Etext scanned by Jim Tinsley <jtinsley@pobox.com>
by EMILY DICKINSON
Series One
Edited by two of her friends
MABEL LOOMIS TODD and T.W.HIGGINSON
THE verses of Emily Dickinson belong emphatically to what Emersonlong since called "the Poetry of the Portfolio,"—something producedabsolutely without the thought of publication, and solely by way ofexpression of the writer's own mind. Such verse must inevitablyforfeit whatever advantage lies in the discipline of public criticismand the enforced conformity to accepted ways. On the other hand, itmay often gain something through the habit of freedom and theunconventional utterance of daring thoughts. In the case of thepresent author, there was absolutely no choice in the matter; shemust write thus, or not at all. A recluse by temperament and habit,literally spending years without setting her foot beyond thedoorstep, and many more years during which her walks were strictlylimited to her father's grounds, she habitually concealed her mind,like her person, from all but a very few friends; and it was withgreat difficulty that she was persuaded to print, during herlifetime, three or four poems. Yet she wrote verses in greatabundance; and though brought curiously indifferent to allconventional rules, had yet a rigorous literary standard of her own,and often altered a word many times to suit an ear which had its owntenacious fastidiousness.
Miss Dickinson was born in Amherst, Mass., Dec. 10, 1830, and diedthere May 15, 1886. Her father, Hon. Edward Dickinson, was theleading lawyer of Amherst, and was treasurer of the well-knowncollege there situated. It was his custom once a year to hold a largereception at his house, attended by all the families connected withthe institution and by the leading people of the town. On theseoccasions his daughter Emily emerged from her wonted retirement anddid her part as gracious hostess; nor would any one have known fromher manner, I have been told, that this was not a daily occurrence.The annual occasion once past, she withdrew again into her seclusion,and except for a very few friends was as invisible to the world as ifshe had dwelt in a nunnery. For myself, although I had correspondedwith her for many years, I saw her but twice face to face, andbrought away the impression of something as unique and remote asUndine or Mignon or Thekla.
This selection from her poems is published to meet the desire of herpersonal friends, and especially of her surviving sister. It isbelieved that the thoughtful reader will find in these pages aquality more suggestive of the poetry of William Blake than ofanything to be elsewhere found,—flashes of wholly original andprofound insight into nature and life; words and phrases exhibitingan extraordinary vividness of descriptive and imaginative power, yetoften set in a seemingly whimsical or even rugged frame. They arehere published as they were written, with very few and superficialchanges; although it is fair to say that the titles have beenassigned, almost invariably, by the editors. In many cases theseverses will seem to the reader like poetry torn up by the roots, withrain and dew and earth still clinging to them, giving a freshness anda fragrance not otherwise to be conveyed. In other cases, as in thefew poems of shipwreck or of mental conflict, we can only wonder atthe gift of vivid imagination by which this recluse woman candelineate, by a few touches, the very crises of physical or mentalstruggle. And sometimes again we catch glimpses of a lyric strain,sustained perhaps but for a line or two at a time, and