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Emily Dickinson
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“I never saw a moor, / I never saw the sea, / Yet I know how the heather looks, / And what a wave must be.”
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“There's a certain slant of light, / on winter Afternoons — / That oppresses, like the weight / Of cathedral tunes.”
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“Ourself behind ourself concealed / Should startle most.”
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“The Brain — is wider than the Sky.”
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“How very sad it is to have a confiding nature, one's hopes and feelings are quite at the mercy of all who come along; and how very desirable to be a stolid individual, whose hopes and aspirations are safe in one's waistcoat pocket, and that a pocket indeed, and one not to be picked!”
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“The hearts that never lean, must fall.”
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“My friends are my estate.”
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“Till it has loved, no man or woman can become itself.”
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“No one has called so far, but one old lady to look at a house. I directed her to the cemetery to spare expense of moving.”
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“It is not dying hurts us so, — / 'T is living hurts us more ...”
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“A word is dead when it is said, some say. I say it just begins to live that day. ”
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“Experiment has a stimulus which withers its fear.”
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“Life is so rotatory that the wilderness falls to each, sometime.”
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“We turn not older with years, but newer every day.”
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“We must be careful what we say. No bird resumes its egg.”
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“The career of flowers differs from ours only in inaudibleness.”
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“It is true that the unknown is the largest need of the intellect, though for it, no one thinks to thank God.”
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“How softly summer shuts, without the creaking of a door ...”
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“A letter always feels to me like Immortality because it is the mind alone without corporeal friend.”
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“Spring's first conviction is a wealth beyond its whole experience.”
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“Truth is such a rare thing, it is delightful to tell it.”
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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 other way?”
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“To live is so startling, it leaves but little room for other occupations ...”
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“These behaviors of the year hurt almost like music, shifting when it eases us most.”
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“His heart was pure and terrible, and I think no other like it exists.”
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“I felt it shelter to speak to you.”
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“To multiply the harbors does not reduce the sea.”
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“Home is the definition of God.”
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“The past is not a package one can lay away.”
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“The friend anguish reveals is the slowest forgot.”
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“... a sick room is at times too sacred a place for a friend's knock, timid as that is.”
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“The red leaves take the green leaves' place, and the landscape yields. We go to sleep with the peach in our hands and wake with the stone, but the stone is the pledge of summers to come.”
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“I think Heaven will not be as good as earth, unless it bring with it that sweet power to remember, which is the staple of Heaven here.”
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“I hope you love birds, too. It is economical. It saves going to Heaven.”
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“[On the loss of Mary's third child:] Don't cry, dear Mary. Let us do that for you, because you are too tired now. We don't know how dark it is, but if you are at sea, perhaps when we say that we are there, you won't be as afraid. The waves are very big, but every one that covers you, covers us, too. Dear Mary, you can't see us, but we are close at your side.”
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“Dying is a wild Night and a new Road.”
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“Common sense is almost as omniscient as God.”
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“... it is cold tonight, but the thought of you so warm, that I sit by it as a fireside, and am never cold any more. I love to write to you — it gives my heart a holiday and sets the bells to ringing.”
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“How do most people live without any thoughts? There are many people in the world, — you must have noticed them in the street, — how do they live? How do they get strength to put on their clothes in the morning?”
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“Publication is the auction / Of the Mind of Man.”
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“... God's unique capacity is too surprising to surprise.”
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“The older I grow the more do I love spring and spring flowers. Is it so with you?”
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“We never know how high we are / Till we are called to rise; / And then, if we are true to plan, / Our statures touch the skies.”
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“To lose what we have never owned might seem an eccentric bereavement, but Presumption has its own affliction as well as claim.”
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“The things of which we want the proof are those we know the best.”
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“I miss the grasshoppers much, but suppose it is all for the best. I should become too much attached to a trotting world.”
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“The moon rides like a girl through a topaz town.”
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“So few that live have life ...”
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“I find ecstasy in living; the mere sense of living is joy enough.”
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“... I have no letter from the dead, yet daily love them more.”
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“Longing, it may be, is the gift no other gift supplies.”
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“Life is a spell so exquisite that everything conspires to break it.”
