This week’s poem in the Catholic Poetry Room is by Emily Dickinson.
I Never Saw a Moor
I never saw a moor,
I never saw the sea;
Yet know I how the heather looks,
And what a wave must be.
I never spoke with God,
Nor visited in heaven;
Yet certain am I of the spot
As if the chart were given.
Emily Dickinson (December 10, 1830 – May 15, 1886) is one of America’s greatest and most original poets, who experimented with poetic expression in order to free it from conventional restraints. While only ten of her 1,800 poems were published during her lifetime, when the first volume of her poetry was published in 1890, four years after her death, it met with stunning success. Going through 11 editions in less than two years, the poems eventually extended far beyond their first household audiences. Dickinson is now known as one of the most important American poets, and her poetry is widely read among people of all ages and interests.
