Emily Dickinson – Fourteen Lines

Enraptured In His Great Embrace

Friend, it’s time to make an effort, So you become a grown human being, And go out picking jewels – Of feeling for others.
Ansari – Translated by Robert Bly

The Starlight Night

by Gerard Manley Hopkins

Look at the stars! look, look up at the skies!
. . O look at all the fire-folk sitting in the air!
. . The bright boroughs, the circle-citadels there!
Down in dim woods the diamond delves! the elves’-eyes!
The grey lawns cold where gold, where quickgold lies!
. . Wind-beat whitebeam! airy abeles set on a flare!
. . Flake-doves sent floating forth at a farmyard scare!—
Ah well! it is all a purchase, all is a prize.

Buy then! bid then! – What? —Prayer, patience, alms, vows.
Look, look: a May-mess, lone on orchard boughs!
. . Look! March-bloom, like on a mealed-with-yellow-sallows!
These are indeed the barn; withindoors house
The shocks. This piece-bright paling shuts the spouse
. . Christ home, Christ and his mother all his hallows.*

*A few definitions and suggestions to help you frame this poem in your own mind for what it speaks to you.

Abeles – White Poplars

Flake-Doves – two interpretations from experience – 1) When a flock of birds takes off there is often some feather down that is released and falls like snow flakes as they lift off. 2). Or the actual birds are like snowfall in that fraction of a moment they stall in their upward movement on wing, and the timing hunters anticipate before the shot.

Quickgold – I believe this is a made up word, analogous to quick silver, mercury, but a golden version that inhabits only our imaginations and doesn’t poison us.

A mealed-with-yellow-sallows – I interpret this differently than all the literary critics who I have read who offered definitions. I believe it is the observation of how March is the time before spring, like the sallow waxy cheeks of the dead, when nature is no longer a bright yellow of fall, but the dulled yellow of death and rot of early spring, the shocks of corn or wheat, that still contain the grain (kernels) of life, but whose stalk and leaves have grayed and lack the nutrition they once contained. The idea that we have to keep our own spring alive in our souls, before it arrives again, keep it alive in our garden in our “withindoors” house.

This piece-bright paling shuts the spouse – This is the most personal line in this poem in my mind and Hopkins’ most daring. Read literally in the homophobia of most of the Christian church, it could be seen as heresy. I read it as being a faithful believer, Hopkins shuts even the piece-bright paling of Christ’s death in his heart, like a faithful spouse, a concept his belief is like a marriage, faithful in life and the afterlife. And that believers are spouses in the sacred, spiritual sense, regardless of gender, with Christ and all the holy.

Another example of Bly as one of the great anthologists of the 20th Century is his book titled The Soul Is Here For Its Own Joy. The title is taken from a line from a Rumi poem translated by Coleman Barks. In it Bly provides a path to follow towards embracing the holy, both in feminine and masculine forms, through the centuries in ecstatic poetry. Bly was focused on possibilities of spiritual expression through poetry throughout his entire career, both in his own writing and what poetry spoke to him by others. Poets use poetry to make more room in our imaginations, for ourselves to seek the divine, to do the process of spiritual labor, to embrace mortality and to wonder about the everythingness of immortality. This anthology is filled with poetry as a place for souls to take root in our God’s garden, where the soil is nourished by the living and the by-gone.

It is an honorable thought

by Emily Dickinson

It is an honorable thought
And makes one lift one’s hat,
As one met sudden gentlefolk
Upon a daily street,

That we’ve immortal place
Though pyramids decay
And kingdoms like the orchard
Flit russetly away.

The book has a generous helping of Kabir, Rumi and Mirabai, Emily Dickinson, Gerald Manley Hopkins and many, many others. Some of the poems are his translations, many were written in English and don’t require translating, while many other’s are poems Bly has selected of other people’s translations, a tip of Bly ‘s cap to the poet and translator. If you are looking for a starter kit on poetry as a path to a spirit-filled life, regardless of your religion, this is a good one. Bly provides a safe space for the reader to draw from many faith traditions as a way to feed your own soul the nutrition that it needs for spirit work. Bly provides a short introduction before each of the ten chapters on different approaches to such work. Each introduction is deft with Bly’s wisdom. In the opening chapter’s introduction, he writes;

…sometimes people can come to spiritual work too early; they may stop because they are not ready. Finally, the soul is aware of fear. In that sense, it is we oursleves who wish for the interruption:

And those who leave the town wander a long way off
and many perhaps die on the road.