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“Good times are always mutual; that is what makes good times.”
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“The power to console is not within corporeal reach — though its attempt is precious.”
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“I must go in, the fog is rising.”
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“Faith is the pierless bridge supporting what we see / Unto the scene that we do not, / Too slender for the eye.”
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“Beauty is not caused. It is.”
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“It might have been lonelier / Without the loneliness.”
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“Love can do all but raise the Dead.”
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“Spring is the Period / Express from God.”
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“Great Hungers feed themselves, but little Hungers ail in vain.”
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“Time is short and full, like an outgrown Frock — .”
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“Action is redemption.”
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“... Memory is a strange Bell --”
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“To die before one fears to die may be a boon.”
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“The appetite for silence is seldom an acquired taste.”
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“The Infinite a sudden Guest / Has been assumed to be — / But how can that stupendous come / Which never went away?”
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“'Tis sweet to know that stocks will stand / When we with Daisies lie — / That Commerce will continue — / And Trades as briskly fly --.”
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“Success is counted sweetest / By those who ne'er succeed.”
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“Surgeons must be very careful / When they take the knife! / Underneath their fine incisions / Stirs the Culprit — Life!”
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“For each ecstatic instant / We must an anguish pay / In keen and quivering ratio / To the ecstasy.”
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“A wounded Deer — leaps highest — ...”
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“'Faith' is a fine invention / When Gentlemen can see — / But microscopes are prudent / In an Emergency.”
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“Wild Nights — Wild Nights! / Were I with thee / Wild Nights should be / Our luxury!”
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“Rowing in Eden — / Ah, the Sea! / Might I but moor — Tonight — / In Thee!”
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“'Hope' is the thing with feathers — / That perches in the soul — / And sings the tune without the words — / And never stops at all — .”
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“Looking at Death, is Dying — ...”
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“I'm Nobody! Who are you? / Are you — Nobody — Too? / Then there's a pair of us? / Don't tell! they'd advertise — you know.”
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“How dreary — to be — Somebody! / How public — like a Frog-- / To tell one's name — the livelong June — / To an admiring Bog!”
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“The Soul selects her own Society — / Then — shuts the Door — / To her divine Majority — / Present no more — .”
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“The Soul's Superior instants / Occur to Her — alone — / When friend — and Earth's occasion / Have infinite withdrawn — ...”
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“Some keep the Sabbath going to Church — / I keep it, staying at Home — / With a Bobolink for a Chorister — / And an Orchard, for a Dome — ...”
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“After great pain, a formal feeling comes — / ... / This is the Hour of Lead — / Remembered, if outlived, / As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow — / First — Chill — then Stupor — then the letting go — .”
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“I felt my life with both my hands / To see if it was there — ...”
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“Of Course — I prayed — / And did God Care?”
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“This is my letter to the World / That never write to Me — ...”
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“This World is not Conclusion. / A Species stands beyond — / Invisible, as Music — / But positive, as Sound.”
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“The Heart asks Pleasure — first — / And then — Excuse from Pain-- / And then — those little Anodynes / That deaden suffering — / And then — to go to sleep — / And then — if it should be / The will of its Inquisitor / The privilege to die — .”
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“I fear a Man of frugal Speech — / I fear a Silent Man — / Haranguer — I can over take — / Or Babbler — entertain — / But He who weigheth — While the Rest — / Expend their further pound — / Of this Man — I am wary — / I fear that He is Grand — .”
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“... 'till I loved / I never lived — Enough — .”
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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.”
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“I could not prove the Years had feet — / Yet confident they run ...”
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“Pain — has an Element of Blank — / It cannot recollect / When it begun — or if there were / A time when it was not — .”
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“I dwell in Possibility — / A fairer House than Prose — / More numerous of Windows — / Superior — for Doors --.”
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“Time is a Test of Trouble — / But not a Remedy — / If such it prove, it prove too / There was no Malady --.”
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“'Tis Dying — I am doing — but / I'm not afraid to know — .”
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“Because I could not stop for Death — / He kindly stopped for me — / The Carriage held but just Ourselves — / And Immortality.”
