The Collected Poems of Emily Dickinson by Emily Dickinson

Image over blue mercury flame materialized on a plate Long did her erudite gaze linger in ambient light before her In the absence of not just hers but all 19th-century teeth. Her finest brocade? Did she speak, smile? Her lips do not say Shoulders anglingĭown: her right arm, with inch-wide cuffs, baroque tablecloth,Ī book, a Bible? form a still life with disembodied hand-Is that The flowers she had turned quickly back to pick her light-glancingĮye had caught sight of them on her way there. The laced ribbon around her neck just an hour before now clasp Her subtly plump hands with long narrowing fingers that crossed Her bold chestnut burr hair is pinned back, Until his two arms with one gesture signal Emily The face with silver nitrate, iodine and bromide boxes, cabinetĪnd clamps. In all its myriad parts: leveling stand, copper plates coated on Immersed himself in the theatrics of setting up his camera obscura To let in the sun, while the eager Mount Holyoke daguerreotypist Just prior to her portrait sitting she stood next to the damaskĭrapery, hem to hem, with its back layers of muslin and dimity One following Daisy folded inside its pages. Well as the Brave Bobolink- all the clovers-and That did not require the Grass to answer, as Use “voyeur”)-she did not use “permeate” orĪlong with the Bird that did not know, the Wind How manyĮnvelopes press) in this room, having locked the Door. To the white dress, white counterpane on bed. It cracks like a misaligned spine beneath us My silent plea-she succumbs, then reluctantly Sighing, seeing from the stoop, my drawn– down face, Is closed, she asserts, dissuading me.) Though Perceives, opens at bent arm’s length, and (from Riding the rails, hurl, hurrah, through Eternity-`īut also here with me-at eighteen-as I knock andįrom a window a caretaker (though grimly) Of what suffering can incur, or Joy reflect. Oneself within, its compassion all-encompassing.

The Collected Poems of Emily Dickinson by Emily Dickinson