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Emily Dickinson: Explication and Analysis of Selected Poems
“Heart, we will forget him!”
Heart, we will forget him!
You an I, tonight!
You may forget the warmth he gave,
I will forget the light.
When you have done, pray tell me
That I my thoughts may dim;
Haste! lest while you're lagging.
I may remember him!
1. An apostrophe is a figure of speech in which an absent or dead person or something
abstract or inanimate is addressed directly. What object is being addressed in this poem?
2. How do the short sentences, exclamation points, and dashes help convey the poet’s ideas?
“If You were coming in the Fall”
If you were coming in the Fall,
I'd brush the Summer by
With half a smile, and half a spurn,
As Housewives do, a Fly.
If I could see you in a year,
I'd wind the months in balls -And put them each in separate Drawers,
For fear the numbers fuse -If only Centuries, delayed,
I'd count them on my Hand,
Subtracting, till my fingers dropped
Into Van Dieman's Land.
If certain, when this life was out -That yours and mine, should be
I'd toss it yonder, like a Rind,
And take Eternity --
But, now, uncertain of the length
Of this, that is between,
It goads me, like the Goblin Bee -That will not state -- its sting.
1. Metaphysical poetry is poetry in which images and figures of speech are intellectual and
sometimes far-fetched and fantastic. Ordinary things are often seen in relation to the
universal. Explain how this poem may be considered metaphysical poetry. Cite specific
lines to support your claims.
“The Soul Selects her own Society”
The soul selects her own society,
Then shuts the door;
On her divine majority
Obtrude no more.
Unmoved, she notes the chariot's pausing
At her low gate;
Unmoved, an emperor is kneeling
Upon her mat.
I've known her from an ample nation
Choose one;
Then close the valves of her attention
Like stone.
1. How does the poet personify the soul?
2. Identify examples of slant and exact rhyme from this poem.
“I Taste a liquor never brewed”
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, through 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!
Till seraphs swing their snowy hats,
And saints to windows run,
To see the little tippler
Leaning against the sun!
1. Identify the conceit in the poem.
2. Where is the “Tipple” or drinker in the last stanza?
3. Can you detect any significance in the last word?
“Tell all the Truth but tell it slant”
Tell all the Truth but tell it slant -Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth's superb surprise
As Lightning to the Children eased
With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind –
1. What message is Dickinson expressing in this poem?
“Success is Counted Sweetest”
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!
1. Purple is the color associated with blood shed in battle (the Purple Heart is awarded to
soldiers wounded in battle). Purple is also the color associated with royalty or nobility.
What is the “purple Host” (5)?
2. Whose ear is mentioned in line 10? What is the ear forbidden to hear?
3. Describe the image you see in the last stanza.
4. According to the speaker, who is likely to count success the sweetest?
“Because I could not stop for Death”
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 grew 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 but a mound.
Since then 'tis centuries, and yet each
Feels shorter than the day
I first surmised the horses' heads
Were toward eternity.
1. Death is being personified in the poem. List some adjectives describing the speaker’s
description of “Death.”
2. Paraphrase the first two lines. How are they ironic?
3. What three things to the riders pass in stanza 3? What do these locations symbolize?
4. What is the nearly buried house in stanza 5?
5. Describe the tone of the poem.
“I hear a Fly buzz when I died”
I heard a fly buzz when I died;
The stillness round my form
Was like the stillness in the air
Between the heaves of storm.
The eyes beside had wrung them dry,
And breaths were gathering sure
For that last onset, when the king
Be witnessed in his power.
I willed my keepsakes, signed away
What portion of me I
Could make assignable,-and then
There interposed a fly,
With blue, uncertain, stumbling buzz,
Between the light and me;
And then the windows failed, and then
I could not see to see.
1. According to the second and third stanzas, how has the speaker and those around her
prepared for death?
2. What are the dying person and those around her expecting to find in the room? What
appears instead, and why is this ironic?
3. What tone do you hear in this poem? What feeling do you think the poet expresses by
inserting the fly into the deathbed scene?