World Literature 272 Dickinson Small Group Questions

#1

Group Members: ________________, ________________, ________________,

________________, ________________

Poem # 328

A BIRD came down the walk:
He did not know I saw;
He bit an angle-worm in halves
And ate the fellow, raw.
And then he drank a dew	5
From a convenient grass,
And then hopped sidewise to the wall
To let a beetle pass.
He glanced with rapid eyes
That hurried all abroad,—	10
They looked like frightened beads, I thought
He stirred his velvet head
Like one in danger; cautious,
I offered him a crumb,
And he unrolled his feathers	15
And rowed him softer home
Than oars divide the ocean,
Too silver for a seam,
Or butterflies, off banks of noon,
Leap, plashless, as they swim.	20
A narrow fellow in the grass A narrow fellow in the grass Occasionally rides; You may have met him,--did you not, His notice sudden is. The grass divides as with a comb, 5 A spotted shaft is seen; And then it closes at your feet And opens further on. He likes a boggy acre, A floor too cool for corn. 10 Yet when a child, and barefoot, I more than once, at morn, Have passed, I thought, a whip-lash Unbraiding in the sun,-- When, stooping to secure it, 15 It wrinkled, and was gone. Several of nature's people I know, and they know me; I feel for them a transport Of cordiality; 20 But never met this fellow, Attended or alone, Without a tighter breathing, And zero at the bone.

World Literature 272 Dickinson Small Group Questions

#2

Group Members: ________________, ________________, ________________,

________________, ________________

Poem # 435

MUCH madness is divinest sense

To a discerning eye;

Much sense the starkest madness.

’T is the majority

In this, as all, prevails. 5

Assent, and you are sane;

Demur,—you ’re straightway dangerous,

And handled with a chain.

There is no frigate like a book

There is no frigate like a book
To take us lands away,
Nor any coursers like a page
Of prancing poetry.
This traverse may the poorest take 5
Without oppress of toll;
How frugal is the chariot
That bears a human soul!

World Literature 272 Dickinson Small Group Questions

#3

Group Members: ________________, ________________, ________________,

________________, ________________

Some Keep the Sabbath by Going to Church

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.
Some keep the Sabbath in surplice;	5
I just wear my wings,
And instead of tolling the bell for church,
Our little sexton sings.
God preaches,—a noted clergyman,—
And the sermon is never long;	10
So instead of getting to heaven at last,
I ’m going all along!

Poem # 258

There's a certain slant of light,
On winter afternoons,
That oppresses, like the weight
Of cathedral tunes.

Heavenly hurt it gives us; 5
We can find no scar,
But internal difference
Where the meanings are.

None may teach it anything,
'Tis the seal, despair,- 10
An imperial affliction
Sent us of the air.

When it comes, the landscape listens,
Shadows hold their breath;
When it goes, 't is like the distance 15
On the look of death.

World Literature 272 Dickinson Small Group Questions

#4

Group Members: ________________, ________________, ________________,

________________, ________________

I cannot live with you

(In Vain)                    

I cannot live with you,
It would be life,
And life is over there
Behind the shelf

The sexton keeps the key to, 5
Putting up
Our life, his porcelain,
Like a cup

Discarded of the housewife,
Quaint or broken; 10
A newer Sevres pleases,
Old ones crack.

I could not die with you,
For one must wait
To shut the other's gaze down, 15
You could not.

And I, could I stand by
And see you freeze,
Without my right of frost,
Death's privilege? 20

Nor could I rise with you,
Because your face
Would put out Jesus',
That new grace

Glow plain and foreign 25
On my homesick eye,
Except that you, than he
Shone closer by.

They'd judge us-how?
For you served Heaven, you know, 30
Or sought to;
I could not,

Because you saturated sight,
And I had no more eyes
For sordid excellence 35
As Paradise.

And were you lost, I would be,
Though my name
Rang loudest
On the heavenly fame. 40

And were you saved,
And I condemned to be
Where you were not,
That self were hell to me.

So we must keep apart, 45
You there, I here,
With just the door ajar
That oceans are,
And prayer,
And that pale sustenance, 50
Despair!

World Literature 272 Dickinson Small Group Questions

#5

Group Members: ________________, ________________, ________________,

________________, ________________

Poem # 585

I LIKE to see it lap the miles,
And lick the valleys up,
And stop to feed itself at tanks;
And then, prodigious, step
Around a pile of mountains,	5
And, supercilious, peer
In shanties by the sides of roads;
And then a quarry pare
To fit its sides, and crawl between,
Complaining all the while	10
In horrid, hooting stanza;
Then chase itself down hill
And neigh like Boanerges;
Then, punctual as a star,
Stop—docile and omnipotent—	15
At its own stable door.