Portraits Are To Daily Faces

Portraits are to daily faces
As an evening west
To a fine, pedantic sunshine
In a satin vest.

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 Her work, largely unpublished and unknown during her lifetime, has since positioned her among the greatest American poets.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

The Last Night That She Lived,

Emily Elizabeth Dickinson, Simple Poetry

The Soul's Storm.

Emily Elizabeth Dickinson, Simple Poetry

Could I But Ride Indefinite,

Emily Elizabeth Dickinson, Simple Poetry

Love's Baptism.

Emily Elizabeth Dickinson, Simple Poetry

English

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A Portrait.

A face devoid of love or grace,
A hateful, hard, successful face,
A face with which a stone
Would feel as thoroughly at ease
As were they old acquaintances, --
First time together thrown.

Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

Day's Parlor.

The day came slow, till five o'clock,
Then sprang before the hills
Like hindered rubies, or the light
A sudden musket spills.

The purple could not keep the east,
The sunrise shook from fold,
Like breadths of topaz, packed a night,
The lady just unrolled.

The happy winds their timbrels took;
The birds, in docile rows,
Arranged themselves around their prince
(The wind is prince of those).

The orchard sparkled like a Jew, --
How mighty 't was, to stay
A guest in this stupendous place,
The parlor of the day!

Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

Evening.

The cricket sang,
And set the sun,
And workmen finished, one by one,
Their seam the day upon.

The low grass loaded with the dew,
The twilight stood as strangers do
With hat in hand, polite and new,
To stay as if, or go.

A vastness, as a neighbor, came, --
A wisdom without face or name,
A peace, as hemispheres at home, --
And so the night became.

Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

Problems.

Bring me the sunset in a cup,
Reckon the morning's flagons up,
And say how many dew;
Tell me how far the morning leaps,
Tell me what time the weaver sleeps
Who spun the breadths of blue!

Write me how many notes there be
In the new robin's ecstasy
Among astonished boughs;
How many trips the tortoise makes,
How many cups the bee partakes, --
The debauchee of dews!

Also, who laid the rainbow's piers,
Also, who leads the docile spheres
By withes of supple blue?
Whose fingers string the stalactite,
Who counts the wampum of the night,
To see that none is due?

Who built this little Alban house
And shut the windows down so close
My spirit cannot see?
Who 'll let me out some gala day,
With implements to fly away,
Pas...

Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

A Charm Invests A Face

A charm invests a face
Imperfectly beheld, --
The lady dare not lift her veil
For fear it be dispelled.

But peers beyond her mesh,
And wishes, and denies, --
Lest interview annul a want
That image satisfies.

Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

A Portrait.

All sweet and various things do lend themselves
And blend and intermix in her rare soul,
As chorded notes, which were untuneful else,
Clasp each the other in a perfect whole.

Within her spirit, dawn, all dewy-pearled,
Seems held and folded in by golden noons,
While past the sunshine gleams a further world
Of deep star-spaces and mysterious moons.

Like widths of blowing ocean wet with spray,
Like breath of early blooms at morning caught,
Like cool airs on the cheek of heated day,
Come the fair emanations of her thought.

Her movement, like the curving of a vine,
Seems an unerring accident of grace,
And like a flower's the subtle change and shine
And meaning of her brightly tranquil face.

And like a tree, unconscious of her shade,
She...

Susan Coolidge