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“To wait an Hour — is long — / If Love be just beyond — / To wait Eternity — is short-- / If Love reward the end --.”
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“Truth — is as old as God — ...”
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“Love — is anterior to Life — / Posterior — to Death — ...”
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“If I can stop one Heart from breaking / I shall not live in vain / If I can ease one Life the Aching / Or cool one Pain / Or help one fainting Robin / Unto his Nest again / I shall not live in Vain.”
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“Noon — is the Hinge of Day — ...”
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“I felt a Cleaving in my Mind — / As if my Brain had split — / I tried to match it — Seam by Seam — / But could not make them fit.”
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“Not to discover weakness is / The Artifice of strength — ...”
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“The Soul should always stand ajar ...”
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“The Lightning is a yellow Fork / From Tables in the sky / By inadvertent fingers dropt / The awful Cutlery ...”
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“A prompt — executive Bird is the Jay — / Bold as a Bailiff's Hymn — / Brittle and Brief in quality — / Warrant in every line — / Sitting a Bough like a Brigadier / Confident and straight — / Much is the mien of him in March / As a Magistrate — .”
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“The Bustle in a House / The Morning after Death / Is solemnest of industries / Enacted upon earth — / The Sweeping up the Heart / And putting Love away / We shall not want to use again / Until Eternity.”
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“Tell all the Truth but tell it slant — / Success in Circuit lies / Too bright for our infirm Delight / The Truth's superb surprise.”
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“The Truth must dazzle gradually / Or every man be blind --.”
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“There is no Frigate like a Book / To take us Lands away ...”
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“... A little Madness in the Spring / Is wholesome even for the King.”
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“Luck is not chance — / It's Toil — / Fortune's expensive smile / Is earned — ...”
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“Dreams are the subtle Dower / That make us rich an Hour — / Then fling us poor / Out of the purple Door ...”
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“Hope is a strange invention — / A Patent of the Heart — / In unremitting action / Yet never wearing out-- ...”
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“Bees are Black, with Gilt Surcingles — / Buccaneers of Buzz.”
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“Anger as soon as fed is dead — / 'Tis starving makes it fat — .”
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“Pass to thy Rendezvous of Light, / Pangless except for us — / Who slowly ford the Mystery / Which thou has leaped across!”
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“A Letter is a joy of Earth — / It is denied the Gods — .”
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“Eden is that old-fashioned House / We dwell in every day / Without suspecting our abode / Until we drive away.”
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“Fame is a fickle food / Upon a shifting plate.”
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“Autumn begins to be inferred / By millinery of the cloud / Or deeper color in the shawl / That wraps the everlasting hill.”
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“The Possible's slow fuse is lit / By the Imagination.”
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“Unto a broken heart / No other one may go / Without the high prerogative / Itself hath suffered too.”
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“The second half of joy / Is shorter than the first.”
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“The truth I do not dare to know / I muffle with a jest.”
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“I took one Draught of Life — / I'll tell you what I paid — / Precisely an existence — / The market price, they said.”
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“Parting is all we know of heaven, / And all we need of hell.”
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“That it will never come again / Is what makes life so sweet.”
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“The distance that the dead have gone / Does not at first appear — / Their coming back seems possible / For many an ardent year.”
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“To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee, / One clover, and a bee, / And revery. / The revery alone will do, / If bees are few.”
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“Fame is a bee. / It has a song — / It has a sting — / Ah, too, it has a wing.”
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“That love is all there is, / Is all we know of Love ...”
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“Drunkards of summer are quite as frequent as Drunkards of wine.”
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“Nothing more do I ask than to share with you the ecstasy and sacrament of my life.”
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“When it is too late for man / It's early yet for God.”
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“They might not need me — yet they might; / I'll let my heart be just in sight. / A smile so small as mine might be / Precisely their necessity.”
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“You ask of my companions. Hills, sir, and the sundown, and a dog as large as myself that my father bought me. They are better than human beings, because they know but do not tell.”
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“I'll tell you how the sun rose,-- / a ribbon at a time.”
Emily Dickinson, U.S. poet
(1830 - 1886)
Full name: Emily Elizabeth Dickinson