Favorites....

I'm new here, so i thought i'd ask, what's your favorite poem by her? I'm torn between two,

This is a Letter to the World, which i memorized when i was eight
I'm Nobody, Who are you,

over the fence.

I first read the Chinese version when I was quite young. And it happened to be the first English poem I read.

^_^ so it stays in mind and remains the favourate one.

I love the one about Hope.

I could not possibly narrow down a favorite poem by Emily Dickinson, as I seem to love all of her poetry endlessly. The following, however, seem among my top favorites:

Quote:

---

Because I could not stop for Death,

Because I could not stop for Death,
He kindly stopped for me;
The carriage held but just ourselves
And Immortality.

We slowly drove, he knew no haste,
And I had put away
My labor, and my leisure too,
For his civility.

We passed the school where children played,
Their lessons scarcely done;
We passed the fields of gazing grain,
We passed the setting sun.

We paused before a house that seemed
A swelling of the ground;
The roof was scarcely visible,
The cornice but a mound.

Since then 't is centuries; but each
Feels shorter than the day
I first surmised the horses' heads
Were toward eternity.

---

Quote:

---

My life closed twice before its close;

My life closed twice before its close;
It yet remains to see
If Immortality unveil
A third event to me,

So huge, so hopeless to conceive,
As these that twice befell.
Parting is all we know of heaven,
And all we need of hell.

---

And, most recently . . . ;)

Quote:

---

Going to him! Happy letter! Tell him--

"Going to him! Happy letter! Tell him--
Tell him the page I didn't write;
Tell him I only said the syntax,
And left the verb and the pronoun out.

Tell him just how the fingers hurried
Then how they waded, slow, slow, slow-
And then you wished you had eyes in your pages,
So you could see what moved them so.

"Tell him it wasn't a practised writer,
You guessed, from the way the sentence toiled;
You could hear the bodice tug, behind you,
As if it held but the might of a child;
You almost pitied it, you, it worked so.
Tell him--No, you may quibble there,
For it would split his heart to know it,
And then you and I were silenter.

"Tell him night finished before we finished
And the old clock kept neighing 'day!'
And you got sleepy and begged to be ended--
What could it hinder so, to say?
Tell him just how she sealed you, cautious
But if he ask where you are hid
Until to-morrow,--happy letter!
Gesture, coquette, and shake your head!"

---

This is my favorite poem by her. Emily wrote it when her father died, it's very sad if you can sense her loss...
I never lost as much but twice,

And that was in the sod

Twice have I stood a beggar

Before the door of God!



Angels -- twice descending

Reimbursed my store --

Burglar! Banker -- Father!

I am poor once more!

There is another Loneliness
That many die without --
Not want of friend occasions it
Or circumstance of Lot

But nature, sometimes, sometimes thought
And whoso it befall
Is richer than could be revealed
By mortal numeral --

It creates a whole new meaning of solitude for me. (well perhaps not "creates", but makes me notice it much more strongly)