Those who are left behind “in the town” may feel some anger. Mary Oliver remarks:

. . But you know how it is
when something
. . different crosses
. . the threshold – the uncles
. . mutter together,
the women walk away,
. . the young brother begins
. . to sharpen his knife.

If you are devoted to a limited interpretation of the divine, you might not like this anthology. You might only enjoy the poets aligned with your viewpoint and not enjoy the eternal freedom of expression that is the beauty of god-filled words built on the foundation of faiths throughout history. You might sharpen your knife.

I picked two of the sonnets that are contained in the The Soul Is Here For Its Own Joy. The Donne sonnet – The Starlight Night can be opaque to many modern readers, a bit like reading Shakespeare, where you have to grasp the meaning without completely understanding all the language. Donne is not the easiest of poets and this poem is loaded with brambles you have to pick your way through. I have found that I have to read this poem multiple times before even the hint of a path opens up.

The Edna St. Vincent Millay poem below is a surprise and a contrast to most of her work. Her confession of thoughts of loving god like a spouse, is more acceptable to the heterosexual norm, aligned with the Catholic church’s embrace of nun’s being devoted to Christ alone. But she pushes the envelop in this concept. She is brave enough to state that the son she bears inside herself is only half divine, both god-like and human, with “pain and compassion, shall (s)he know, but confusion, never.“

Sonnet XII

by Edna St. Vincent Millay

Olympian gods, mark now my bedside lamp
Blown out; and be advised too late the he
Whom you call sire is stolen into the camp
Of warring Earth, and lies abed with me.
Call out your golden hordes, the harm is done:
Enraptured in his great embrace I lie;
Shake heaven with spears, but I shall bear a son
Branded with godhead, heel and brow and thigh.
Whom think not to bedazzle or confound
With meteoric splendours or display
Of blackened moons or suns or the big sound
Of sudden thunder on a silent day;
Pain and compassion shall he know, being mine, —
Confusion never, that is half divine.

I Died For Beauty

Always the beautiful answer who asks a more beautiful question.
e. e. cummings

Essential Beauty

by Philip Larkin

In frames as large as rooms that face all ways
And block the ends of streets with giant loaves,
Screen graves with custard, cover slums with praise
Of motor-oil and cuts of salmon, shine
Perpetually these sharply-pictured groves
Of how life should be. High above the gutter
A silver knife sinks into golden butter,
A glass of milk stands in a meadow, and
Well-balanced families, in fine
Midsummer weather, owe their smiles, their cars,
Even their youth, to that small cube each hand
Stretches towards. These, and the deep armchairs
Aligned to cups at bedtime, radiant bars
(Gas or electric), quarter-profile cats
By slippers on warm mats,
Reflect none of the rained-on streets and squares

They dominate outdoors. Rather, they rise
Serenely to proclaim pure crust, pure foam,
Pure coldness to our live imperfect eyes
That stare beyond this world, where nothing’s made
As new or washed quite clean, seeking the home
All such inhabit. There, dark raftered pubs
Are filled with white-clothed ones from tennis-clubs,
And the boy puking his heart out in the Gents
Just missed them, as the pensioner paid
A halfpenny more for Granny Graveclothes’ Tea
To taste old age, and dying smokers sense
Walking towards them through some dappled park
As if on water that unfocused she
No match lit up, nor drag ever brought near,
Who now stands newly clear,
Smiling, and recognising, and going dark.

I Died for Beauty

By Emily Dickinson (1830 – 1886)

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 – Themself 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 –

How Do All Things Together Take Their Way

Our life is what our thoughts make it.
Marcus Aurelius

The Brain Is Wider Than the Sky

by Emily Dickinson

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 …

Near Helikon

By Trumbull Stickney

By such an all-embalming summer day
As sweetens now among the mountain pines
Down to the cornland yonder and the vines,
To where the sky and sea are mixed in gray,
How do all things together take their way
Harmonious to the harvest, bringing wines
And bread and light and whatsoe’er combines
In the large wreath to make it round and gay.
To me my troubled life doth now appear
Like scarce distinguishable summits hung
Around the blue horizon: places where
Not even a traveller purposeth to steer,—
Whereof a migrant bird in passing sung,
And the girl closed her window not to hear.

