THE verses of Emily Dickinson belong emphatically to what
Emerson long since called "the Poetry of the Portfolio,"—something
produced absolutely without the thought of publication, and solely
by way of expression of the writer's own mind. Such verse must
inevitably forfeit whatever advantage lies in the discipline of
public criticism and the enforced conformity to accepted ways. On
the other hand, it may often gain something through the habit of
freedom and the unconventional utterance of daring thoughts. In the
case of the present author, there was absolutely no choice in the
matter; she must write thus, or not at all. A recluse by
temperament and habit, literally spending years without setting her
foot beyond the doorstep, and many more years during which her
walks were strictly limited to her father's grounds, she habitually
concealed her mind, like her person, from all but a very few
friends; and it was with great difficulty that she was persuaded to
print, during her lifetime, three or four poems. Yet she wrote
verses in great abundance; and though brought curiously indifferent
to all conventional rules, had yet a rigorous literary standard of
her own, and often altered a word many times to suit an ear which
had its own tenacious fastidiousness.
Miss Dickinson was born in Amherst, Mass., Dec. 10, 1830, and
died there May 15, 1886. Her father, Hon. Edward Dickinson, was the
leading lawyer of Amherst, and was treasurer of the well-known
college there situated. It was his custom once a year to hold a
large reception at his house, attended by all the families
connected with the institution and by the leading people of the
town. On these occasions his daughter Emily emerged from her wonted
retirement and did her part as gracious hostess; nor would any one
have known from her manner, I have been told, that this was not a
daily occurrence. The annual occasion once past, she withdrew again
into her seclusion, and except for a very few friends was as
invisible to the world as if she had dwelt in a nunnery. For
myself, although I had corresponded with her for many years, I saw
her but twice face to face, and brought away the impression of
something as unique and remote as Undine or Mignon or
Thekla.
This selection from her poems is published to meet the desire
of her personal friends, and especially of her surviving sister. It
is believed that the thoughtful reader will find in these pages a
quality more suggestive of the poetry of William Blake than of
anything to be elsewhere found,—flashes of wholly original and
profound insight into nature and life; words and phrases exhibiting
an extraordinary vividness of descriptive and imaginative power,
yet often set in a seemingly whimsical or even rugged frame. They
are here published as they were written, with very few and
superficial changes; although it is fair to say that the titles
have been assigned, almost invariably, by the editors. In many
cases these verses will seem to the reader like poetry torn up by
the roots, with rain and dew and earth still clinging to them,
giving a freshness and a fragrance not otherwise to be conveyed. In
other cases, as in the few poems of shipwreck or of mental
conflict, we can only wonder at the gift of vivid imagination by
which this recluse woman can delineate, by a few touches, the very
crises of physical or mental struggle. And sometimes again we catch
glimpses of a lyric strain, sustained perhaps but for a line or two
at a time, and making the reader regret its sudden cessation. But
the main quality of these poems is that of extraordinary grasp and
insight, uttered with an uneven vigor sometimes exasperating,
seemingly wayward, but really unsought and inevitable. After all,
when a thought takes one's breath away, a lesson on grammar seems
an impertinence. As Ruskin wrote in his earlier and better days,
"No weight nor mass nor beauty of execution can outweigh one grain
or fragment of thought."