“I feel not a whit sad at the fact of death, but massively sad at leaving friends behind, among who you count dearly. I have always know what my true feelings are by whatever line of poetry rises unbidden to my mind on any occasion; to my genuine happiness, this time was a line from Herbert’s ‘Evensong,’ in which God (always in Herbert, more like Jesus than Jehovah), says to the poet, ‘ Henceforth repose; your work is done.'”

The great poetry critic Helen Vendler died April 23, 2024 at the age of 93. Over the years, I’ve read several of Vendler’s books on poetry and always came away delighted and inspired by her insights and commentaries. That paragraph above comes from a letter from Vendler to her friend Roger Rosenblatt (you can read more about their friendship here) shortly before her death.

“In choosing the 150 poems for inclusion here I wanted to edit many different aspects of the poet’s work as a writer, form her first-person poem to the poems of grand abstraction, from her ecstatic verses to her unparalleled depictions of emotional numbness, from her comic anecdotes to her painful poems of aftermath. I have included many of the familiar poems, but I have wanted to makes space, too, for daring poems that have rarely been anthologized or taught in school, and so have not reached a large general audience. There are poems of varying achievement here, the lesser ones included to show the conventional or occasional Dickinson, the great ones to sustain her right to fame.” (p. 3)

To honor Helen Vendler and one of her favorite poets, Emily Dickinson, I want to urge you to check out Dickinson: Selected Poems and Commentaries (2012). Vendler shows how Dickinson’s poems work to achieve their effects. Do you have a favorite poet? GRADE: A

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

A Note on the Text — xiii

Introduction: Dickinson the writer — 1

Selected poems and commentaries:

23. In the name of the Bee –17

32. The morns are meeker than they were — 19

90. An altered look about the hills — 32

122. These are the days when birds come back — 35

124. Safe in their alabaster chambers — 38

129. Our lives are Swiss — 43

134. Did the Harebell loose her girdle — 45

138. To fight aloud, is very brave — 47

165–I have never seen “Volcanoes” — 50

181. A wounded deer leaps highest — 54

187. Through the straight pass of suffering — 57

194. Title divine, is mine — 60

204. I’ll tell you how the sun rose — 64

224: An awful tempest mashed the air — 67

232. He forgot – and I – remembered — 69

236. Some keep the Sabbath going to Church — 71

238. How many times these low feet staggered — 75

240. Bound a trouble – and lives will bear it — 78

243. That after horror – that ’twas us — 84

256– The robin’s my criterion for tune — 86

259. A clock stopped — 89

269. Wild nights – wild nights! — 93

276. Civilization – spurns – the leopard! — 95

279. Of all the souls that stand create — 98

284. The zeros taught us – phosphorus — 101

288. My first well day – since many ill — 104

291. It sifts from leaden sieves — 107

294. A weight with needles on the pounds — 110

306. A shady friend – for torrid days — 112

312. I can wade grief — 115

314. “Hope” is the thing with feathers — 118

319. Of bronze – and blaze — 121

320. There’s a certain slant of light — 126

325. There came a day – at summer’s full — 130

330. He put the belt around my life — 135

337. Of nearness to her sundered things — 138

340. I felt a funeral, in my brain — 141

341. ‘Tis so appalling – it exhilarates — 144

348. I would not paint – a picture — 148

351. She sights a bird – she chuckles — 151

355. It was not death, for I stood up — 154

359. A bird, came down he walk — 157

360. The soul has bandaged moments — 161

365. I know that he exists — 165

372. After great pain, a formal feeling comes — 168

373. This world is not conclusion — 173

383. I like to see it lap the miles — 177

401. Dare you see a soul at the “white heat”? — 180

407. One need not be a chamber – to be haunted — 184

409. The soul selects her own society — 187

420. There are two ripenings — 191

423. The first day’s night had come — 194

425. ‘Twas like a maelstrom, with a notch — 198

430. A charm invests a face — 202

439. I had been hungry, all the years — 205

444. It would have starved a gnat — 209

446. This was a poet — 212

448. I died for beauty – but was scarce — 216

450. The outer – from the inner — 219

466. I dwell in possibility — 222

479. Because I could not stop for death — 225

515. There is a pain so utter — 231

517. A still – volcano – life — 234

519. This is my letter to the world — 237

534. It feels a shame to be alive — 239

528. ‘Tis not that dying hurts us so — 243

533. I reckon – when I count at all — 246

550. I measure every grief I meet — 250

558. A visitor in Marl — 255

578. The angle of a landscape — 258

584. We dream – it is good we are dreaming — 261

588. The heart asks pleasure – first — 254

591. I heard a fly buzz – when I died — 266

615. God is a distant – stately lover — 269

620. Much madness is divinest sense — 273

633. I saw no way – the heavens were stitched — 275

647. To fill a gap — 278

664. Rehearsal to ourselves — 280

675. What soft – cherubic creatures — 283

686. It makes no difference abroad — 286

696. The tint I cannot take – is best — 289

700. The way I read a letter’s – this — 293

706. I cannot live with you — 297

708. They put us far apart — 304

729. The props assist the house — 307

740. On a columnar self — 311

347. It’s easy to invent a life — 314

760. Pain – has an element of blank — 316

764. My life had stood – a loaded gun –318

772. Essential oils – are wrung — 323

778. Four trees – upon a solitary acre — 326

782. Renunciation – is a piercing virtue — 330

788. Publication – is the auction — 333

790. Growth of man – like growth of nature — 336

796. The wind begun to rock the grass — 339

800. I never saw a moor — 343

830. The admirations – and contempts – of time — 345

836. Color – caste – denomination — 349

857. She rose to his requirement – dropt — 352

861. They say that “time assuages” — 355

867. I felt a cleaving in my mind — 357

895. Further in summer than the birds — 361

905. Split the lark – and you’ll find the music — 367

926. I stepped from plank to plank — 369

930. The poets light but lamps — 371

935. As imperceptibly as grief — 373

962. A light exists in spring — 378

983. Bee! I’m expecting you! — 382

994. He scanned it – staggered — 384

1010. Crumbling is not an instant’s act — 386

1038. Bloom – is result – to meet a flower — 389

1064. As the starved maelstrom laps the navies — 392

1096. A narrow fellow in the grass — 396

1097. Ashes denote that fire was — 400

1100. The last night that she lived — 404

1121. The sky is low – the clouds are mean — 409

1142. The murmuring of bees has ceased — 411

1150. These are the nights that beetles love — 415

1163. A spider sewed at night — 418

1218. The bone that has no marrow — 424

1243. Shall I take thee, the poet said — 427

1263. Tell all the truth but tell it slant — 431

1268. A word dropped careless on a page — 434

1274. Now I knew I lost her — 437

1279. The things we thought that we should do — 441

1279. Art thou the thing I wanted? — 446

1325. I never hear that one is dead — 449

1332. Abraham to kill him — 452

1347. Wonder is not precisely knowing — 455

1369. The rat is the concisest tenant — 458

1393. Those cattle smaller than a bee — 461

Long years apart – can make no — 465

1408. The bat is dun, with wrinkled wings — 467

1428. Lay this laurel on the one — 470

1474. The road was lit with moon and star –475

1489. A route of evanescence — 479

1511. The fascinating chill that music leaves — 481

1513. ‘Tis whiter than an Indian Pipe — 485

1539. Mine enemy is growing old — 489

1577. The Bible is an antique volume — 491

1581. Those dying then — 496

1593. He ate and drank the precious words — 498

1618. There came a wind like a bugle — 500

1668. Apparently with no surprise — 504

1715. A word made flesh is seldom — 506

1742. In winter in my room — 511

1766. The waters chased him as he fled — 515

1771. ‘Twas here my summer paused — 518

1773. My life closed twice before its close — 520

1779. To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee — 522

Primary Sources Cited — 527

Acknowledgements — 529

Index of First Lines — 531