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Date(s) - 02/28/2019 - 03/07/2019
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Dear March

          by Emily Dickinson

Dear March — Come in —

How glad I am —

I hoped for you before —

Put down your Hat —

You must have walked —

How out of Breath you are —

Dear March, how are you, and the Rest —

Did you leave Nature well —

Oh March, Come right upstairs with me —

I have so much to tell —

I got your Letter, and the Birds —

The Maples never knew that you were coming —

I declare – how Red their Faces grew —

But March, forgive me —

And all those Hills you left for me to Hue —

There was no Purple suitable —

You took it all with you —

Who knocks? That April —

Lock the Door —

I will not be pursued —

He stayed away a Year to call

When I am occupied —

But trifles look so trivial

As soon as you have come

That blame is just as dear as Praise

And Praise as mere as Blame —

 

Just one anecdote from the countless pages describing Emily Dickinson (1930 – 1886), one of America’s greatest and most original poets of all time:

 

In the fall of 1847 Dickinson entered Mount Holyoke Female Seminary. Under the guidance of Mary Lyon, the school was known for its religious predilection. Part and parcel of the curriculum were weekly sessions with Lyon in which religious questions were examined and the state of the students’ faith assessed. The young women were divided into three categories: those who were “established Christians,” those who “expressed hope,” and those who were “without hope.” Much has been made of Emily’s place in this latter category and in the widely circulated story that she was the only member of that group. Years later fellow student Clara Newman Turner remembered the moment when Mary Lyon “asked all those who wanted to be Christians to rise.” Emily remained seated. No one else did. Turner reports Emily’s comment to her: “‘They thought it queer I didn’t rise’—adding with a twinkle in her eye, ‘I thought a lie would be queerer.’“ Written in 1894, shortly after the publication of the first two volumes of Dickinson’s poetry and the initial publication of her letters, Turner’s reminiscences carry the burden of the 50 intervening years as well as the reviewers and readers’ delight in the apparent strangeness of the newly published Dickinson. The solitary rebel may well have been the only one sitting at that meeting, but the school records indicate that Dickinson was not alone in the “without hope” category. In fact, 30 students finished the school year with that designation.