Yellow Rose From Amherst

A couple months ago, I heard an engaging NPR interview with Billy Collins, former US Poet Laureate, about Emily Dickinson's Poetry. He had very interesting things to say and read a couple of his favorite poems. All I could remember of Dickinson from high school was "Because I could not stop for Death...." and "I heard a Fly buzz - when I died..." so I got The Essential Emily Dickinson, edited and with a very interesting introduction by Joyce Carol Oates. Although some were quite challenging for me, I really enjoyed many of the poems. Here's one:

690

Victory comes late -
And is held low to freezing lips -
Too rapt with frost
To take it -
How sweet it would have tasted -
Just a Drop -
Was God so economical?
His Table's spread too high for Us -
Unless We dine on tiptoe -
Crumbs - fit such little mouths -
Cherries - suit Robins -
The Eagle's Golden Breakfast strangles - Them -
God keep his Oath to Sparrows -
Who of little Love - know how to starve -

Collins related something apparently well-known to those who are more familiar with Dicksinon, but I think that to enjoy her poetry, it's best to forget: "Emily Dickinson seems rather tame because she pretty much uses the same meter every time. It's called 'common meter.' It's a line of four beats that's followed by a line of three beats. So a typical one would be: 'Because I could not stop for Death / He kindly stopped for me.' And there's actually a kind of pause at the end of the first line, a kind of fifth beat. This is the meter of a lot of ballads. It's the meter of Protestant hymns. It's the rhythm of many nursery rhymes. So you have a very conventional cadence in most of these poems. It's widely known that almost every one of her poems can be sung whether you like it or not to the tune of 'A Yellow Rose From Texas.' "