Friday, April 27, 2007

from E. Dickinson, "875"

I stepped from Plank to Plank
A slow and cautious way
The Stars about my Head I felt
About my Feet the Sea.

4 comments:

Ariel the Thief said...

I cannot really translate the last two lines but it seems to me she was wise being slow and cautious because if you lose your balance while walking like that, that can be last thing happens to you.

are her poems given numbers, too?

Minka said...

Two thumbs up...I love Emily Dickinson! One of the first poets I was introduced to in my "Introduction to American Literature" class. She stuck, quite deep within me! Wonderful!

The Old Mule said...

ariel, I guess the general idea is that she sees stars in the sky above, and feels the ocean on her feet below.

But I must say, you write better than a native english speaker.

Her poems where given numbers as well as titles in an early edition of her work. For some reason, this kind of stuck.

thanks, minka. I enjoy the sparse honesty of Dickinson. I mean, she wrote over a thousand poems, and only published a few in her lifetime, and those were all published anonymously.

Minka said...

well, woman pretty much kept upstairs to herslef in her bedroom. Even when guests arrived. But she evesdropped on conversations and is said to have sent a present downstairs if she liked a guest particularly...of course, I wasn´t there :)