride indefinite"

XXI. The Moon

XXII. The Bat

XXIII. The Balloon

XXIV. Evening

XXV. Cocoon

XXVI. Sunset

XXVII. Aurora

XXVIII. The Coming of Night

XXIX. Aftermath

BOOK IV. TIME AND ETERNITY

I. "This world is not conclusion"

II. "We learn in the retreating"

III. "They say that 'time assuages'"

IV. "We cover thee, sweet face"

V. Ending

VI. "The stimulus, beyond the grave"

VII. "Given in marriage unto thee"

VIII. "That such have died enables us"

IX. "They won't frown always, some sweet day"

X. Immortality

XI. " The distance that the dead have gone"

XII. "How dare the robins sing"

XIII. Deat

XIV. Unwarned

XV. "Each that we lose takes part of us"

XVI. "Not any higher stands the grave"

XVII. Asleep

XVIII. The Spirit

XIX. The Monument

XX. "Bless God, he went as soldiers"

XXI. "Immortal is an ample word"

XXII. "Where every bird is bold to go"

XXIII. "The grave my little cottage is"

XXIV. "This was in the white of the year"

XXV. "Sweet hours have perished here"

XXVI. "Me! Come! My dazzled face"

XXVII. Invisible

XXVIII. "I wish I knew that woman's name"

XXIX. Trying to Forget

XXX. "I felt a funeral in my brain"

XXXI. "I meant to find her when I came"

XXXII. Waiting

XXXIII. "A sickness of this world it most occasions"

XXXIV. "Superfluous were the sun"

XXXV. "So proud she was to die"

XXXVI. Farewell

XXXVII. "The dying need but little, dear"

XXXVIII. Dead

XXXIX. "The soul should always stand ajar"

XL. "Three weeks passed since I had seen her"

XLI. "I breathed enough to learn the trick"

XLII. "I wonder if the sepulchre"

XLIII. Joy in Death

XLIV. "If I may have it when it's dead"

XLV. "Before the ice is in the poo's"

XLVI. Dying

XLVII. "Adrift! A little boat adrift!"

XLVIII. "There's been a death in the opposite house"

XLIX. "We never know we go, when we are going"

L. The Soul's Storm

LI. "Water is taught by thirst"

LII. Thirst

LIII. "A clock stopped not the mantel's"

LIV. Charlotte Bronte's Grave

LV. "A toad can die of light!"

LVI. "Far from love the Heavenly Father"

LVII. Sleeping

LVIII. Retrospect

LIX. Eternity

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The intellectual activity of Emily Dickinson was so great that a large and characteristic choice is still possible among her literary material, and this third volume of her verses is put forth in response to the repeated wish of the admirers of her peculiar genius. Much of Emily Dickinson's prose was rhythmic, —even rhymed, though frequently not set apart in lines.

Also many verses, written as such, were sent to friends in letters; these were published in 1894, in the volumes of her Letters . It has not been necessary, however, to include them in this Series, and all have been omitted, except three or four exceptionally strong ones, as "A Book," and "With Flowers."

There is internal evidence that many of the poems were simply spontaneous flashes of insight, apparently unrelated to outward circumstance. Others, however, had an obvious personal origin; for example, the verses "I had a Guinea golden," which seem to have been sent to some friend travelling in Europe, as a dainty reminder of letter-writing delinquencies. The surroundings in which any of Emily Dickinson's verses are known to have been written usually serve to explain them clearly; but in general the present volume is full of thoughts needing no interpretation to those who apprehend this scintillating spirit.

M. L. T.

AMHERST, October , 1896.

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Table of Contents

'T is little I could care for pearls

Who own the ample sea;

Or brooches, when the Emperor

With rubies pelteth me;

Or gold, who am the Prince of Mines;

Or diamonds, when I see

A diadem to fit a dome

Continual crowning me.