In
the semi-cloister of her family’s Amherst, Massachusetts home Emily
Dickinson read and admired the work of Emily
Brontë, the most famous of the
three English literary sisters and author of Wuthering Heights. Brontë died in 1848 at age 30. That was just about the time that the only universally acknowledge photo of
Dickinson was taken as teen age girl. Likely she had already read Wuthering Heights and perhaps the collection of poetry that the three sisters published together. If not, she soon would, and find a kindred
spirit. Brontë was rooted firmly in English Romanticism. Dickinson breathed the air of its American cousin, Transcendentalism. Both
eschewed orthodox Christianity and
embraced an alternate, personal
spirituality that still speaks
to us today.
No
Coward Soul is Mine
Vain are the
thousand creeds
That move men’s
hearts: unutterably vain;
Worthless as
withered weeds,
Or idlest froth
amid the boundless main,
To waken doubt
in one
Holding so fast
by thine infinity;
So surely
anchored on
The steadfast
rock of immortality.
With
wide-embracing love
Thy spirit
animates eternal years,
Pervades and
broods above,
Changes,
sustains, dissolves, creates, and rears.
Though earth and
man were gone,
And suns and
universes ceased to be,
And Thou wert
left alone,
Every existence
would exist in Thee.
There is not
room for Death,
Nor atom that
his might could render void:
Thou—Thou art
Being and Breath,
And what Thou
art may never be destroyed.
—Emily
Brontë
Some keep the
Sabbath 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 —
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,
So instead of
getting to Heaven, at last —
I’m going, all
along.
--Emily
Dickinson
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