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"For Emily Dickinson", collage
oil on paper, 1996 by Carolyn Coalson
The
Wind
by
Emily Dickinson
Of
all the sounds despatched abroad,
There's not a charge to me
Like that old measure in the boughs,
That phraseless melody
The
wind does, working like a hand
Whose fingers brush the sky,
Then quiver down, with tufts of tune
Permitted gods and me.
When
winds go round and round in bands,
And thrum upon the door,
And birds take places overhead,
To bear them orchestra,
I
crave him grace, of summer boughs,
If such an outcast be,
He never heard that fleshless chant
Rise solemn in the tree,
As
if some caravan of sound
On deserts, in the sky,
Had broken rank,
Then knit, and passed
In seamless company.
*Emily
Dickinson* (1830
- 1886), is
considered one of the most original 19th century American poets. She
is noted for her unconventional broken rhyming meter and use of
dashes and random capitalisation as well as her creative use of
metaphor and overall innovative style. She was a deeply sensitive
woman who questioned the puritanical background of her Calvinist
family and soulfully explored her own spirituality, often in
poignant, deeply personal poetry.
Dickinson, was born into one of Amherst,
Massachusetts’ most prominent families. Her father, Edward Dickinson,
was a Yale graduate, a successful lawyer, Treasurer for Amherst
College and a United States Congressman. She lived an introverted and hermetic life,
never married and
lived almost all of her life in her family's house.
Source: The Literature
Network, Wikipedia
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