And Then I Hated Glory

Who doesn’t now read the papers
More than ever he read before;
Eagerly watching the symptoms
Of our great political sore?

Some only to croak and grumble,
To sleep and loaf and chew,
Doing nothing to ease the smarting;
I wouldn’t do that — would you?

Harper’s Weekly’s. 23 August 1862

The Finished Faces

by Emily Dickinson (1830 – 1886)

My Triumph lasted till the Drums
Had left the Dead alone
And then I dropped my Victory
And chastened stole along
To where the finished Faces
Conclusion turned on me
And then I hated Glory
And wished myself were They.

What is to be is best descried
When it has also been —
Could Prospect taste of Retrospect
The tyrannies of Men
Were Tenderer — diviner
The Transitive toward.
A Bayonet’s contrition
Is nothing to the Dead.

It is not that poetry was not part of the Civil War experience. Poetry was widely published in weekly journals that were relied upon by millions for their news, but the poetry of this period feels stiff and formal in most instances to our ears today. Although we can look back at Emily Dickinson’s verse written during this period and hear something fresher, remember her words are out of place for those living in that period, as her poetry was not widely published until the mid 20th Century. Walt Whitman, who was deeply impacted emotionally by the war, was the one poet pushing the boundaries of how poetry could be both a shared confession and healing counsel during the war, while not confining himself to the conventions of rhyme and meter that served no purpose.

The poetry during the Civil War that was widely distributed on both sides, tried to lend some air of dignity to the carnage, tried to give the impossible losses some measure of honor, tried to inspire and console. Of course those words now feel inadequate mostly because they fail to convey the scope of the horror. The Civil War is a long drawn out story of loss; loss of life, loss of family, loss of home, loss of dignity, loss of capitol, loss of country, loss of ideals, loss of civility, loss of freedom. That we try even now to write about it in terms that paint the opposite, is why in part very little of the literature of the day feels relevant.

Many of the best poets of this period felt the conflict was beyond their ability to put in words. Keat’s is quoted as saying; “A fact is not a truth until you love it.” And if history is a series of “facts”, it is impossible in my opinion to love the Civil War. So how then does anyone write the history of that period or write the poetry of that period? Rhyming poetry by its nature generally can come across as sentimental, and sentiments of war are so visceral that poets not part of that experience generally fail to strike the proper notes in rhyme.

I can respect the sacrifice of the Civil War, I am grateful for the outcome, as the alternative is too horrible to contemplate, but I don’t have to love the culture of war and the culture of violence and guns that our founding fathers have passed down to us generation after generation, war after war. Memorial Day began as a Civil War holiday. Veteran’s day began as memorial to the end of World War I, the “war to end all wars.” But neither have remain tethered to their original purpose, as time marches on and there is always another war in our past and in our future that requires respect of the sacrifices made and inclusion in the bank holidays our managers bequeath. But it begs the question; for whom were those sacrifices made? The cloak of patriotism that politicians hide behind to foster their own agendas on both sides of the isle keep the industrial war complex on full tilt has motives far from the patriots that die in those wars. Just look at the infrastructure bill that was just passed, it includes plenty of money going to keep the coffers of new and better ways to wage war and make the men and women behind those schemes wealthy. When are we going to invest our human capitol in innovating peace at the same or greater rate of interest than we pay so dearly for innovating war?

The News of A Day

by Sarah T. Bolton (1814 – 1893)

She read the names of the missing and slain;
But one she read over and over again.
“Great battle! Great battle!” the news-boy cried,
But it scarcely rippled the living tide
That ebbed and flowed in the noisy street,
With its throbbing heart and busy feet,
Again through the hum of the city thrilled,
“Great battle! Great battle! Ten thousand killed!”
And the little carrier hurried away
With the sorrowful news of that summer day.

To a dreary room in an attic high
Trembled the words of that small, sharp cry;
And a lonely widow bowed her head,
And murmured, “Willie, my Willie, is dead.
O I feared it was not an idle dream
That led me last night to that dark, deep stream,
Where the ground was wet with a crimson rain,
And strewn all over with ghastly slain.
She read the names of the missing and slain;
But one she read over and over again;

And the sad, low words that her white lips said,
Were ‘Company C, William Warren dead.’
The world toiled on through the busy street,
With its aching heart and unresisting feet;
The night came down to her cold hearth-stone,
And still the words that her white lips said,
Were, ‘Company C, William Warren dead.’
The light of the morning chased the gloom
From the emberless hearth of that attic room,
And the city’s pulse throbbed again,
But the mother’s heart had forgotten its pain.
She had gone through the gates to the better land,
With that terrible list in her pale, cold hand,
With her white lips parted, as at last she said,
‘Company C, William Warren dead.’

