Our lives are Swiss, —
So still, so cool,
Till, some odd afternoon,
The Alps neglect their curtains,
And we look farther on.
Italy stands the other side,
While, like a guard between,
The solemn Alps,
The siren Alps,
Forever intervene!
Emily Dickinson was born in Amherst, Massachusetts on December 10, 1830 and spent most of her life there. She was the daughter of a prominent family; her grandfather was one of the founders of Amherst College. Emily was an incredibly well educated woman for her time who read contemporary literature. She was greatly inspired by the Brontë sisters, Shakespeare, and Ralph Waldo Emerson, and supported by Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Samuel Bowles, and her sister-in-law Susan Gilbert. The themes Emily most discusses in her poetry is death and immortality. Emily died on May 15, 1886.
Read her full biography here.
Emily Dickinson wrote almost 1,800 poems in her lifetime. Only seven were published while she was alive. Her poems were published in three volumes.
Read the list of poems by Emily Dickinson here.