Emily Dickinson’s father was a leading local lawyer and treasurer of the well-known Amherst College, founded in 1821. From 1840 she was educated at the Academy and then for a year at Mount Holyoke Female Seminary. At the age of 23 she withdrew from most social contacts to live a secluded life. Once a year her father held a large reception for local dignitaries. On these occasions, Emily emerged from her withdrawal to play her part as a gracious hostess. After the event, she would retreat and again become invisible to the world. In later years, Emily took to dressing in white and seldom consented to meet even family visitors.

She would have remained as an unknown recluse had it not been for a few close friends, for some of whom she composed her verses. She wrote nearly 1800 poems, most of them between 1858 and 1865: and almost all without publication in view. They were collected after her death by Lavinia Norcross Dickinson (1833-99), her sister, among others.[1] Most of the titles of the poems were assigned by her editors.

In 1862 Thomas Wentworth Higginson (1823-1911), a Unitarian minister, abolitionist and upholder of women’s rights, wrote an article in the Atlantic Monthly encouraging young authors to make contact. Emily Dickinson wrote to him enclosing four of her poems. He responded encouragingly, and thereafter became her literary mentor and somewhat rigorous editor. Having met her twice, in 1870 and 1873, he went on to publish and promote her work.

Nearly all the poems in this selection are reproduced from The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson, Boston, Little, Brown & Co., 1960. They are presented within the twelve ‘rooms’ of www.faithshapers.co.uk and my Academia paper, ‘Faith Markers on the Evangelical Anglican Way.’[2] However, in no way is this attempting to pigeonhole the poet. Rather, the verse has been chosen because it has helped to illuminate essential Christian truths for this compiler.

1. Our Father: Hallowed on Earth as in Heaven

APRIL

 An altered look about the hills;

A Tyrian light the village fills;

A wider sunrise in the dawn;

A deeper twilight on the lawn;

A print of a vermilion foot;

A purple finger on the slope;

A flippant fly upon the pane;

A spider at his trade again;

An added strut in chanticleer;

A flower expected everywhere;

An axe shrill singing in the woods;

Fern-odors on untravelled roads, –

All this, and more I cannot tell,

A furtive look you know as well,

And Nicodemus’ mystery[3]

Receives its annual reply.

Series 2: Part 3: Nature: IX.

PSALM OF THE DAY.

Something in a summer’s day,

As slow her flambeaux burn away,

Which solemnizes me.

A something in a summer’s noon,-

An azure depth, a wordless tune,

Transcending ecstasy.

And still within a summer’s night

A something so transporting bright,

I clap my hands to see….

The heaven unexpected came,

To lives that thought their worshipping

A too presumptuous psalm.

PSALM OF THE DAY: Series 1:Part 3: Nature: XII.

THE STORM

There came a wind like a bugle;

It quivered through the grass,

And a green chill upon the heat

So ominous did pass

We barred the windows and the doors

As from an emerald ghost;

The doom’s electric mocasson

That very instant passed.

On a strange mob of panting trees,

And fences fled away,

And rivers where the houses ran

The living looked that day.

The bell within the steeple wild

The flying tidings whirled.

How much can come

And much can go,

And yet abide the world!

Series 2: Part 3: Nature: XXVI.

THE BAT

The bat is dun[4] with wrinkled wings

Like fallow[5] article,

And not a song pervades his lips,

Or none perceptible.

His small umbrella quaintly halved,

Describing in the air

An arc alike inscrutable,-

Elate philosopher!

Deputed from what firmament

Of what astute abode,

Empowered with what malevolence

Auspiciously withheld.

To his adroit Creator

Ascribe no less the praise;

Beneficent, believe me,

His eccentricities.

Series 3: Part 3: Nature: XXII.

NATURE’S CHANGES

To my quick ear the leaves conferred;

The bushes they were bells;

I could not find a privacy

From Nature’s sentinels.

In cave if I presumed to hide,

The walls began to tell;

Creation seemed a mighty crack

To make me visible.

Series 3: Part 3: Nature: X.

THE FIRST LESSON

Not in this world to see his face

Sounds long, until I read the place

Where this is said to be

But just the primer to a life

Unopened, rare, upon the shelf,

Clasped yet to him and me.

And yet, my primer suits me so

I would not choose a book to know

Than that, be sweeter wise;

Might someone else so learned be,

And leave me just my A B C,

Himself could have the skies.

Series 1: Part 4: Time and Eternity: XXI.

2. The Bible: Bestowed Word of God

A WORD

 A word is dead

When it is said,

Some say.

