A Man.

Fate slew him, but he did not drop;
She felled -- he did not fall --
Impaled him on her fiercest stakes --
He neutralized them all.

She stung him, sapped his firm advance,
But, when her worst was done,
And he, unmoved, regarded her,
Acknowledged him a man.

Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

Emily Elizabeth Dickinson, born on December 10, 1830, and died on May 15, 1886, was an American poet who is extensively known for her innovative and poignant use of language and form. Her work, largely unpublished and unknown during her lifetime, has since positioned her among the greatest American poets. Although she seldom left her home, her poetry delved deeply into themes of death, immortality, nature, and human consciousness. Dickinson's unique style continues to influence poets and readers today.

Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

Satisfied.

Emily Elizabeth Dickinson, Simple Poetry

Before The Ice Is In The Pools,

Emily Elizabeth Dickinson, Simple Poetry

Who?

Emily Elizabeth Dickinson, Simple Poetry

The Outlet.

Emily Elizabeth Dickinson, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

The Wife.

She rose to his requirement, dropped
The playthings of her life
To take the honorable work
Of woman and of wife.

If aught she missed in her new day
Of amplitude, or awe,
Or first prospective, or the gold
In using wore away,

It lay unmentioned, as the sea
Develops pearl and weed,
But only to himself is known
The fathoms they abide.

Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

The Monument.

She laid her docile crescent down,
And this mechanic stone
Still states, to dates that have forgot,
The news that she is gone.

So constant to its stolid trust,
The shaft that never knew,
It shames the constancy that fled
Before its emblem flew.

Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

Success.

[Published in "A Masque of Poets" at the request of "H.H.," the author's fellow-townswoman and friend.]

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

Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

Along The Potomac.

When I was small, a woman died.
To-day her only boy
Went up from the Potomac,
His face all victory,

To look at her; how slowly
The seasons must have turned
Till bullets clipt an angle,
And he passed quickly round!

If pride shall be in Paradise
I never can decide;
Of their imperial conduct,
No person testified.

But proud in apparition,
That woman and her boy
Pass back and forth before my brain,
As ever in the sky.

Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

The Master.

He fumbles at your spirit
As players at the keys
Before they drop full music on;
He stuns you by degrees,

Prepares your brittle substance
For the ethereal blow,
By fainter hammers, further heard,
Then nearer, then so slow

Your breath has time to straighten,
Your brain to bubble cool, --
Deals one imperial thunderbolt
That scalps your naked soul.

Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

Choice.

Of all the souls that stand create
I have elected one.
When sense from spirit files away,
And subterfuge is done;

When that which is and that which was
Apart, intrinsic, stand,
And this brief tragedy of flesh
Is shifted like a sand;

When figures show their royal front
And mists are carved away, --
Behold the atom I preferred
To all the lists of clay!

Emily Elizabeth Dickinson