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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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If the foolish, call them "flowers" -
Need the wiser, tell?
If the Savans "Classify" them
It is just as well!
Those who read the "Revelations"
Must not criticize
Those who read the same Edition -
With beclouded Eyes!
Could we stand with that Old "Moses" -
"Canaan" denied -
Scan like him, the stately landscape
On the other side -
Doubtless, we should deem superfluous
Many Sciences,
Not pursued by learned Angels
In scholastic skies!
Low amid that glad Belles lettres
Grant that we may stand -
Stars, amid profound Galaxies -
At that grand "Right hand"!
In Ebon Box, when years have flown
To reverently peer -
Wiping away the velvet dust
Summers have sprinkled there!
To hold a letter to the light -
Grown Tawny - now - with time -
To con the faded syllables
That quickened us like Wine!
Perhaps a Flower's shrivelled cheek
Among it's stores to find -
Plucked far away, some morning -
By gallant - mouldering hand!
A curl, perhaps, from foreheads
Our constancy forgot -
Perhaps, an antique trinket -
In vanished fashions set!
And then to lay them quiet back -
And go about it's care -
As if the little Ebon Box
Were none of our affair!
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