Quote#Nature
Not with a Club, the Heart is broken
Quote byEmily Dickinson · 1830–1886
Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: Not with a Club, the Heart is broken (J).
English (original)
Not with a Club, the Heart is broken Nor with a Stone – A Whip so small you could not see it I've knownTo lash the Magic Creature Till it fell, Yet that Whip's Name Too noble then to tell.Magnanimous as Bird By Boy descried – Singing unto the Stone Of which it died –Shame need not crouch In such an Earth as Ours – Shame – stand erect – The Universe is yours.
— Emily Dickinson
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If I read a book [and] it makes my whole body so cold no fire can ever warm me, I know that is poetry. If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry. These are the only ways I know it. Is there any …
God is sitting here, looking into my very soul to see if I think right thoughts. Yet I am not afraid, for I try to be right and good; and He knows every one of my struggles.
Friday I tasted life. It was a vast morsel. A circus passed the house — still I feel the red in my mind though the drums are out. [...] The lawn is full of south and the odors tangle, and I hear to-day for the first the river in the tree.
I had no portrait, now, but am small, like the Wren, and my Hair is bold, like the Chestnut Bur — and my eyes, like the Sherry in the Glass, that the Guest leaves — Would this do just as well?
To live is so startling, it leaves but little room for other occupations.