Poems by Emily Dickinson (used in the About Poetry Survivor Poet game, 2001)

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Poems by Emily Dickinson

Winner, Survivor Poet

One of the tribe of eight poets in the 2001 Survivor Poet game at About Poetry, Emily Dickinson was the single final survivor. Her work was represented in that final round by what Atlantic Unbound calls “her longest mature lyric” 640 I cannot live with You — It would be Life — And Life is over there — Behind the Shelf The Sexton keeps the Key to — Putting up Our Life — His Porcelain — Like a Cup — Discarded of the Housewife — Quaint — or Broke — A newer Sevres pleases — Old Ones crack — I could not die — with You — For One must wait To shut the Other’s Gaze down — You — could not — And I — Could I stand by And see You — freeze — Without my Right of Frost — Death’s privilege? Nor could I rise — with You — Because Your Face Would put out Jesus’ — That New Grace Glow plain — and foreign On my homesick Eye — Except that You than He Shone closer by — They’d judge Us — How — For You — served Heaven — You know, Or sought to — I could not — Because You saturated Sight — And I had no more Eyes For sordid excellence As Paradise And were You lost, I would be — Though My Name Rang loudest On the Heavenly fame — And were You — saved — And I — condemned to be Where You were not — That self — were Hell to Me — So We must meet apart — You there — I — here — With just the Door ajar That Oceans are — and Prayer — And that White Sustenance — Despair —


During the third round of Survivor Poet voting, the “Belle of Amherst” was represented by a pair of poems, one of death and one of life, you could say: 712 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 strove At Recess — in the Ring — We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain — We passed the Setting Sun — Or rather — He passed us — The Dews drew quivering and chill — For only Gossamer, my Gown — My Tippet — only Tulle — We paused before a House that seemed A Swelling of the Ground — The Roof was scarcely visible — The Cornice — in the Ground — Since then — ’tis Centuries — and yet Feels shorter than the Day I first surmised the Horses’ Heads Were toward Eternity — 214 I taste a liquor never brewed — From Tankards scooped in Pearl — Not all the Vats upon the Rhine Yield such an alcohol! Inebriate of Air — am I — And Debauchee of Dew — Reeling — thro endless summer days — From inns of Molten Blue — When “Landlords” turn the drunken Bee Out of the Foxglove’s door — When Butterflies — renounce their “drams” — I shall but drink the more!


For the second round of Survivor Poet, we gave you a sequence of several Dickinson poems written in 1862: 341 After great pain, a formal feeling comes — The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs — The stiff Heart questions was it He, that bore, And Yesterday, or Centuries before? The Feet, mechanical, go round — Of Ground, or Air, or Ought — A Wooden way Regardless grown A Quartz contentment, like a stone — This is the Hour of Lead — Remembered, if outlived, As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow — First — Chill — then Stupor — then the letting go — 342 It will be Summer — eventually. Ladies — with parasols — Sauntering Gentlemen — with Canes — And little Girls — with Dolls — Will tint the pallid landscape — As ’twere a bright Bouquet — Tho’ drifted deep, in Parian — The Village lies — today — The Lilacs — bending many a year — Will sway with purple load — The Bees — will not despise the tune — Their Forefathers — have hummed — The Wild Rose — redden in the Bog — The Aster — on the Hill Her everlasting fashion — set — And Covenant Gentians — frill — Till Summer folds her miracle — As Women — do — their Gown — Or Priests — adjust the Symbols — When Sacrament — is done — 343 My Reward for Being, was This. My premium — My Bliss — An Admiralty, less — A Sceptre — penniless — And Realms — just Dross — When Thrones accost my Hands — With “Me, Miss, Me” — I’ll unroll Thee — Dominions dowerless — beside this Grace — Election &mdash Vote — The Ballots of Eternity, will show just that.


The poem that represented Dickinson’s work in the first round of Survivor Poet voting was from 1861: 249 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!


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