Because No Wreath We Owe

Stonewall Jackson

by Herman Melville

Mortally Wounded at Chancellorsville

The Man who fiercest charged in fight,
Whose sword and prayer were long —
Stonewall!
Even him who stoutly stood for Wrong,
How can we praise? Yet coming days
Shall not forget him with this song.

Dead is the Man whose Cause is dead,
Vainly he died and set his seal —
Stonewall!
Earnest in error, as we feel;
True to the thing he deemed was due,
True as John Brown or steel.

Relentlessly he routed us;
But we relent, for he is low —
Stonewall!
Justly his fame we outlaw; so
We drop a tear on the bold Virginian’s bier,
Because no wreath we owe.

It is November and with it, I am once again strangely drawn to the poetry of war. At a time when our nation is straining with divisiveness, it is a good reminder that conflict is a decidedly American tendency. I thought this November it might be interesting to revisit the poetry of the Civil War, to look back at the writers of the time and their perspectives.

Though the Civil War lasted only 4 years, it killed more Americans than any other war in our history. The United States Army suffered the greater losses, both in combat deaths and wounded, with a total of 646,000 men officially recorded as casualties. The confederates tally was 483,000. Neither accounting takes into account the total impact on families and civilians. In 1861, at the start of the Civil War the United States population was less than one-tenth of what it is today, or roughly 31,000,000. No one living at the time was left untouched. In July of 1863, the Battle Of Gettysburg alone resulted in 7,000 dead and more than 51,000 casualties during 3 bloody days of fighting. It is hard for us to imagine that level of violence and loss in just three days.

To start out the month I have chosen a writer known for his iconic novel, Moby Dick, not his poetry, but Herman Melville was a skilled poet. His poem above both commits the error of honoring in a back handed way the Confederate General for whom Charlotte and Richmond later erected statues. The poem also accurately predicts that such fame will be (eventually) outlawed. Although it has taken more than 150 years, communities across our country, not just the south, are reckoning with their difficult history and determining what monuments they want displayed that reflect their current values. Gone are the days when racism can be white-washed with misplaced patriotism. In North Carolina alone more than 20 cities have removed statues that glorified the confederacy. It is past time we confront the difficult history of our past and take to account the dead men in bronze who are not worthy of the future we collectively are creating today.

It Feels A Shame To Be Alive

by Emily Dickinson

It feels a shame to be Alive—
When Men so brave—are dead—
One envies the Distinguished Dust—
Permitted—such a Head—

The Stone—that tells defending Whom
This Spartan put away
What little of Him we—possessed
In Pawn for Liberty—

The price is great—Sublimely paid—
Do we deserve—a Thing—
That lives—like Dollars—must be piled
Before we may obtain?

Are we that wait—sufficient worth—
That such Enormous Pearl
As life—dissolved be—for Us—
In Battle’s—horrid Bowl?

It may be—a Renown to live—
I think the Man who die—
Those unsustained—Saviors—
Present Divinity—

Plashless As They Swim

A power of Butterfly must be –
The Aptitude to fly
Meadows of Majesty concedes
And easy Sweeps of Sky –

Emily Dickinson

A Bird Came Down The Walk

by Emily Dickinson

A Bird came down the Walk—
He did not know I saw—
He bit an angle-worm in halves
And ate the fellow, raw,

And then he drank a Dew
From a convenient Grass,
And then hopped sidewise to the Wall
To let a Beetle pass—

He glanced with rapid eyes
That hurried all abroad—
They looked like frightened Beads, I thought—
He stirred his velvet head

Like one in danger, Cautious,
I offered him a Crumb,
And he unrolled his feathers
And rowed him softer home—

Than Oars divide the Ocean,
Too silver for a seam—
Or Butterflies, off Banks of Noon,
Leap, plashless as they swim

