Emily Dickinson

All About Emily...
Having had grown up in Amherst, Massachusetts, Dickinson was raised by a strong family with good social ties. Emily was always thought of by her family as 'the perfect child', as she never complained or caused any trouble. In her later years, Emily wrote poetry to help deal with her emotions. Mainly due to the fact that many of Emily's close friends and family member were continuously passing away due to diseases, her poems pertained to death, loss, and immortality. Only a few of Dickinson's poems were actually published as she was alive. Near the last few years of her life, Emily secluded herself in her house and never left. It became very rare for anyone to ever even see Emily. After her death in 1886, a close friend published all of Emily's poems because he could not stand to see her talent go to waste.


Poem by Emily Dickinson:

XX
The last night that she lived,
It was a common night,
Except the dying; this to us
Made nature different.
We noticed smallest things,—
Things overlooked before,
By this great light upon our minds
Italicized, as ’t were.

That others could exist
While she must finish quite,
A jealousy for her arose
So nearly infinite.

We waited while she passed;
It was a narrow time,
Too jostled were our souls to speak,
At length the notice came.

She mentioned, and forgot;
Then lightly as a reed
Bent to the water, shivered scarce,
Consented, and was dead.

And we, we placed the hair,
And drew the head erect;
And then an awful leisure was,
Our faith to regulate.

Analysis: Dickinson descriptively describes the last night of a woman who once lived (possibly an old friend or family member). She displays how we do not notice the small details in life until we actually look back and reflect. The affects of death on close friends and family is portrayed through Dickinson's last stanza.