I say it just

Begins  to live

That day.

Series 3: Part 1: Life: VI.

3. Jesus Christ: Crucified God in Person

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?

Series 1: Part 4: Time & Eternity: XIX.

 SUCCESS

Success is counted sweetest

By those who ne’er succeed.

To comprehend a nectar

Requires sorest need.

Not one of all the purple host

Who took the flag today

Can tell the definition,

So clear, of victory.

As he, defeated, dying,

On whose forbidden ear

The distant strains of triumph

Break, agonised and clear!

Series 1: Part 1: Life:1.

PROOF

That I did always love,

I bring thee proof:

That till I loved

I did not love enough

That I shall love always,

I offer thee

That love is life,

And life hath immortality.

This, dost thou doubt, sweet?

Then have I

Nothing to show

But Calvary.

Series :1 Love: VIII.

 GRIEFS

I measure every grief I meet

With analytic eyes;

I wonder if it weighs like mine,

Or has an easier size…

There’s grief of want, and grief of cold, –

A sort they call ‘despair,’

There’s banishment from native eyes,

In sight of native air.

And though I may not guess the kind

Correctly, yet to me

A piercing comfort it affords

In passing Calvary,

To note the fashions of the cross,

Of those that stand alone,

Still fascinated to presume

That some are like my own.

Series 3, Part 1: Life: XXXIII.

This world is not conclusion;

A sequel stands beyond,

Invisible, as music,

But positive, as sound.

It beckons and it baffles;

Philosophies don’t know,

And through a riddle, at the last,

Sagacity must go.

To guess it puzzles scholars;

To gain it, men have shown

Contempt of generations,

And crucifixion known.

Series 3: Part 4: Time & Eternity: I.

We learn in retreating

How vast an one

Was recently among us.

A perished sun

Endears in the departure

How doubly more

Than all the golden presence

It was before!

Series 3: Part 4: Time & Eternity: II.

4. Humanity: Sinful, Rebellious and Faithless

Much madness is divinest sense

To a discerning eye;

Much sense the starkest madness.

‘T is the majority

In this, as all, prevails.

Assent, and you are sane;

Demur, –  you’re straightway dangerous,

And handled with a chain.

Series:1 Part 1:Life: XI.

5. The Grace of God: Justifying and Converting

 THE MASTER

 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,

The nearer, then so slow

Your breath has time to straighten,

Your brain to bubble cool,-

Deals one imperial thunderbolt

That scalps your naked soul.

Series 3: Part 2: Love: XII.

I think   just how my shape will rise

When I shall be forgiven,

Till hair and eyes and timid head

Are out of sight in heaven.

I think just how my lips will weigh

With shapeless, quivering prayer

That you, so late, consider me,

The sparrow of your care.

I mind me that of anguish sent,

Some drifts were moved away

Before my simple bosom broke, –

And why not this, if they?

And so, until delirious borne

I con that thing, – “forgiven,” –

Till with long fright and longer trust

I drop my heart, unshriven![6]

Series 2: Part 4: Time & Eternity: XL.

Father, I bring thee not myself,-

That were the little load;

I bring thee the imperial heart

I had not strength to hold.

The heart I cherished in my own

Till mine too heavy grew,

Yet strangest, heavier since it went,

Is it too large for you?

Series 3: Part 2: Love: XIV.

 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.

Series 3: Introduction.

6. Christ-likeness: Progressive Christian Living

They might not need me, but they might.

I’ll let my head be just in sight;

A smile as small as mine might be

Precisely their necessity.

Published in the journal ‘Youth.

Proud of my broken heart since thou didst break it,

Proud of the pain I did not feel till thee,

Proud of my night since thou with moons dost slake it,

Not to partake thy passion my humility.

Series 3: Part 2: Love: I: CONSECRATION.

LOVE’S HUMILITY

 My worthiness is all my doubt,

His merit all my fear,

Contrasting which, my qualities

Do lowlier appear;

Lest I should insufficient prove

For his beloved need,

The chiefest apprehension

Within my loving creed.

So I, the undivine abode

of his elect content,

Conform my soul as ‘t were a church

Unto her sacrament.

Series 3: Part 4: Love: II.

I have no life but this,

To lead it here;

Nor any death, but lest

Dispelled from there;

Nor tie to earths to come,

Nor action new,

Except through this extent,

The realm of you.

Series 2: Part 2: Love: II.

7. Holy Spirit: in Christian Experience

VI: HOPE

Hope is the thing with feathers

That perches in the soul,

And sings the tune without 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.

Series 2: Part 1: Life: VI.

