Dickinson Series Quotes

Have you got a brook in your little heart, Where bashful flowers blow, And blushing birds go down to drink, And shadows tremble so?

After all, when a thought takes one's breath away, a lesson on grammar seems an impertinence.

While I was fearing it, it came,    But came with less of fear, Because that fearing it so long    Had almost made it dear.

I shall not live in vain; If I can ease one life the aching, Or cool one pain, Or help one fainting robin Unto his nest again, I shall not live in vain.

IX. The heart asks pleasure first, And then, excuse from pain; And then, those little anodynes That deaden suffering; And then, to go to sleep; And then, if it should be The will of its Inquisitor, The liberty to die.

Who never lost, are unprepared

When I hoped I feared, Since I hoped I dared; Everywhere alone As a church remain; Spectre cannot harm, Serpent cannot charm; He deposes doom, Who hath suffered him.

The Ocean’s Heart too Smooth - too Blue - To break for you.

Look back on time with kindly eyes, He doubtless did his best; How softly sinks his trembling sun In human nature's west!

To fight aloud is very brave, But gallanter, I know, Who charge within the bosom, The cavalry of woe.

And if, indeed, I fail, At least to know the worst is sweet. Defeat means nothing but defeat, No drearier can prevail!

My river runs to thee: Blue sea, wilt welcome me? My river waits reply. Oh sea, look graciously! I'll fetch thee brooks From spotted nooks, — Say, sea, Take me!

Life is but life, and death but death! Bliss is but bliss, and breath but breath! And if, indeed, I fail, At least to know the worst is sweet. Defeat means nothing but defeat, No drearier can prevail!

The heart asks pleasure first, And then, excuse from pain; And then, those little anodynes That deaden suffering; And then, to go to sleep; And then, if it should be The will of its Inquisitor, The liberty to die.

Hope' is the thing with feathers — That perches in the soul — And sings the tune without the words — And never stops — at all — And sweetest — in the Gale — is heard — And sore must be the storm — That could abash the little Bird That kept so many warm — I’ve heard it in the chillest land — And on the strangest Sea — Yet — never — in Extremity, It asked a crumb — of me.

The dying need but little, dear, —    A glass of water's all, A flower's unobtrusive face    To punctuate the wall, A fan, perhaps, a friend's regret,    And certainly that one No color in the rainbow    Perceives when you are gone.

The smitten rock that gushes, The trampled steel that springs; A cheek is always redder Just where the hectic stings!

XXXVII. The dying need but little, dear, —    A glass of water's all, A flower's unobtrusive face    To punctuate the wall, A fan, perhaps, a friend's regret,    And certainly that one No color in the rainbow    Perceives when you are gone.

XVI. Surgeons must be very careful When they take the knife! Underneath their fine incisions Stirs the culprit, — Life!

I hide myself within my flower, That wearing on your breast, You, unsuspecting, wear me too — And angels know the rest.

And so, upon this wise I prayed, — Great Spirit, give to me A heaven not so large as yours, But large enough for me.

This is my letter to the world,     That never wrote to me, —

XXXVII. If I shouldn't be alive When the robins come, Give the one in red cravat A memorial crumb. If I couldn't thank you, Being just asleep, You will know I'm trying With my granite lip!

COBWEBS. The spider as an artist    Has never been employed Though his surpassing merit    Is freely certified By every broom and Bridget    Throughout a Christian land. Neglected son of genius,    I take thee by the hand.

Who never wanted, — maddest joy   Remains to him unknown: The banquet of abstemiousness   Surpasses that of wine. Within its hope, though yet ungrasped   Desire's perfect goal, No nearer, lest reality   Should disenthrall thy soul.

THE MYSTERY OF PAIN. Pain has an element of blank; It cannot recollect When it began, or if there were A day when it was not. It has no future but itself, Its infinite realms contain Its past, enlightened to perceive New periods of pain.

XXI. A BOOK. He ate and drank the precious words, His spirit grew robust; He knew no more that he was poor, Nor that his frame was dust. He danced along the dingy days, And this bequest of wings Was but a book. What liberty A loosened spirit brings!

