This selection from her poems is published to meet the desire of her personal friends, and especially of her surviving sister. It is believed that the thoughtful reader will find in these pages a quality more suggestive of the poetry of William Blake than of anything to be elsewhere found,--flashes of wholly original and profound insight into nature and life; words and phrases exhibiting an extraordinary vividness of descriptive and imaginative power, yet often set in a seemingly whimsical or even rugged frame. They are here published as they were written, with very few and superficial changes; although it is fair to say that the titles have been assigned, almost invariably, by the editors. In many cases these verses will seem to the reader like poetry torn up by the roots, with rain and dew and earth still clinging to them, giving a freshness and a fragrance not otherwise to be conveyed. In other cases, as in the few poems of shipwreck or of mental conflict, we can only wonder at the gift of vivid imagination by which this recluse woman can delineate, by a few touches, the very crises of physical or mental struggle. And sometimes again we catch glimpses of a lyric strain, sustained perhaps but for a line or two at a time, and making the reader regret its sudden cessation. But the main quality of these poems is that of extraordinary grasp and insight, uttered with an uneven vigor sometimes exasperating, seemingly wayward, but really unsought and inevitable. After all, when a thought takes one's breath away, a lesson on grammar seems an impertinence. As Ruskin wrote in his earlier and better days, "No weight nor mass nor beauty of execution can outweigh one grain or fragment of thought." ---Thomas Wentworth Higginson TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE As is well documented, Emily Dickinson's poems were edited in these early editions by her friends, better to fit the conventions of the times. In particular, her dashes, often small enough to appear as dots, became commas and semi-colons. In the second series of poems published, a facsimile of her handwritten poem which her editors titled "Renunciation" is given, and I here transcribe that manuscript as faithfully as I can, showing _underlined_ words thus. There came a day - at Summer's full - Entirely for me - I thought that such were for the Saints - Where Resurrections - be - The sun - as common - went abroad - The flowers - accustomed - blew, As if no soul - that solstice passed - Which maketh all things - new - The time was scarce profaned - by speech - The falling of a word Was needless - as at Sacrament - The _Wardrobe_ - of our Lord! Each was to each - the sealed church - Permitted to commune - _this_ time - Lest we too awkward show At Supper of "the Lamb." The hours slid fast - as hours will - Clutched tight - by greedy hands - So - faces on two Decks look back - Bound to _opposing_ lands.