Favorite Emily Dickinson poems/Lines

May 16, 2022 | Dara Marie | @thornfield_lane

Yesterday, May 15, marked the one hundred and thirty-six death anniversary of American poet, Emily Dickinson. While this may be ‘basic’ in the literary world, I consider her my favorite poet. I found a collection of her poems in a thrift store last year and spent the whole summer going through them. So many lines and stanzas struck me and have continued to surface through my thoughts. 

In honor of her death, I would like to remember her by sharing some of my favorite lines and poems of hers:

[For reference, ‘/’ represents a line break.]

“Here a star, and there a star / some lose their way / Here a mist, and there a mist, / afterward–day!”

I love this description of how the day always comes after night. 

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“If I can stop one heart from breaking, / I shall not live in vain; / if I can ease one life the aching, / or cool one pain, / or help one fainting robin / unto his nest again, / I shall not live in vain.” 

I love how simple and profound this is: this idea of finding meaning not through money or success, but through assisting someone else alone their way. As a perfectionist, I often tear myself down if I feel I’m not being productive. But reaching out to friends, giving someone a compliment, and being generally positive can be more than enough. 

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“Life is but life, and death but death! / Bliss is but bliss, and breath but breath! / And if, indeed, I fail, / at least the worst is sweet. / Defeat means nothing but defeat, / no drearier can prevail!”

I wish I could think like this: not being afraid to fail because nothing worse than that could happen. I definitely get too into my head about things. Maybe I should work to memorize this one to help remember it more. 

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“A precious, moldering pleasure ‘tis / to meet an antique book, / in just the dress his century wore; / a privilege, I think…”

I read this as a love letter to all those old souls out there who wander second-hand and thrift shops looking for old books. 

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“He lived where dreams were born…”

I don’t even know what this is supposed to mean but I love it.

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“Hope is the thing with feathers / that perches in the soul, / and sings the tune without the words, / and never stops at all, / and sweetest in the gale is heard; / and sore must be the storm / that could abash the little bird / that kept so many warm.

“I’ve heard it in the chilliest land, / and on the strangest sea; / yet, never, in extremity, / it asked a crumb of me.”

This is one of the best descriptions of hope I’ve read. As always, her lines are simple and poignant. 

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“It’s such a little thing to weep, / so short a thing to sigh; / and yet by trades the size of these / we men and women die!” 

Once again, she cuts quickly, deeply, and powerfully into the heart of human emotion. I remember letting out a heavy breath after reading this and have done every time since. 

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“A word is dead / when it is said, / some say. / I say it just / begins to live / that day.”

This poem, I believe, hits hard with every writer. I know It definitely does for me. 

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“...Oh, some scholar! Oh, some soldier! / Oh, some wise man from the skies! / Please tell a little pilgrim / where the place called morning lies!”

I love her nature poems that describe morning and night as destinations, not times of days. 

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“It’s all I have to bring today, / this, and my heart besides, / this, and my heart, and all the fields, / and all the meadows wide. / Be sure you count, should I forget– / someone the sun could tell– / this, and my heart, and all the bees / which in the clover dwell.”

This is my favorite poem. Similar to ‘If I could stop one heart from breaking’, I get the message that we don’t have to be perfect. If all we have to ‘give’ someone is our presence, that’ll be enough. 

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“If certain, when this life was out, / that yours and mine should be, / I’d toss it yonder like a rind, / and taste eternity.”

I’m sorry, but romantic poetry peaked here and will never be topped. Telling your lover you’d throw away your life and jump into eternity with them if there was a guarantee you’d be together? For heaven’s sake, Emily–are you trying to melt my heart away? 

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“Let me not mar that perfect dream / by an auroral stain, / but so adjust my daily night / that it will come again.”

Dreams fascinate me, especially since we’re not entirely sure what prompts them. My dreams are mostly strange riff-offs of movies. I’ve only had a few that I can recall were pleasant enough to want to revisit. I’m curious, then, what her dream she was writing about.

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“...Time is a test of trouble, / but not a remedy…”

‘It will heal in time,’ people often say. Is it the time itself? Or is it what we do in that time that brings healing? 

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“I felt a funeral in my brain, / and mourners, to and fro, / kept treading, treading, till it seemed / that sense was breaking through…”

I really love this poem because it summarizes my mental experience with depression and anxiety really well. I’ve used it to help explain my struggles to a few people. The fact that Dickinson is believed to have suffered from depression makes this even more impactful. The lines are so poignant and agonizingly true. I hoped she was able to find relief through her work. 

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“We never know how high we are / ‘till we are called to rise; / and then, if we are true to plan, / our statures touch the skies. / The heroism we recite / would be a daily thing, / did not ourselves the cubits warp / for fear to be a king.”

I really think I love Emily Dickinson so much because of how much I relate to her struggles and insecurities. This definitely hits right in my fluctuating confidence. 

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“Because I could not stop for death, / he kindly stopped for me…”

One of her most well-known poems, it is one of my favorites for sentimental reasons. In eighth grade English class, when my aptitude for the subject was really stepping forward, we read this poem. My teacher then asked us what it meant. No one answered for a long moment until I slowly raised my hand. 

“It’s pretty simple,” I said. Then proceeded to go line by line explaining it to my classmates. I remember the shocked stares from my classmates and the proud smile from my teacher. When I finished, I looked at my teacher to see if I was right. 

“Yeah, alright, so we can move on now,” she said. 

When I look back, that is one of the core moments I think about that predestined my collegiate path. 

What’s your favorite Emily Dickinson poem? What’s your favorite poem/line from this list? I'd love to hear from you! You can connect with me through thornfield.lane@gmail.com or on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and Twitter: @thornfield_lane.