Poems by Emily Dickinson

Product Description

Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) was an American lyrical poet. Though born to a well-known family of politicians and scholars, she withdrew from social contact at the age of 23 and devoted herself, in secret, to writing. She began composing poems around 1850, first in fairly conventional style, but after ten years of practice she began to give room for experiments. Often written in the meter of hymns, her poems dealt not only with issues of death, faith and immortality, but with nature, domesticity, and the power and limits of language in transferring the feelings of ecstasy and terror into written text.

After Dickinson's death her poems were brought out by her sister Lavinia, who was amazed at the variety of Emily's poetry. Over the next fifty years, dozens of accomplished writers worked to edit and publish her works, and the best-loved and most popular of these creations are found here. Over 280 poems, ranging from I'm Nobody. Who Are You? and I Started Early, Took My Dog can be read, enjoyed, and cherished within the pages of this timeless volume, a re-creation of the life's work of Emily Dickinson.

"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 chilliest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me." - Emily Dickinson.