Poetry Thursday - Of their peculiar light, by Emily Dickinson

Something interesting from instagram

I went to the internet to find the rest of the poem - and was shocked that this is all there is -

Of their peculiar lightI keep one ray
To clarify the Sight
To seek them by—

It needs "more" - not just because any Emily Dickinson poem that I've encountered seems to have consisted of two stanzas. However a little research dispells that illusion - she wrote at many lengths in her 1775 poems, some dozens of lines long - see for yourself here. (This one in number 1362.)

The poem seems to "need more" to clarify "their" and "them" - are these referring to the same thing? It's a puzzling poem ... well, so many of hers are ... but then, shouldn't a poem leave behind something to think about?

Dickinson's punctuation has long puzzled scholars - to the extent that it was ignored for many years. I like the way Jen Bervin has used the punctuation, transposing it to textiles, and wrote about it a few years back.