Emily Dickinson, This was a Poet (1929)

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This was a Poet — It is That

Distills amazing sense

From ordinary Meanings —

And Attar so immense

From the familiar species

That perished by the Door —

We wonder it was not Ourselves

Arrested it — before —

Of Pictures, the Discloser —

The Poet — it is He —

Entitles Us — by Contrast —

To ceaseless Poverty —

Of portion — so unconscious —

The Robbing — could not harm —

Himself — to Him — a Fortune —

Exterior — to Time —

Critical Edition

Emily Dickinson. "This was a Poet [1929]." The Poems of Emily Dickinson. Ed. Thomas H. Johnson. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press, 1979. 346 f.