1. A word is dead - written by Emily Dickinson
From Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson. Published in 1955. Read 5685 times on American Poems.

A word is dead
When it is said,
Some say.

I say it just
Begins to live
That day.(Read full poem)

“When he was here alive, Eileen, 
There was a word you might have said; 
So never mind what I have been, 
Or anything,—for you are dead. 

“And after this when I am there
Where he is, you’ll be dying still. 
Your eyes are dead, and your black... (Read full poem)

3. Escape is such a thankful Word - written by Emily Dickinson
From Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson. Published in 1955. Read 2995 times on American Poems.

Escape is such a thankful Word
I often in the Night
Consider it unto myself
No spectacle in sight

Escape -- it is the Basket
In which the Heart is caught
When down some awful Battlement
The rest of Life is dropt --

'Tis not to sight the savior... (Read full poem)

A little overflowing word
That any, hearing, had inferred
For Ardor or for Tears,
Though Generations pass away,
Traditions ripen and decay,
As eloquent appears --(Read full poem)

5. A Word made Flesh is seldom - written by Emily Dickinson
From Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson. Published in 1955. Read 2080 times on American Poems.

A Word made Flesh is seldom
And tremblingly partook
Nor then perhaps reported
But have I not mistook
Each one of us has tasted
With ecstasies of stealth
The very food debated
To our specific strength --

A Word that breathes distinctly
Has not the... (Read full poem)

I never hear the word "escape"
Without a quicker blood,
A sudden expectation
A flying attitude!

I never hear of prisons broad
By soldiers battered down,
But I tug childish at my bars
Only to fail again!(Read full poem)

7. To a Dead Man - written by Carl Sandburg
From Chicago Poems. Read 2975 times on American Poems.

Over the dead line we have called to you
To come across with a word to us,
Some beaten whisper of what happens
Where you are over the dead line
Deaf to our calls and voiceless.

The flickering shadows have not answered
Nor your lips sent a... (Read full poem)

Immortal is an ample word
When what we need is by
But when it leaves us for a time
'Tis a necessity.

Of Heaven above the firmest proof
We fundamental know
Except for its marauding Hand
It had been Heaven below.(Read full poem)

9. Golden Silence - written by Ellis Parker Butler
From Munsey’s Magazine. Published in 1897. Read 326 times on American Poems.

I told her I loved her and begged but a word,
One dear little word, that would be
For me by all odds the most sweet ever heard,
But never a word said she!

I raged at her then, and I said she was cold;
I swore she was nothing to me;
I prayed... (Read full poem)

A Word dropped careless on a Page
May stimulate an eye
When folded in perpetual seam
The Wrinkled Maker lie

Infection in the sentence breeds
We may inhale Despair
At distances of Centuries
From the Malaria --(Read full poem)

11. Shall I take thee, the Poet said - written by Emily Dickinson
From Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson. Published in 1955. Read 1424 times on American Poems.

Shall I take thee, the Poet said
To the propounded word?
Be stationed with the Candidates
Till I have finer tried --

The Poet searched Philology
And when about to ring
For the suspended Candidate
There came unsummoned in --

That portion of the... (Read full poem)

"Secrets" is a daily word
Yet does not exist --
Muffled -- it remits surmise --
Murmured -- it has ceased --
Dungeoned in the Human Breast
Doubtless secrets lie --
But that Grate inviolate --
Goes nor comes away
Nothing with a Tongue or Ear... (Read full poem)

13. There is a word - written by Emily Dickinson
From Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson. Published in 1955. Read 28334 times on American Poems.

There is a word
Which bears a sword
Can pierce an armed man --
It hurls its barbed syllables
And is mute again --
But where it fell
The saved will tell
On patriotic day,
Some epauletted Brother
Gave his breath away.

Wherever runs the breathless sun... (Read full poem)

At the last minute a word is waiting
not heard that way before and not to be
repeated or ever be remembered
one that always had been a household word
used in speaking of the ordinary
everyday recurrences of living
not newly chosen or long... (Read full poem)

15. The distance that the dead have gone - written by Emily Dickinson
From Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson. Published in 1955. Read 1883 times on American Poems.

The distance that the dead have gone
Does not at first appear --
Their coming back seems possible
For many an ardent year.

And then, that we have followed them,
We more than half suspect,
So intimate have we become
With their dear retrospect.(Read full poem)

Is it dead -- Find it --
Out of sound -- Out of sight --
"Happy"?  Which is wiser --
You, or the Wind?
"Conscious"?  Won't you ask that --
Of the low Ground?

"Homesick"?  Many met it --
Even through them -- This
Cannot testify --
Themself -- as... (Read full poem)

17. As by the dead we love to sit, - written by Emily Dickinson
From Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson. Published in 1955. Read 4221 times on American Poems.

As by the dead we love to sit,
Become so wondrous dear --
As for the lost we grapple
Tho' all the rest are here --

In broken mathematics
We estimate our prize
Vast -- in its fading ration
To our penurious eyes!(Read full poem)

What care the Dead, for Chanticleer --
What care the Dead for Day?
'Tis late your Sunrise vex their face --
And Purple Ribaldry -- of Morning

Pour as blank on them
As on the Tier of Wall
The Mason builded, yesterday,
And equally as cool --

What... (Read full poem)

19. Praise it -- 'tis dead -- - written by Emily Dickinson
From Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson. Published in 1955. Read 1272 times on American Poems.

Praise it -- 'tis dead --
It cannot glow --
Warm this inclement Ear
With the encomium it earned
Since it was gathered here --
Invest this alabaster Zest
In the Delights of Dust --
Remitted -- since it flitted it
In recusance august.(Read full poem)

I never hear that one is dead
Without the chance of Life
Afresh annihilating me
That mightiest Belief,

Too mighty for the Daily mind
That tilling its abyss,
Had Madness, had it once or twice
The yawning Consciousness,

Beliefs are Bandaged, like... (Read full poem)

21. Reconciliation. - written by Walt Whitman
From Leaves of Grass. Published in 1900. Read 4869 times on American Poems.

WORD over all, beautiful as the sky! 
Beautiful that war, and all its deeds of carnage, must in time be utterly lost; 
That the hands of the sisters Death and Night, incessantly softly wash again, and ever
    again,
	this
	soil’d world: 
...... (Read full poem)

The Birds reported from the South --
A News express to Me --
A spicy Charge, My little Posts --
But I am deaf -- Today --

The Flowers -- appealed -- a timid Throng --
I reinforced the Door --
Go blossom for the Bees -- I said --
And trouble Me --... (Read full poem)

23. If it had no pencil - written by Emily Dickinson
From Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson. Published in 1955. Read 2486 times on American Poems.

If it had no pencil
Would it try mine --
Worn -- now -- and dull -- sweet,
Writing much to thee.
If it had no word,
Would it make the Daisy,
Most as big as I was,
When it plucked me?(Read full poem)

If I could tell how glad I was
I should not be so glad --
But when I cannot make the Force,
Nor mould it into Word,
I know it is a sign
That new Dilemna be
From mathematics further off
Than for Eternity.(Read full poem)

25. Love can do all but raise the Dead - written by Emily Dickinson
From Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson. Published in 1955. Read 3520 times on American Poems.

Love can do all but raise the Dead
I doubt if even that
From such a giant were withheld
Were flesh equivalent

But love is tired and must sleep,
And hungry and must graze
And so abets the shining Fleet
Till it is out of gaze.(Read full poem)