The Collected Poems of Emily Dickinson

The Collected Poems of Emily Dickinson
1993
Weight: 1 lb
Method of Disposal: Left in the Oakhurst Public Lending Library Box Thing

I am in desperate need of a new job.  I must be if I am blogging online about it.  That is a professional no no.  I just must say this last bit anyway, job hunting leads me to despair and questioning my life and trajectory, which makes me think of...Emily Dickinson.

This book is one of the first collections of poetry I ever owned.  I got it as a wee middle schooler, and I loved it through high school.  I cannot remember which poems I loved but, interestingly, this is the only poem bookmarked in the whole 300 + pages:

LOVE VI

If you were coming in the fall,
I'd brush the summer by
With half a smile and half a spurn,
as housewives do a fly.

If I could see you in a year,
I'd wind the months in balls,
And put them in separate drawers,
Until their time befalls.

If only centuries delayed,
I'd count them on  my hand,
Subtracting till my fingers dropped
Into Van Diemen's land.

If certain, when this life was out,
That yours and mine should be,
I'd toss it yonder like a rind,
And Taste eternity.

But now, all ignorant of the length
Of time's uncertain wing,
It goads me, like the goblin bee,
That will not state its sting.

 (pg 147)

In other exciting news, it is full of four leaf clovers I found in that same time period!  How cool is that?!