A selection of Dickinson’s better known poetry, with links to useful study guides, commentaries and notes where available.

Arranged very roughly into themes. But of course, some poems could be in more than one group, and you should feel free to disagree with where I’ve put them…

 

NATURE

The wind tapped like a tired man

 

I’ll tell you how the sun rose

• Brooklyn College study guide notes

A light exists in spring

 

Hope is the thing with feathers

• Brooklyn College study guide notes
• Sparknotes

 

DEATH

I felt a funeral in my brain

• Brooklyn College study guide notes
• Shmoop

I heard a fly buzz when I died

• Brooklyn College study guide notes
• Shmoop
• Sparknotes

Because I could not stop for death

• Brooklyn College study guide notes
• Shmoop
• Cummings study guide

Safe in their alabaster chambers

•  Brooklyn College study guide notes

The bustle in a house

 

LOVE

If you were coming in the fall

• Brooklyn College study guide notes

Wild nights! Wild nights!

• Brooklyn College study guide notes

I gave myself to him

 

He touched me, so I live to know

 

PAIN & ECSTASY

Pain has an element of blank

• Brooklyn College study guide notes

 

Success is counted sweetest

• Brooklyn College study guide notes
• Sparknotes
• Cummings study guides

After great pain, a formal feeling comes

• Brooklyn College study guide notes
• Sparknotes

My life closed twice before its close

• Brooklyn College study guide notes