The Complete Poems Quotes

“Not knowing when the dawn will come
I open every door.”
― Emily Dickinson, The Complete Poems

“Nature is a haunted house--but Art--is a house that tries to be haunted.”
― Emily Dickinson, The Complete Poems

“We never know how high we are till we are called to rise. Then if we are true to form our statures touch the skies.”
― Emily Dickinson, Collected Poems of Emily Dickinson

“One need not be a chamber to be haunted.”
― Emily Dickinson, The Complete Poems

“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, The Complete Poems

“Love is anterior to life, posterior to death, initial of creation, and the exponent of breath.”
― Emily Dickinson, The Complete Poems

“If you were coming in the fall,
I'd brush the summer by,
With half a smile and half a spurn,
As housewives do a fly.

If I could see you in a year,
I'd wind the months in balls,
And put them each in separate drawers,
Until their time befalls.”
― Emily Dickinson, The Complete Poems

“Those who have not found the heaven below,
will fail of it above.”
― Emily Dickinson, The Collected Poems 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”
― Emily Dickinson, The Complete Poems

“To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee,
One clover, and a bee,
And revery.
The revery alone will do,
If bees are few.”
― Emily Dickinson, The Complete Poems

“I cannot live with you,
It would be life,
And life is over there
Behind the shelf ”
― Emily Dickinson, The Complete Poems

“To see her is a picture-
To hear her is a tune-
To know her an Intemperance
As innocent as June-
To know her not-Affliction-
To own her for a Friend
A warmth as near as if the the Sun
Were shining in your Hand.”
― Emily Dickinson, The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson

“There is no frigate like a book
To take us lands away,
Nor any coursers like a page
Of prancing poetry.
This traverse may the poorest take
Without oppress of toll;
How frugal is the chariot
That bears a human soul!”
― Emily Dickinson, The Complete Poems

“To be alive──is Power.”
― Emily Dickinson, The Complete Poems

“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.”
― Emily Dickinson, The Complete Poems

“I felt a Funeral, in my Brain,
And Mourners to and fro
Kept treading – treading – till it seemed
That Sense was breaking through –

And when they all were seated,
A Service, like a Drum –
Kept beating – beating – till I thought
My Mind was going numb –

And then I heard them lift a Box
And creak across my Soul
With those same Boots of Lead, again,
Then Space – began to toll,

As all the Heavens were a Bell,
And Being, but an Ear,
And I, and Silence, some strange Race
Wrecked, solitary, here –

And then a Plank in Reason, broke,
And I dropped down, and down –
And hit a World, at every plunge,
And Finished knowing – then –”
― Emily Dickinson, The Complete Poems

“The Brain - is wider than the Sky -
For - put them side by side -
The one the other will contain
With ease - and You - beside -

The Brain is deeper than the sea -
For- hold them - Blue to Blue -
The one the other will absorb -
As Sponges - Buckets - do -

The Brain is just the weight of God -
For - Heft them - Pound for Pound -
And they will differ - if they do -
As Syllable from Sound.”
― Emily Dickinson, The Complete Poems

“I held a jewel in my fingers
And went to sleep.
The day was warm, and winds were prosy;
I said: "'T will keep."

I woke and chid my honest fingers,—
The gem was gone;
And now an amethyst remembrance
Is all I own.”
― Emily Dickinson, The Complete Poems

“This is the Hour of Lead-
Remembered, if outlived,
As freezing persons,
recollect the Snow-
First-Chill-then Stupor-
then the letting go---”
― Emily Dickinson, The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson

“The truth must dazzle gradually. Or every man be blind.”
― Emily Dickinson, The Collected Poems of Emily Dickinson

“To see the Summer Sky
Is Poetry, though never in a Book it lie—
True Poems flee—”
― Emily Dickinson, The Complete Poems

“A precious mouldering pleasure 't is
To meet an antique book,
In just the dress his century wore;
A privilege, I think,

His venerable hand to take,
And warming in our own,
A passage back, or two, to make
To times when he was young.

His quaint opinions to inspect,
His knowledge to unfold
On what concerns our mutual mind.
The literature of old;

What interested scholars most,
What competitions ran
When Plato was a certainty,
And Sophocles a man;

When Sappho was a living girl,
And Beatrice wore
The gown that Dante deified.
Facts, centuries before,

He traverses familiar,
As one should come to town
And tell you all your dreams were true:
He lived where dreams were born.

His presence is enchantment,
You beg him not to go;
Old volumes shake their vellum heads
And tantalize just so.”
― Emily Dickinson, The Complete Poems

“I started early, took my dog,
And visited the sea;
The mermaids in the basement
Came out to look at me”
― Emily Dickinson, The Complete Poems

“I'm nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?
Then there's a pair of us -- don't tell!
They'd banish us, you know.

How dreary to be somebody!
How public, like a frog
To tell your name the livelong day
To an admiring bog!”
― Emily Dickinson, The Complete Poems

“Apparently with no surprise
To any happy Flower
The Frost beheads it at its play --
In accidental power --
The blonde Assassin passes on --
The Sun proceeds unmoved
To measure off another Day
For an Approving God.”
― Emily Dickinson, The Complete Poems

“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.”
― Emily Dickinson, The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson

“A Word that Breathes Distinctly
Has not the Power to Die”
― Emily Dickinson, The Complete Poems

“Tell all the truth but tell it slant.”
― Emily Dickinson, The Complete Poems

“It was a quiet way -
He asked if I was his -
I made no answer of the tongue
But answer of the eyes -
And then He bore me on
Before this mortal noise
With swiftness, as of Chariots
and distance, as of Wheels.
This World did drop away
As acres from the feet
of one that leaneth from Balloon
Upon an Ether Street.
The Gulf behind was not,
The Continents were new -
Eternity was due.
No Seasons were to us -
It was not Night nor Morn -
But Sunrise stopped upon the place
And Fastened in Dawn.”
― Emily Dickinson, The Complete Poems

“The Soul selects her own Society.”
― Emily Dickinson, The Complete Poems