The moon was but a chin of gold    A night or two ago, And now she turns her perfect face    Upon the world below. Her forehead is of amplest blond;    Her cheek like beryl stone; Her eye unto the summer dew    The likest I have known. Her lips of amber never part;    But what must be the smile Upon her friend she could bestow    Were such her silver will! And what a privilege to be    But the remotest star! For certainly her way might pass    Beside your twinkling door. Her bonnet is the firmament,    The universe her shoe, The stars the trinkets at her belt,    Her dimities of blue.

LOVE'S BAPTISM. I'm ceded, I've stopped being theirs; The name they dropped upon my face With water, in the country church, Is finished using now, And they can put it with my dolls, My childhood, and the string of spools I've finished threading too. Baptized before without the choice, But this time consciously, of grace Unto supremest name, Called to my full, the crescent dropped, Existence's whole arc filled up With one small diadem. My second rank, too small the first, Crowned, crowing on my father's breast, A half unconscious queen; But this time, adequate, erect, With will to choose or to reject. And I choose — just a throne.

FAREWELL. Tie the strings to my life, my Lord,    Then I am ready to go! Just a look at the horses —    Rapid! That will do! Put me in on the firmest side,    So I shall never fall; For we must ride to the Judgment,    And it's partly down hill. But never I mind the bridges,    And never I mind the sea; Held fast in everlasting race    By my own choice and thee. Good-by to the life I used to live,    And the world I used to know; And kiss the hills for me, just once;    Now I am ready to go!

God gave a loaf to every bird, But just a crumb to me; I dare not eat it, though I starve, — My poignant luxury

A word is dead When it is said,

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

Pain has an element of blank; It cannot recollect When it began, or if there were A day when it was not.

Hope is the thing with feathers, as Emily Dickinson said. It perches on our soul. It guides us through the storm. It keeps us warm. She also says it doesn’t ask anything of us.

Or help one fainting robin Unto his nest again, I shall not live in vain.

So unsuspected violets Within the fields lie low, Too late for striving fingers That passed, an hour ago.

No weight nor mass nor beauty of execution can outweigh one grain or fragment of thought.

But since the last included both, It would suffice my prayer But just for one to stipulate, And grace would grant the pair.

I meant to have but modest needs, Such as content, and heaven;

As if the chart were given.

VIII. Look back on time with kindly eyes, He doubtless did his best; How softly sinks his trembling sun In human nature's west!

EMANCIPATION. No rack can torture me, My soul's at liberty Behind this mortal bone There knits a bolder one You cannot prick with saw, Nor rend with scymitar. Two bodies therefore be; Bind one, and one will flee. The eagle of his nest No easier divest And gain the sky, Than mayest thou, Except thyself may be Thine enemy; Captivity is consciousness, So's liberty.

IF I can stop one heart from breaking, I shall not live in vain; If I can ease one life the aching, Or cool one pain, Or help one fainting robin Unto his nest again, I shall not live in vain.

If recollecting were forgetting,   Then I remember not; And if forgetting, recollecting,   How near I had forgot! And if to miss were merry,   And if to mourn were gay, How very blithe the fingers   That gathered these to-day!

SUMMER SHOWER. A drop fell on the apple tree, Another on the roof; A half a dozen kissed the eaves, And made the gables laugh. A few went out to help the brook, That went to help the sea. Myself conjectured, Were they pearls, What necklaces could be! The dust replaced in hoisted roads, The birds jocoser sung; The sunshine threw his hat away, The orchards spangles hung. The breezes brought dejected lutes, And bathed them in the glee; The East put out a single flag, And signed the fete away.

REMORSE. Remorse is memory awake, Her companies astir, — A presence of departed acts At window and at door. It's past set down before the soul, And lighted with a match, Perusal to facilitate Of its condensed despatch. Remorse is cureless, — the disease Not even God can heal; For 't is his institution, — The complement of hell.

