She had no economic need to publish, and the few poems that were published in her lifetime were mangled from the original. So she wrote her cryptic, provocative, heretical poetry for herself and a small audience of friends and relatives. She left behind handwritten pages sewn together, an intimate, almost botanical preservation of her work. Each poem contained multiple meanings knotted up so intricately that they never fully untangle.

Although she’s not a war poet, the years of the Civil War, 1861-65, were by far her most prolific. Maybe poetry was her way of carving a narrow channel for life to flow through the hideous onslaught of bad news. Her quiet life in Amherst was insulated from the war, and yet was soaked with it, with the awful casualty lists, the newspapers and rumor.

She could not stop the machinery of the age, so she retreated from it, turning her attention to home, friendship and love, death and immortality, and nature. One wonders: which aspects of 21st-century life would she find appalling, which improved—and which unchanged? We seem even further removed from uninhabited nature than in her time. And yet, whenever we pause and turn to look for it: there it is. As much a part of us and we of it. Just as much.

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, "Some keep the Sabbath going to Church – (236)"

Special thanks to John Martin for suggesting Emily Dickinson's fascicles.

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Links:

• What is a "fascicle?" - Harvard University

  
  

• Emily Dickinson - The Poetry Foundation

  
  

• Emily Dickinson at Amherst College

  
  

• The Emily Dickinson Collection - Houghton Library, Harvard University

  
  

• The Manuscripts - Emily Dickinson Museum

  
  

This post is part of The American 250, a series featuring 250 objects made by Americans, located in America, in honor of the country's 250th anniversary. 250 words on 250 works, from January 1 to December 31, 2026.

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