Emily Dickinson's powerful but short verses are always enigmatic. Read them even once and her words are engraved in you. (You might even remember the first one here from the narrative in "Sophie's Choice" and the second one is one of this poet's most familiar in high school English classes).  I like the simplicity of Dickinson's poetry and how she says so much with an economy of words.  - poetheart

"Ample-make-this-bed"

Ample make this bed.
Make this bed with awe;
In it wait till judgment break
Excellent and fair.

Be its mattress straight,
Be its pillow round;
Let no sunrise' yellow noise
Interrupt this ground.


"because-I-could-not-stop"

Because I could not stop for Death,
He kindly stopped for me;
The carriage held but just ourselves
And Immortality.

We slowly drove, he knew no haste,
And I had put away
My labor, and my leisure too,
For his civility.

We passed the school where children played,
Their lessons scarcely done;
We passed the fields of gazing grain,
We passed the setting sun.

We paused before a house that seemed
A swelling of the ground;
The roof was scarcely visible,
The cornice but a mound.

Since then 'tis centuries; but each
Feels shorter than the day
I first surmised the horses' heads
Were toward eternity.

© Emily Dickinson

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