Blanche Taylor Dickinson

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Poem

Ah, I know what happiness is...! It is a timid little fawn Creeping softly up to me For one caress, then gone Before I’m through with it ... Away, like dark from dawn! Well I know what happiness is...! It is the break of day that wears A shining dew decked diadem ... An aftermath of tears. Fawn and dawn, emblems of joy ... I’ve played with them for years, And always they will slip away Into the brush of another day.

Blanche Taylor Dickinson

To an Icicle

Chilled into a serenity As rigid as your pose You linger trustingly, But a gutter waits for you. Your elegance does not secure You favors with the sun. He is not one to pity fragileness. He thinks all cheeks should burn And feel how tears can run.

Four Walls

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Four Walls

Four great walls have hemmed me in. Four strong, high walls: Right and wrong, Shall and shan’t. The mighty pillars tremble when My conscience palls And sings its song-- I can, I can’t.

If for a moment Samson’s strength Were given me I’d shove Them away from where I stand; Free, I know I’d love To ramble soul and all, And never dread to strike a wall.

Again, I wonder would that be Such a happy state for me ... The going, being, doing, sham-- And never knowing where I am. I might not love freedom at all; My tired wings might crave a wall-- Four walls to rise and pen me in This conscious world with guarded men.

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