I have struggled lately to listen to the news on NPR (National Public Radio) on my daily commute. It feels like a drum beat of negativity on COVID, environmental degradation, global warming, growing political ineffectiveness. I find myself disconnecting from the chaos of the outside world and drawing back inwards and outwards towards nature. It makes me appreciate the pheasant feather I found in the driveway, the butterflies resting in the sun along our sidewalk, the red deer standing in the hay field, the sand hill crane calling from the wet land, the lilies blooming in the garden, the little birds flitting about in the garden. The crazier the world becomes the more solace I find in the tiny slice of nature I am able to experience on a daily basis. The problem with science and technology is the endless improvement in efficiency of natural resource extraction. We are becoming so highly specialized in every field of mining and drilling we are getting too good at draining the natural world of its resources.

I spent last Saturday with my father and we visited the house and town he grew up in from age 3 to 5th grade. The house is still there, as are most of his neighbor’s homes from that period, but the connection to the simplicity of his life that prepared him for the modern world is gone. He described his childhood as idyllic, a small town in Iowa in the 1930’s, surrounded by farms, forests and meadows. He described learning to swim in the nearby creeks in the summer and sledding on the local hills on home made sleds made from crate lumber from the town’s feed mill. He grew up in the depression, when everyone was on a level playing field economically, trying to scrape by with big gardens, chickens, and resourcefulness to make your own things and make your own fun. I took a picture of him out front of the house on Saturday in what was then Ontario, Iowa, now lost inside the city limits of Ames. We later that day were given a picture of him around 4th grade outside the same house, in a hand me down overcoat, far too big for him that he had yet to grow into, but had fond memories of being worn by all the boys in his family that had preceded him. Maybe its inevitable that modernity slowly devours the past. But I am grateful the one room school house my father attended from Kindergarten through 5th grade still stands, even if it has been re-purposed as a single family home.

The inventiveness of Dickinson’s poetry continues to surprise and delight me as I become more familiar with her work. Her ability to invent language is remarkable. I had to look up several versions of the poem above to confirm that plashless was indeed accurate in its spelling of what she intended. Splashing is something different than plashing and the absence of plash with a butterfly on a pool of water is the kind of unique observation of the natural world that makes the poem live in imagery far beyond the words. As I mentioned early in the month, Frost seems to be on my mind right now in ways I can’t explain. I find his poem below remarkable in its ability to convey an aroma that only a person with an apple tree in their yard or farm can understand. The smell of slightly fermenting rotting apples upon the ground that bequeath one final act of benevolence in their gift as an apple, an aroma of the potential that was once their bounty.

Unharvested

by Robert Frost

A scent of ripeness from over a wall.
And come to leave the routine road
And look for what had made me stall,
There sure enough was an apple tree
That had eased itself of its summer load,
And of all but its trivial foliage free,
Now breathed as light as a lady’s fan.
For there had been an apple fall
As complete as the apple had given man.
The ground was one circle of solid red.

May something go always unharvested!
May much stay out of our stated plan,
Apples or something forgotten and left,
So smelling their sweetness would be no theft.

Catch Me If You Can

If I Can Stop One Heart From Breaking

by Emily Dickinson

If I can stop one heart from breaking
I shall not live in vain;
If I can ease one life the aching,
Or cool one pain,
Or help one fainting robin
Unto his nest again,
I shall not live in vain.

Little Robin Redbreast

By Anonymous

Little Robin Redbreast

Sat upon a tree;

Up went Pussy-cat,

Down went he.

Down came Pussy-cat,

And away Robin ran;

Says little Robin Redbreast

“Catch me if you can.”

Little Robin Redbreast

Hopped upon a wall;

Pussy-cat jumped after him,

And almost got a fall.

Little Robin chirped and sang,

And what did Pussy say?

Pussy-cat said “Mew,”

and Robin flew away.

Before Some Great Unutterable Thought

As if the Sea Should Part

by Emily Dickinson

As if the Sea should part
And show a further Sea —
And that — a further — and the Three
But a presumption be —

Of Periods of Seas —
Unvisited of Shores —
Themselves the Verge of Seas to be —
Eternity — is Those —

I aspire to be dubbed an idler. It sounds like a knighthood for sonnet writers. The Beneficent Society of Idlers strikes a nice cord, maybe with a large pennant on a red velvet cord for worthy recipients. Great unutterable thoughts that somehow are still uttered is what makes poetry a glue that connects people across time and place. Dickinson is the master of the unutterable and letting unutterances exist between the words and yet be completely understood despite each of our understandings different.