The Hoke Mosely series by Charles Willeford The Red Right Hand by Joel Townsley Rogers Kill the Boss Goodbye by Peter Rabe The Gravedigger/Coffin Ed series by Chester Himes The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett Interface by Joe Gores The Eighth Circle by Stanley Ellin Sleep and His Brother by Peter Dickinson The Light of Day by Eric Ambler

There are no beautiful women writers.’ ‘Yes there are.’ No there aren’t. Well, except for Edna O’Brien, who is actually a kind of genius and gained my undying admiration when she said plots are for precocious schoolboys (Book 2,738, Writers at Work, The Paris Review Interviews, 7th Series, Secker & Warburg, London). ‘Here, look at Emily Dickinson,’ I said, and showed him the passport-sized photo on the back cover of the Collected Poems. ‘Her face, two prunes in porridge.’ ‘I don’t know, I think she looks nice,’ he said. ‘Nice?’ ‘She does. She looks interesting.’ Reader, pick any Brontë. Any one, doesn’t matter. What do you see? You see intelligence, you see an observer, you see distance, you don’t see beauty.

Then join in hand, brave Americans all, By uniting we stand, by dividing we fall; In so righteous a cause let us hope to succeed, For heaven approves of each generous deed. All ages shall speak with amaze and applause, Of the courage we'll show in support of our laws; To die we can bear- but to serve we disdain, For shame is to freedom more dreadful than pain. This bumper I crown for our Sovereign's health, And this for Britannia's glory and wealth; That wealth and that glory immortal may be, If she is but just and if we are but Free.

In the months and years that followed, the Maceos expanded their empire until it included dozens of casinos, nightclubs, and betting parlors, not only on the Island but in such small mainland towns as Texas City, Kemah, La Marque, and Dickinson. Motorists driving south on the highway from Houston spoke of crossing the Maceo-Dickinson Line. With their unabashed attitude toward sin and corruption, the Maceos brought prominence, notoriety, and an enduring nickname to the Island. For the next three decades it was known as the Free State of Galveston.

He claimed the Beatles ruined music and refused to play anything recorded after 1960.

We got stiffed on the gig and drove back to Waco in silence. The sun was coming up over the Brazos when we got back to campus. That was the end of my career with Ramsey Horton and the K-otics, but I had learned his Floyd Cramer licks, without which I would not have known what to play on the Rolling Stones’ session in Muscle Shoals.

The show was great: Chuck Berry, Ike and Tina Turner, T. Rex, and finally the Stones.

Modern Mississippi reverberates with human history. Shotgun shacks and silver metal cotton gins go the way of the lowly mule, sexless beast of burden replaced by soulless progress tractor, strip mining the black dirt in parallel lines of row crop conformity, bending the rhythm of the land to the stubborn will of corporate agriculture, evil grandchild of the plantation.

If I can stop one heart from breaking, I shall not live in vain; If I can ease one life the aching, Or cool one pain, Or help one fainting robin Unto his nest again, I shall not live in vain.

The quiet nonchalance of death No daybreak can bestir; The slow archangel's syllables Must awaken her.

But the main quality of these poems is that of extraordinary grasp and insight, uttered with an uneven vigor sometimes exasperating, seemingly wayward, but really unsought and inevitable. After all, when a thought takes one's breath away, a lesson on grammar seems an impertinence.

Some things that fly there be, — Birds, hours, the bumble-bee: Of these no elegy. Some things that stay there be, — Grief, hills, eternity: Nor this behooveth me. There are, that resting, rise. Can I expound the skies? How still the riddle lies!

The soul selects her own society, Then shuts the door; On her divine majority Obtrude no more. Unmoved, she notes the chariot's pausing At her low gate; Unmoved, an emperor is kneeling Upon her mat. I've known her from an ample nation Choose one; Then close the valves of her attention Like stone.

I hide myself within my flower, That wearing on your breast, You, unsuspecting, wear me too — And angels know the rest. I hide myself within my flower, That, fading from your vase, You, unsuspecting, feel for me Almost a loneliness.

