A wounded deer leaps highest,
I ’ve heard the hunter tell;
’T is but the ecstasy of death,
And then the brake is still.
The smitten rock that gushes,
The trampled steel that springs:
A cheek is always redder
Just where the hectic stings!
Mirth is the mail of anguish,
In which it caution arm,
Lest anybody spy the blood
And “You ’re hurt” exclaim!
Emily is said to have carried a pencil and scraps of paper in her pocket in order to always be prepared when a poem came her way.
~ “Tell all the Truth but tell it slant.” ~
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Image of Emily Dickinson – from the daguerreotype taken circa 1848. (my frame)
Poem – Emily Dickinson. Complete Poems. 1924.