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Dickinson studied Botany
since the age of nine. The Herbarium was the first book
Dickinson made. She collected the Specimens that are affixed
to the pages. They are labeled with the flowers' scientific name, and a set of numbers identifying the class and genus. Dickinson kept her Herbarium and her Botany textbook throughout her life. Dickinson's herbarium was published in 2006 as Emily Dickinson's
Herbarium by Harvard University Press.
Dickinson
saw writing poetry as her career. She dedicated her life to writing poetry. She composed over 1,775 poems in her life. Only 7 of her poems
were published in her lifetime.
Poems that were published in
her life time are listed below:
Valentine to George Gould, “Awake
ye muses nine, sing me a strain divine,” was published in the Amherst College
Indicator in 1850.
Awake ye muses nine, sing me
a strain divine,
Unwind the solemn twine, and tie my Valentine!
Oh the Earth was made for lovers, for damsel, and
hopeless swain,
For sighing, and gentle whispering, and unity made of twain.
All things do go a courting, in earth,
or sea, or air,
God hath made nothing single but thee in His world so fair!
The bride, and then the bridegroom, the
two, and then the one,
Adam, and Eve, his consort, the moon, and then the sun;
The life doth prove the precept, who
obey shall happy be,
Who will not serve the sovereign, be hanged on fatal tree.
The high do seek the lowly, the great
do seek the small,
None cannot find who seeketh, on this terrestrial ball;
The bee doth court the flower, the flower
his suit receives,
And they make merry wedding, whose guests are hundred leaves;
The wind doth woo the branches, the
branches they are won,
And the father fond demandeth the maiden for his son.
The storm doth walk the seashore humming
a mournful tune,
The wave with eye so pensive, looketh to see the moon,
Their spirits meet together, they make their
solemn vows,
No more he singeth mournful, her sadness she doth lose.
The worm doth woo the mortal, death claims a living
bride,
Night unto day is married, morn unto eventide;
Earth is a merry damsel, and heaven a knight so true,
And Earth
is quite coquettish, and beseemeth in vain to sue.
Now to the application, to the reading of the roll,
To bringing thee
to justice, and marshalling thy soul:
Thou art a human solo, a being cold, and lone,
Wilt have no kind companion, thou
reap'st what thou hast sown.
Hast never silent hours, and minutes all too long,
And a deal of sad reflection, and wailing
instead of song?
There's Sarah, and Eliza, and Emeline so fair,
And Harriet, and Susan, and she with curling hair!
Thine
eyes are sadly blinded, but yet thou mayest see
Six true, and comely maidens sitting upon the tree;
Approach that tree
with caution, then up it boldly climb,
And seize the one thou lovest, nor care for space, or time!
Then bear her to
the greenwood, and build for her a bower,
And give her what she asketh, jewel, or bird, or flower —
And bring
the fife, and trumpet, and beat upon the drum —
And bid the world Goodmorrow, and go to glory home!
“Sic transit gloria mundi,” was published
in the Springfield Daily Republican in 1852.
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Page 4 poem 3
"Sic
transit gloria mundi,"
"How doth the busy bee,"
"Dum vivimus vivamus,"
I stay mine enemy!
Oh "veni, vidi,
vici!"
Oh caput cap-a-pie!
And oh "memento mori"
When I am far from thee!
Hurrah for Peter Parley!
Hurrah
for Daniel Boone!
Three cheers, sir, for the gentleman
Who first observed the moon!
Peter, put up the sunshine;
Patti,
arrange the stars;
Tell Luna, tea is waiting,
And call your brother Mars!
Put down the apple, Adam,
And come
away with me,
So shalt thou have a pippin
From off my father's tree!
I climb the "Hill of Science,"
I "view
the landscape o'er;"
Such transcendental prospect,
I ne'er beheld before!
Unto the Legislature
My country
bids me go;
I'll take my india rubbers,
In case the wind should blow!
During my education,
It was announced to me
That gravitation, stumbling,
Fell from an apple tree!
The
earth upon an axis
Was once supposed to turn,
By way of a gymnastic
In honor of the sun!
It was the brave
Columbus,
A sailing o'er the tide,
Who notified the nations
Of where I would reside!
Mortality is fatal—
Gentility
is fine,
Rascality, heroic,
Insolvency, sublime!
Our Fathers being weary,
Laid down on Bunker Hill;
And
tho' full many a morning,
Yet they are sleeping still,—
The trumpet, sir, shall wake them,
In dreams I
see them rise,
Each with a solemn musket
A marching to the skies!
A coward will remain, Sir,
Until the fight
is done;
But an immortal hero
Will take his hat, and run!
Good bye, Sir, I am going;
My
country calleth me;
Allow me, Sir, at parting,
To wipe my weeping e'e.
In token of our friendship
Accept this
"Bonnie Doon,"
And when the hand that plucked it
Hath passed beyond the moon,
The
memory of my ashes
Will consolation be;
Then, farewell, Tuscarora,
And farewell, Sir, to thee!
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“I
taste a liquor never brewed,” was also published in the Springfield Daily Republican in 1861.
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-
“Safe in their Alabaster Chambers,”
was published in the Springfield Daily Republican in 1862.
“Blazing in Gold and quenching in
Purple,” was published in the Springfield Daily Republican in 1864.
Blazing
in Gold and quenching in Purple
Leaping like Leopards to the Sky
Then at the feet of the old Horizon
Laying her spotted
Face to die
Stooping as low as the Otter's Window
Touching the Roof and tinting the Barn
Kissing her Bonnet to the Meadow
And the Juggler of Day is gone
“A
Narrow Fellow in the Grass,” was published in the Springfield
Daily Republican in
1866.
A narrow fellow in the grass
Occasionally rides;
You may have met him, -did you not?
His notice sudden is.
The grass divides as with a comb,
A spotted shaft is seen;
And then it closes at
your feet
And opens further on.
He likes a boggy acre,
A floor too cool for corn.
Yet when a child, and barefoot,
I more than once, at morn,
Have passed, I thought, a whip-lash
Unbraiding in the sun, -
When, stooping to secure
it,
It wrinkled, and was gone.
Several of nature's people
I know, and they know me;
I feel for them a transport
Of cordiality;
But never met this fellow,
Attended or alone,
Without a tighter breathing,
And
zero at the bone.
“Success is counted sweetest,” was published in A Mask of Poets in 1878.
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 to-day
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!
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