T was a long parting, but the time For interview had come; Before the judgment-seat of God, The last and second time These fleshless lovers met, A heaven in a gaze, A heaven of heavens, the privilege Of one another's eyes. No lifetime set on them, Apparelled as the new Unborn, except they had beheld, Born everlasting now. Was bridal e'er like this? A paradise, the host, And cherubim and seraphim The most familiar guest.

At last to be identified! At last, the lamps upon thy side, The rest of life to see! Past midnight, past the morning star! Past sunrise! Ah! what leagues there are Between our feet and day!

Life is but life, and death but death! Bliss is but bliss, and breath but breath! And if, indeed, I fail, At least to know the worst is sweet. Defeat means nothing but defeat, No drearier can prevail!

The annual occasion once past, she withdrew again into her seclusion, and except for a very few friends was as invisible to the world as if she had dwelt in a nunnery.

This is my letter to the world,    That never wrote to me, — The simple news that Nature told,    With tender majesty. Her message is committed    To hands I cannot see; For love of her, sweet countrymen,    Judge tenderly of me!

If I should n't be alive When the robins come, Give the one in red cravat A memorial crumb. If I could n't thank you, Being just asleep, You will know I'm trying With my granite lip!

I never lost as much but twice, And that was in the sod; Twice have I stood a beggar Before the door of God! Angels, twice descending, Reimbursed my store. Burglar, banker, father, I am poor once more!

I like a look of agony, Because I know it 's true; Men do not sham convulsion, Nor simulate a throe. The eyes glaze once, and that is death. Impossible to feign The beads upon the forehead By homely anguish strung.

To know just how he suffered would be dear; To know if any human eyes were near To whom he could intrust his wavering gaze, Until it settled firm on Paradise. To know if he was patient, part content, Was dying as he thought, or different; Was it a pleasant day to die, And did the sunshine face his way? What was his furthest mind, of home, or God, Or what the distant say At news that he ceased human nature On such a day? And wishes, had he any? Just his sigh, accented, Had been legible to me. And was he confident until Ill fluttered out in everlasting well? And if he spoke, what name was best, What first, What one broke off with At the drowsiest? Was he afraid, or tranquil? Might he know How conscious consciousness could grow, Till love that was, and love too blest to be, Meet — and the junction be Eternity?

I never saw a moor, I never saw the sea; Yet know I how the heather looks, And what a wave must be. I never spoke with God, Nor visited in heaven; Yet certain am I of the spot As if the chart were given.

The last night that she lived, It was a common night, Except the dying; this to us Made nature different. We noticed smallest things, — Things overlooked before, By this great light upon our minds Italicized, as 't were. That others could exist While she must finish quite, A jealousy for her arose So nearly infinite. We waited while she passed; It was a narrow time, Too jostled were our souls to speak, At length the notice came. She mentioned, and forgot; Then lightly as a reed Bent to the water, shivered scarce, Consented, and was dead. And we, we placed the hair, And drew the head erect; And then an awful leisure was, Our faith to regulate.

The bustle in a house The morning after death Is solemnest of industries Enacted upon earth, — The sweeping up the heart, And putting love away We shall not want to use again Until eternity.

Perhaps you'd like to buy a flower? But I could never sell. If you would like to borrow Until the daffodil Unties her yellow bonnet Beneath the village door, Until the bees, from clover rows Their hock and sherry draw, Why, I will lend until just then, But not an hour more!

T WAS later when the summer went Than when the cricket came, And yet we knew that gentle clock Meant nought but going home. 'T was sooner when the cricket went Than when the winter came, Yet that pathetic pendulum Keeps esoteric time.

It makes no difference abroad, The seasons fit the same, The mornings blossom into noons, And split their pods of flame. Wild-flowers kindle in the woods, The brooks brag all the day; No blackbird bates his jargoning For passing Calvary. Auto-da-fe and judgment Are nothing to the bee; His separation from his rose To him seems misery.

