Author: Emily Dickinson
Release Date: May 3, 2004 [EBook #12241]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
*** Start of this project gutenberg
EBOOK poems: Third series ***
Produced by Jim Tinsley jtinsley@pobox.com
by Emily Dickinson
Third Series
MABEL LOOMIS TODD
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.
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.
POEMS.
Real Riches.
’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.
