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Browse alphabetically through more than 9,000 words in Dickinson’s poetry, as defined in the Emily Dickinson Lexicon, based in part on her dictionary, Webster's 1844 American Dictionary of the English Language.
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I measure every Grief
I meet
With narrow, probing, eyes -
I wonder if It weighs
like Mine -
Or has an Easier size -
I wonder if They bore it long -
Or did it just begin -
I could not tell the Date
of Mine -
It feels so old a pain -
I wonder if it hurts to live -
And if They have to try -
And whether - could They
choose between -
It would not be - to die -
I note that Some - gone
patient long -
At length, renew their smile -
An imitation of a Light
That has so little Oil -
I wonder if when Years
have piled -
Some Thousands - on the Harm -
That hurt them Early -
such a lapse
Could give them any Balm -
Or would They go on
aching still
Through Centuries of Nerve -
Enlightened to a larger Pain -
In Contrast with the Love -
The Grieved - are many -
I am told -
There is the various Cause -
Death - is but one -
and comes but once -
And only nails the Eyes -
There's Grief of Want - and
Grief of Cold -
A sort they call "Despair" -
There's Banishment from
native Eyes -
In sight of Native Air -
And though I may not
guess the kind -
Correctly - yet to me
A piercing Comfort it
affords
In passing Calvary -
To note the fashions - of the
Cross -
And how they're mostly worn -
Still fascinated to presume
That Some - are like my own -
Conjecturing a Climate
Of unsuspended Suns -
Adds poignancy to Winter -
The freezing
shivering Fancy turns
To a fictitious Summer - • Season -
Country
To palliate a Cold -
Not obviated of Degree -
Nor eased - of Latitude -
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