Online Texts for Craig White's Literature Courses

  • Not a critical or scholarly text but a reading text for a seminar

  • Gratefully adapted from various web sources

Emily Dickinson

Selected Poetry

(Dickinson Style Sheet)




[It sifts from Leaden Sieves]

(riddle poem)


Emily Dickinson (1830-86)
(daguerrotype taken app. 1846)

It sifts from Leaden Sieves
It powders all the Wood.
It fills with Alabaster Wool
The Wrinkles of the Road

It makes an Even Face
Of Mountain, and of Plain
Unbroken Forehead from the East
Unto the East again

It reaches to the Fence
It wraps it Rail by Rail
Till it is lost in Fleeces
It deals Celestial Vail

To Stump, and Stack—and Stem
A Summer's empty Room
Acres of Joints, where Harvests were,
Recordless, but for them

It Ruffles Wrists of Posts
As Ankles of a Queen
Then stills its Artisans—like Ghosts
Denying they have been—

 

 

 

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