Emily Dickinson Poems
Emily Elizabeth Dickinson (December 10, 1830 – May 15, 1886) was an American poet. Little-known during her life, she has since been regarded as one of the most important figures in American poetry. Dickinson was born in Amherst, Massachusetts, into a prominent family with strong ties to its community.
Emily Dickinson is one of America’s greatest and most original poets of all time. She took definition as her province and challenged the existing definitions of poetry and the poet’s work.
Success
Success is counted sweetest
By those who ne'er succeed.
To comprehend a nectar
Requires sorest need.
Not one of all the purple Host
Who took the Flag today
Can tell the definition
So clear of victory
As he defeated – dying –
On whose forbidden ear
The distant strains of triumph
Burst agonized and clear.
The poem uses the images of a victorious army and one dying warrior to suggest that only one who has suffered defeat can understand success.
The poem's three unemotional quatrains are written in iambic trimeter with only line 5 in iambic tetrameter. Lines 1 and 3 (and others) end with extra syllables. The rhyme scheme is abcb. The poem's "success" theme is treated paradoxically: Only those who know defeat can truly appreciate success. Alliteration enhances the poem's lyricism. The first stanza is a complete observation and can stand alone. Stanzas two and three introduce military images (a captured flag, a victorious army, a dying warrior) and are dependent upon one another for complete understanding.
"Hope" is the thing with feathers is a well-known poem by Emily Dickinson that uses metaphor to describe hope as a resilient bird that sings endlessly, even in the toughest times.
Summary:
Emily Dickinson’s poem "Hope" is the thing with feathers uses the metaphor of a bird to describe hope as a constant, resilient force that lives within the soul. The bird sings through hardships, offering comfort without ever asking for anything in return. Hope is most powerful during difficult times, enduring even the harshest storms. No matter where one is—even in the coldest or most unfamiliar places—hope remains present and unwavering. The poem highlights themes of perseverance, universality, and the selfless nature of hope.
Overall Meaning
Dickinson uses the metaphor of a bird to represent hope, showing it as something that lives within us, perseveres through hardship, and asks for nothing in return.
Stanza 1 Analysis
"Hope" is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops—at all—
- Metaphor: Hope is a bird that perches in the soul, meaning it is always within us.
- Sings without words: Hope doesn’t need language—it’s a feeling that persists no matter what.
- Never stops: Hope is constant and enduring.
Stanza 2 Analysis
And sweetest—in the Gale—is heard—
And sore must be the storm—
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm—
- Gale (strong wind): Hope is most noticeable during hard times.
- The storm must be severe to silence hope: This suggests that even in great hardship, hope is resilient.
- "Kept so many warm": Hope provides comfort to people in difficult moments.
Stanza 3 Analysis
I've heard it in the chillest land—
And on the strangest Sea—
Yet—never—in Extremity,
It asked a crumb—of Me.
- Hope exists everywhere: Even in the coldest, most unfamiliar places, hope remains.
- "Never asked a crumb": Hope asks for nothing in return; it exists freely within us.
Key Themes
- Resilience: Hope persists no matter the challenge.
- Universality: Hope exists in all places and situations.
- Selflessness: Hope gives comfort without asking for anything in return.
Wild nights - Wild nights!
Wild nights - Wild nights!
Were I with thee
Wild nights should be
Our luxury!
Futile - the winds -
To a Heart in port -
Done with the Compass -
Done with the Chart!
Rowing in Eden -
Ah - the Sea!
Might I but moor - tonight -
In thee!
The main idea of Emily Dickinson's poem "A Book" is that books provide an accessible means of experiencing new worlds and adventures, regardless of a person's wealth. They act as a vehicle for the imagination, allowing readers to transcend their immediate lives.
- "Wild nights - Wild nights!" is a poem by Emily Dickinson, one of the most famous and original of American writers. In this brief but powerful poem, the speaker longs to share "wild nights" with an absent lover. She imagines herself as a sailor on a stormy sea, searching for the harbor of her love. The lover in the poem might reference the speaker's desire to be closer to God, or simply the desire to be intimate with another person. On that note, when the poem was first published in an 1891 collection of Dickinson's work, the publisher worried that the poem's eroticism might shock the general public!
- “Wild nights - Wild nights!” Summary:
- The speaker begins by exclaiming about wild nights—an image that might equally suggest literal stormy nights and nights of passion. If only she were with an unknown addressee, she says, nights like this would bring them immense (and shared) pleasure.
- Wild winds, the speaker goes on, can have no effect on a heart that is safely lodged in port—an image which suggests that the speaker imagines herself as a sailor or a boat, and her beloved as a safe harbor. When the speaker's heart is in such a port, it has no more need of the tools of navigation: it's found the place it can rest.The speaker then turns to a very different image of her imagined ocean: no longer a dangerous, tempestuous place, but Paradise itself. She exclaims over this imagined sea, with an "Ah!" that could express pleasure, pain, or both. The poem returns at its end to the image of the beloved as a harbor, which the speaker wishes she could enter this very night.
One day is there of the series
Termed "Thanksgiving Day"
Celebrated part at table
Part in memory -
Neither Ancestor nor Urchin
I review the Play -
Seems it to my Hooded thinking
Reflex Holiday
Had There been no sharp subtraction
From the early Sum -
Not an acre or a Caption
Where was once a Room
Not a mention whose small Pebble
Wrinkled any Sea,
Unto such, were such Assembly,
'Twere "Thanksgiving day" -
Fame is a bee.
It has a song—
It has a sting—
Ah, too, it has a wing.
Summary:
In the first line of the poem, Dickinson compares fame to a bee. Here the bee is a metaphor. The poetess implicitly refers to the idea of impermanence. A bee has an average lifespan of only six weeks. Fame is also a temporary aspect of anyone’s life. A bee cannot live more than its biological time limit. Like that fame cannot last long. It is like the scent of a flower. It lasts until the flower is alive.
Dickinson uses a metaphor in the second line of the poem. Here the “song” of the bee is a reference to the praise which a person receives after being popular. Like a song gives us pleasure, fame also brings pleasurable moments in a person’s worldly life. The second and third line of the poem begins in a similar manner. It is called anaphora.
In the next line, the poetess refers to the “sting” of the bee in a metaphorical way. This “sting” is a reference to the negative aspects of fame. Through this word, the poetess also signals to the effect by using the cause. She uses the word as a metonym for the spiritual wound.
In the last line of the poem, “wing” is a symbol. It symbolizes the fleeting nature of fame. There is no need to confuse ourselves by thinking over the use of “a” before “wing”. Dickinson writes “a wing” for the sake of the rhythmic flow of the poem. There is another literary device in this line. It is an irony.