The grass so little has to do, — A sphere of simple green, With only butterflies to brood, And bees to entertain, And stir all day to pretty tunes The breezes fetch along, And hold the sunshine in its lap And bow to everything; And thread the dews all night, like pearls, And make itself so fine, — A duchess were too common For such a noticing. And even when it dies, to pass In odors so divine, As lowly spices gone to sleep, Or amulets of pine. And then to dwell in sovereign barns, And dream the days away, — The grass so little has to do, I wish I were the hay!

The pedigree of honey Does not concern the bee; A clover, any time, to him Is aristocracy.

Come slowly, Eden! Lips unused to thee, Bashful, sip thy jasmines, As the fainting bee, Reaching late his flower, Round her chamber hums, Counts his nectars — enters, And is lost in balms!

There's a certain slant of light, On winter afternoons, That oppresses, like the weight Of cathedral tunes. Heavenly hurt it gives us; We can find no scar, But internal difference Where the meanings are. None may teach it anything, ' T is the seal, despair, — An imperial affliction Sent us of the air. When it comes, the landscape listens, Shadows hold their breath; When it goes, 't is like the distance On the look of death.

Delayed till she had ceased to know, Delayed till in its vest of snow    Her loving bosom lay. An hour behind the fleeting breath, Later by just an hour than death, —    Oh, lagging yesterday! Could she have guessed that it would be; Could but a crier of the glee    Have climbed the distant hill; Had not the bliss so slow a pace, — Who knows but this surrendered face    Were undefeated still? Oh, if there may departing be Any forgot by victory    In her imperial round, Show them this meek apparelled thing, That could not stop to be a king,    Doubtful if it be crowned!

Departed to the judgment, A mighty afternoon; Great clouds like ushers leaning, Creation looking on. The flesh surrendered, cancelled, The bodiless begun; Two worlds, like audiences, disperse And leave the soul alone.

On this long storm the rainbow rose, On this late morn the sun; The clouds, like listless elephants, Horizons straggled down. The birds rose smiling in their nests, The gales indeed were done; Alas! how heedless were the eyes On whom the summer shone! The quiet nonchalance of death No daybreak can bestir; The slow archangel's syllables Must awaken her.

These are the days when birds come back, A very few, a bird or two, To take a backward look. These are the days when skies put on The old, old sophistries of June, — A blue and gold mistake. Oh, fraud that cannot cheat the bee, Almost thy plausibility Induces my belief, Till ranks of seeds their witness bear, And softly through the altered air Hurries a timid leaf! Oh, sacrament of summer days, Oh, last communion in the haze, Permit a child to join, Thy sacred emblems to partake, Thy consecrated bread to break, Taste thine immortal wine!

The morns are meeker than they were, The nuts are getting brown; The berry's cheek is plumper, The rose is out of town. The maple wears a gayer scarf, The field a scarlet gown. Lest I should be old-fashioned, I'll put a trinket on.

A train went through a burial gate, A bird broke forth and sang, And trilled, and quivered, and shook his throat Till all the churchyard rang; And then adjusted his little notes, And bowed and sang again. Doubtless, he thought it meet of him To say good-by to men.

Afraid? Of whom am I afraid? Not death; for who is he? The porter of my father's lodge As much abasheth me. Of life? 'T were odd I fear a thing That comprehendeth me In one or more existences At Deity's decree. Of resurrection? Is the east Afraid to trust the morn With her fastidious forehead? As soon impeach my crown!

I reason, earth is short, And anguish absolute, And many hurt; But what of that? I reason, we could die: The best vitality Cannot excel decay; But what of that? I reason that in heaven Somehow, it will be even, Some new equation given; But what of that?

Because I could not stop for Death, He kindly stopped for me; The carriage held but just ourselves And Immortality. We slowly drove, he knew no haste, And I had put away My labor, and my leisure too, For his civility. We passed the school where children played, Their lessons scarcely done; We passed the fields of gazing grain, We passed the setting sun. We paused before a house that seemed A swelling of the ground; The roof was scarcely visible, The cornice but a mound. Since then 't is centuries; but each Feels shorter than the day I first surmised the horses' heads Were toward eternity.