Emily Dickinson Quotes
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That it will never come again is what makes life sweet.
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Time is short and full, like an outgrown Frock -
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I SEE thee better in the dark, I do not need a light. The love of thee a prism be Excelling violet. I see thee better for the years That hunch themselves between, The miner’s lamp sufficient be To nullify the mine. And in the grave I see thee best — Its little panels be A-glow, all ruddy with the light I held so high for thee! What need of day to those whose dark Hath so surpassing sun, It seem it be continually At the meridian?
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Portraits are to daily faces As an evening west To a fine, pedantic sunshine In a satin vest.
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It tossed and tossed,- A little brig I knew,- O’ertook by blast, It spun and spun, And groped delirious, for morn.It slipped and slipped, As one that drunken stepped; Its white foot tripped, Then dropped from sight.Ah, brig, good-night To crew and you; The ocean’s heart too smooth, too blue, To break for you.
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AMPLE make this bed. Make this bed with awe; In it wait till judgment break Excellent and fair. Be its mattress straight, Be its pillow round; Let no sunrise’ yellow noise Interrupt this ground.
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Longing is like a seed that wrestles in the ground.
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Drowning is not so pitiful As the attempt to rise. Three times, ’t is said, a sinking man Comes up to face the skies, And then declines forever To that abhorred abodeWhere hope and he part company,- For he is grasped of God. The Maker’s cordial visage, However good to see, Is shunned, we must admit it, Like an adversity.
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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.
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Tell the truth, but tell it slant.
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Renunciation-is a piercing Virtue-The letting go A Presence-for an Expectation-.
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Nature is what we see, The Hill, the Afternoon- Squirrel, Eclipse, the Bumble-bee, Nay-Nature is Heaven.Nature is what we hear, The Bobolink, the Sea- Thunder, the Cricket- Nay,-Nature is Harmony.Nature is what we know But have no art to say, So impotent our wisdom is To Her simplicity.
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Not with a Club, the Heart is broken Nor with a Stone - A Whip so small you could not see it I've knownTo lash the Magic Creature Till it fell, Yet that Whip's Name Too noble then to tell.Magnanimous as Bird By Boy descried - Singing unto the Stone Of which it died -Shame need not crouch In such an Earth as Ours - Shame - stand erect - The Universe is yours.
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God is not so wary as we, else He would give us no friends, lest we forget Him! The charms of the heaven in the bush are superseded, I fear, by the heaven in the hand, occasionally.
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The Loneliness One dare not sound -- And would as soon surmise AS in its Grave go plumbing To ascertain the size -- The Loneliness whose worst alarm Is lest itself should see -- And perish from before itself For just a scrutiny -- The Horror not to be surveyed -- But skirted in the Dark -- With Consciousness suspended -- And Being under Lock -- I fear me this -- is Loneliness -- The Maker of the soul Its Caverns and its Corridors Illuminate -- or seal
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It might be lonelier Without the Loneliness - I’m so accustomed to my Fate - Perhaps the Other - Peace - Would interrupt the Dark - And crowd the little Room - Too scant - by Cubits - to contain The Sacrament - of Him - I am not used to Hope - It might intrude upon - Its sweet parade - blaspheme the place - Ordained to Suffering - It might be easier To fail - with Land in Sight - Than gain - My Blue Peninsula - To perish - of Delight -
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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!
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Two Seasons, it is said, exist- The Summer of the Just, And this of Ours, diversified With Prospect, and with Frost- May not our Second with its First So infinite compare That We but recollect the one The other to prefer?
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A Grave - is a restricted Breadth -Yet ampler than the Sun -And all the Seas He populatesAnd lands he looks uponTo Him who on its small ReposeBestows a single Friend -Circumference without Relief -Or Estimate - or End
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To multiply the harbors does not reduce the sea.
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Celebrity is the chastisement of merit and the punishment of talent.
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He fumbles at your spirit As players at the keys Before they drop full music on; He stuns you by degrees. Prepares your brittle substance For the ethereal blow by fainter hammers, further heard, Then nearer, then so slow Your breath has time to straighten Your brain to bubble cool,- Deals one imperial thunderbolt That scalps your naked soul.
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One need not be a Chamber - to be Haunted - One need not be a House - The Brain - has Corridors - surpassing Material Place - Far safer, of a Midnight - meeting External Ghost - Than an Interior - Confronting - That cooler - Host. Far safer, through an Abbey - gallop - The Stones a'chase - Than Moonless - One's A'self encounter - In lonesome place - Ourself - behind ourself - Concealed - Should startle - most.
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We dream — it is good we are dreaming — It would hurt us — were we awake — But since it is playing — kill us, And we are playing — shriek — What harm? Men die — externally — It is a truth — of Blood — But we — are dying in Drama — And Drama — is never dead — Cautious — We jar each other — And either — open the eyes — Lest the Phantasm — prove the Mistake — And the livid Surprise Cool us to Shafts of Granite — With just an Age — and Name — And perhaps a phrase in Egyptian — It's prudenter — to dream —