Quotes from Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

If I can stop one heart from breaking, If I can ease one pain, / Then my life will not have been in vain.

Except Thyself may beThine Enemy—Captivity is Consciousness—So's Liberty.

Till Seraphs swing their snowy Hats—And Saints—to windows run—To see the little TipplerLeaning against the—Sun—

Adventure most unto itselfThe Soul condemned to be—Attended by a single HoundIts own identity.

But never met this FellowAttended or aloneWithout a tighter breathingAnd Zero at the Bone—

Until the Desert knowsThat Water growsHis Sands sufficeBut let him once suspectThat Caspian FactSahara dies.

Bees are Black, with Gilt Surcingles—Buccaneers of Buzz.

Love—is anterior to Life—Posterior—to Death—Initial of Creation, andThe Exponent of Earth.

Inebriate of Air—am I—And Debauchee of Dew—Reeling—through endless summer days—From inns of Molten Blue—

I reckon—when I count at all—First—Poets—Then the Sun—Then Summer—Then the Heaven of God—And then—the List is done—But, looking back—the First so seemsTo Comprehend the Whole—The Others look a needless Show—So I write—Poets—All—

And that White Sustenance—Despair—

Blazing in Gold and quenching in PurpleLeaping like Leopards to the Sky…And the Juggler of Day is gone.

Pain—has an Element of Blank—It cannot recollectWhen it begun—or if there wereA time when it was not—

For each ecstatic instantWe must an anguish payIn keen and quivering ratioTo the ecstasy.

Eden is that old-fashioned HouseWe dwell in every dayWithout suspecting our abodeUntil we drive away.

I took one Draught of Life—I'll tell you what I paid—Precisely an existence—The market price, they said.They weighed me, Dust by Dust—They balanced Film with Film,Then handed me my Being's worth—A single Dram of Heaven!

The Dying, is a trifle, pastBut living, this includeThe dying multifold—withoutThe Respite to be dead.

No Rack can torture me—My Soul—at Liberty—Behind this mortal BoneThere knits a bolder One—

Dying! To be afraid of theeOne must to thine ArtilleryHave left exposed a Friend—Than thine old Arrow is a ShotDelivered straighter to the HeartThe leaving Love behind.

Good Morning—Midnight—I'm coming Home—Day—got tired of Me—How could I—of Him?

This quiet Dust was Gentlemen and LadiesAnd Lads and Girls—Was laughter and ability and Sighing,And Frocks and Curls.

And neigh like Boanerges—Then punctual as a StarStop—docile and omnipotentAt its own stable door—

I am glad you love the Blossoms so well. I hope you love Birds too. It is economical. It saves going to Heaven.

Love's stricken "why"Is all that love can speak—Built of but just a syllableThe hugest hearts that break.