Poetry is not a user manual. It is not meant to be literal or complete. The best of it it is a glimpse into another’s inner life, hopes, dreams and miseries. And if the Sea should part and understanding is lying gleaming in the sand, don’t rush in too quick to pick it up. Let the Sea return to equilibrium and let it soak for a bit. And then dive down again to revel in your discoveries, holding your breath with excitement.

They Dub Thee Idler

by Henry Timrod (1828 – 1867)

They dub thee idler, smiling sneeringly,

And why? because, forsooth, so many moons,

Here dwelling voiceless by the voiceful sea,

Thou hast not set thy thoughts to paltry tunes

In song or sonnet. Them these golden noons

Oppress not with their beauty; they could prate,

Even while a prophet read the solemn runes

On which is hanging some imperial fate.

How know they, these good gossips, what to thee

The ocean and its wanderers may have brought?

How know they, in their busy vacancy,

With what far aim thy spirit may be fraught?

Or that thou dost not bow thee silently

Before some great unutterable thought?

The World Is Too Much With Us

williamwordsworth — William Wordsworth (1770 – 1850)

Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility.

William Wordsworth

The World is Too Much With Us

by William Wordsworth

The world is too much with us; late and soon,

Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;—

Little we see in Nature that is ours;

We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!

This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;

The winds that will be howling at all hours,

And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;

For this, for everything, we are out of tune;

It moves us not. Great God! I’d rather be

A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;

So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,

Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;

Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;

Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn.

The world has felt too much of late, this year’s mid summer holiday not even registering as a holiday in my mind, it was so completely removed from traditional rituals and celebrations. I stayed home and social distanced and worked on projects.

Dickinson does have a way of coming up with phrases that register as strangely optimistic in my thoughts;

“Unconcern so sovereign To Universe, or me – Infects my simple spirit with Taints of Majesty, till I take vaster attitudes and strut upon my stem, disdaining Men and Oxygen for Arrogance of them.”

Arrogance was in full regalia this past weekend by Trump in his usual narcissistic ramblings with his absolute lack of empathy for the impact that COVID-19 is having on families, individuals and communities. I am still energized by the moment that change is happening and pleased to see emblems of white privilege and worse white supremacy under scrutiny, like the names of pro sports teams, finally coming to a reckoning for change. Let’s hope that it is more than talk and action follows to eliminate symbols of injustice and bias with new emphasis on inclusion and crafting a legacy all can be proud and embrace. I am hopeful being a patriot is supporting a better, more just path forward.

Of Bronze—and Blaze—

by Emily Dickinson

Of Bronze—and Blaze—
The North—Tonight—
So adequate—it forms—
So preconcerted with itself—
So distant—to alarms—
And Unconcern so sovereign
To Universe, or me—
Infects my simple spirit
With Taints of Majesty—
Till I take vaster attitudes—
And strut upon my stem—
Disdaining Men, and Oxygen,
For Arrogance of them—

My Splendors, are Menagerie—
But their Competeless Show
Will entertain the Centuries
When I, am long ago,
An Island in dishonored Grass—
Whom none but Daisies, know.

In Forgetfulness Divine

I was never afraid of failure, for I would sooner fail than not be among the greatest.

John Keats

On Sleep

by John Keats (1795 – 1821)

O soft embalmer of the still midnight!
Shutting with careful fingers and benign
Our gloom-pleased eyes, embower’d from the light,
Enshaded in forgetfulness divine;
O soothest Sleep! if so it please thee, close,
In midst of this thine hymn, my willing eyes,
Or wait the amen, ere thy poppy throws
Around my bed its lulling charities;
Then save me, or the passèd day will shine
Upon my pillow, breeding many woes;
Save me from curious conscience, that still lords
Its strength for darkness, burrowing like a mole;
Turn the key deftly in the oilèd wards,
And seal the hushèd casket of my soul.

A Long, Long Sleep

by Emily Dickinson (1830 – 1886)

A long — long Sleep — A famous — Sleep —
That makes no show for Morn —
By Stretch of Limb — or stir of Lid —
An independent One —

Was ever idleness like This?
Upon a Bank of Stone
To bask the Centuries away —
Nor once look up — for Noon