EXPERIENCE

I stepped from plank to plank,

A slow and cautiously;

The stars about my head I felt,

About my feet the sea.

I knew not but the next

Would be my final inch, –

This gave me that precarious gait

Some call experience.

Series 3: Part 1: LIII.

8. Believers: Assured, Called, Sent and Prayerful

Who has not found the heaven below

Will fail of it above.

God’s residence is next to mine,

His furniture is love.

Series 3: Part 1: Life: XVII.

We grow accustomed to the dark

When light is put away;
As when the neighbour holds the lamp
To witness her goodbye.

A moment – we uncertain step
For newness of the night;
Then fit our vision to the dark
And meet the road erect.

And so of larger darknesses,
Those evenings of the brain
When not a moon disclose a sign
Or star come out – within.

The bravest grope a little,
And sometimes hit a tree
Directly in the forehead.
But as they learn to see,

Either the darkness alters,
Or something in the sight
Adjusts itself to midnight,
And life steps almost straight.

Written about 1862, this poem was not discovered by her sister, Lavinia, until after her death. She published it, but it was not printed until 1935.

 AT LENGTH

 Her final summer was it,

And yet we guessed it not;

If tenderer industriousness

Pervaded her, we thought

A further force of life

Developed from within,-

When Death lit all the shortness up,

And made the hurry plain.

We wondered at our blindness,—

When nothing was to see

But her Carrara guide-post,[7] —

At our stupidity,

When, duller than our dullness,

The busy darling lay,

So busy was she, finishing,

So leisurely were we!

Series 2: Part 4: Time and Eternity: XXVIII.

I bring an unaccustomed wine

To lips long parching, next to mine,

And summon them to drink….

And so I always bear the cup

If, haply, mine may be the drop

Some pilgrim thirst to slake, –

If, haply, any say to me,

“Unto the little, unto me,”

When I at last awake.

Series 2: Part One: Life: II.

PRAYER

 Prayer is the little implement

Through which men reach

Where presence is denied them.

They fling their speech

By means of it in God’s ear;

If  then He hear,

This sums the apparatus

Comprised in prayer.

Series 2: Part 1: Life: LIV:

At least to pray is left, is left.

O Jesus! In the air

I know not which thy chamber is, –

I’m knocking everywhere.

Thou stirrest earthquake in the South,

And maelstrom in the sea;

Say, Jesus Christ of Nazareth,

Hast thou no arm for me?

Series 2: Part 4: Time &Eternity: III.

9. The Church: Provisional but Necessary

 Some keep the Sabbath going to church;

I keep it staying at home,

With a bobolink[8] for a chorister,

And an orchard for a dome.

Some keep the Sabbath in surplice;

I just wear my wings,

And instead of tolling the bell for church,

Our little sexton sings.

God preaches  –  a noted clergyman, –

And the sermon is never long;

So instead of getting to heaven at last,

I’m going all along!

A SERVICE OF SONG: Series 1: Part 3: Nature: VI.

THE PREACHER

He preached upon ‘breadth’ till it argued him narrow,-

The broad are too broad to define;

And of ‘truth’ until it proclaimed him a liar,-

The truth never flaunted a sign.

Simplicity fled from his counterfeit presence

As gold the pyrites[9] would shun.

What confusion would cover the innocent Jesus

To meet so enabled a man!

Series 2: Part 1: Life: XXXVIII.

10. The Mission of God

I noticed people disappeared,

When but a little child, –

Supposed they visited remote,

Or settled regions wild.

Now know I they both visited

And settled regions wild,

But they did because they died, – a fact

Withheld the little child!

Series2: Part 4: Time & Eternity: XIX.

11. The Vision of Moral Justice

12. Glory: Now and Then, Here and There

 But how shall finished creatures

A function fresh obtain?

Old Nicodemus’ phantom

Confronting us again!

Series 3: Part 1: life: XLIV (verse 3).

Adrift! A little boat adrift!

And night is coming down!

Will no one guide a little boat

Unto the nearest town?

So, sailors say, on yesterday,

Just as the dusk was brown,

One little boat gave up its strife,

And gurgled down and down.

But angels say, on yesterday,

Just as the dawn was red,

One little boat o’er spent with gales

Re-trimmed its masts, re-decked its sails

Exultant onward sped!

Series 3: Part 4: Time & Eternity: XLVII.

A death-blow is a life-blow to some

Who, till they died, did not alive become;

Who, had they lived, had died, but when

They died, vitality begun.

Series 2: Part 4: Time and Eternity: VI.

