"Upon The Gallows Hung A Wretch,"

Upon the gallows hung a wretch,
Too sullied for the hell
To which the law entitled him.
As nature's curtain fell
The one who bore him tottered in,
For this was woman's son.
''T was all I had,' she stricken gasped;
Oh, what a livid boon!

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 Her work, largely unpublished and unknown during her lifetime, has since positioned her among the greatest American poets.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

She Went As Quiet As The Dew

Emily Elizabeth Dickinson, Simple Poetry

Life, And Death, And Giants

Emily Elizabeth Dickinson, Simple Poetry

I Went To Thank Her,

Emily Elizabeth Dickinson, Simple Poetry

Love.

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.

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

Eclogue II. The Grandmothers Tale.

JANE.
    Harry! I'm tired of playing. We'll draw round
    The fire, and Grandmamma perhaps will tell us
    One of her stories.


HARRY.
            Aye--dear Grandmamma!
    A pretty story! something dismal now;
    A bloody murder.


JANE.
            Or about a ghost.


GRANDMOTHER.
    Nay, nay, I should but frighten you. You know
    The other night when I was telling you
    About the light in the church-yard, how you trembled
    Because the screech-owl hooted at the window,
    And would not go to bed.


JANE.
            Why Grandmamma
    You said yourself you did not like to hear him.
    Pray now! we wo'nt be frightened.


GRANDMOTHER.
            Well, well, children!

Robert Southey

Let Down The Bars, O Death!

Let down the bars, O Death!
The tired flocks come in
Whose bleating ceases to repeat,
Whose wandering is done.

Thine is the stillest night,
Thine the securest fold;
Too near thou art for seeking thee,
Too tender to be told.

Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

A Salem Mother

I

They whisper at my very gate,
These clacking gossips every one,
"We saw them in the wood of late,
Her and the widow's son;
The horses at the forge may wait,
The wool may go unspun."

I spread the food he loves the best,
I light the lamp when day is done,
Yet still he stays another's guest--
Oh, my one son, my son.
I would it burned in mine own breast
The spell he may not shun.

She hath bewitched him with her eyes.
(No goodly maid hath eyes as bright.)
Pale in the morn I watch him rise,
As one who wanders far by night.
The gossips whisper and surmise--
I hide me from the light.


II

Her hair is yellow as the corn,
Her eyes are bluer than the sky;
Behind the casement yester-morn,
I watched her...

Theodosia Garrison

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 Changeling (From The Tent On The Beach)

For the fairest maid in Hampton
They needed not to search,
Who saw young Anna favor
Come walking into church,

Or bringing from the meadows,
At set of harvest-day,
The frolic of the blackbirds,
The sweetness of the hay.

Now the weariest of all mothers,
The saddest two years' bride,
She scowls in the face of her husband,
And spurns her child aside.

"Rake out the red coals, goodman,
For there the child shall lie,
Till the black witch comes to fetch her
And both up chimney fly.

"It's never my own little daughter,
It's never my own," she said;
"The witches have stolen my Anna,
And left me an imp instead.

"Oh, fair and sweet was my baby,
Blue eyes, and hair of gold;
But this is ugly and wrinkled,
Cross...

John Greenleaf Whittier