I died for beauty, but was scarce

Adjusted in the tomb,

When one who died for truth was lain

In an adjoining room.

He questioned softly why I failed?

‘For beauty,’ I replied.

‘And I for truth, – the two are one;

We brethren are,’ he said.

And so, as kinsmen met a night,

We talked between the rooms,

Until the moss had reached our lips,

And covered up our names.

Series 1: Part 4: Time & Eternity:  X.

Going to Heaven!

I don’t know when,

Pray do not ask me how, –

Indeed, I’m too astonished

To think of answering you!

Going to heaven! –

How dim it sounds!

And yet it will be done

As sure as flocks go home at night

Unto the shepherd’s arm!

Perhaps you’re going too!

Who knows?

If you should get there first,

Save just a little place for me

Close to the two I lost!

The smallest “robe” will fit me,

And just a bit of “crown;”

For you know we do not mind our dress

When we are going home.

I’m glad I don’t believe it,

For it would stop my breath,

And I’d like to look a little more

At such a curious earth!

I am glad they did believe it

Whom I have never found

Since the mighty autumn afternoon

I left them in the ground.

Series 2: Part 4: Time & Eternity: II.

The stimulus, beyond the grave

His countenance to see,

Supports me like imperial drams[10]

Afforded  royally.

Series 3: Part 4: Time & Eternity: VI.

If tolling bell I ask the cause,

‘A soul has gone to God,’

I’m answered in a lonesome tone;

Is heaven then so sad?

That bells should joyful ring to tell

A soul had gone to heaven,

Would seem to me the proper way

A good news should be given.

Series 3: Part 4: Time & Eternity: XLIII: JOY IN DEATH

Given in marriage unto thee,

Oh, thou celestial host!

Bride of the Father and the Son,

Bride of the Holy Ghost!

Other betrothal shall dissolve,

Wedlock of will decay;

Only the keeper of this seal

Conquers mortality.

Series 3: Part 4: Time & Eternity: VII.

NUMEN LUMEN

I live with him, I see his face;

I go no more away

For visitor, or sundown;

Death’s single privacy,

The only one forestalling mine,

And that by right that he

Presents a claim invisible,

No wedlock granted me.

I live with him, I hear his voice,

I stand alive today

To witness to the certainty

Of immortality

Taught me by Time, – the lower way,

Conviction every day, –

That life like this is endless,

Be judgment what it may.

Series 3: Part 2: Love: XX.

Our journey had advanced;

Our feet were almost come

To the odd fork in Being’s road,

Eternity by term.

Our pace took sudden awe,

Our feet reluctant led.

Before were cities, but between,

The forest of the dead.

Retreat was out of hope, –

Behind, a sealed route,

Eternity’s white flag before,

And God at every gate.

Series 2: Part 4: Time and Eternity: XXI: THE JOURNEY.

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 strove
At Recess—in the Ring—
We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain—
We passed the Setting Sun—

Or rather—He passed us—
The Dews drew quivering and chill—
For only Gossamer, my Gown—
My Tippet—only Tulle—

We paused before a House that seemed
A Swelling of the Ground—
The Roof was scarcely visible—
The Cornice—in the Ground—

Since then—’tis Centuries—and yet
Feels shorter than the Day
I first surmised the Horses’ Heads
Were toward Eternity….

The Poems of Emily Dickinson, Ralph W. Franklin (ed.), Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press, 1998.

ETERNITY

 On this wondrous sea,

Sailing silently,

Ho! pilot, Ho!

Knowest thou the shore

Where no breakers roar,

Where the storm is o’er?

In the silent west

Many sails at rest,

Their anchors fast;

Thither I pilot thee,-

Land, ho! Eternity!

Ashore at last!

Series 3, Part 4, LIX.

Footnotes.

[1] The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson, Martha Dickinson  Bianchi (ed.), Boston  MA, Little, Brown and Company, 1924. The Poems of Emily Dickinson, 3 vols., The Belknap Press,  Harvard University Press, 1955. Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson, London, Faber & Faber, 2016.

[2] www.oxford.acedemia.edu/IanBunting

[3] John 3:4, ‘How can anyone be born after having grown old?

[4] Greyish-brown.

[5] Uncultivated.

[6] ‘Unshriven’: i.e. without having been to church for ‘Confession’ and  receiving ‘Absolution’.

[7]  ‘Carrara’, famous Tuscany city of marble, used here figuratively for her ‘headstone’.

[8] A small migrant songbird

[9] A common yellow metallic mineral, also called ‘fool’s  gold’ because of its colour.

[10] Weights.

30.03.2026