The Heart Asks Pleasure First

The heart asks pleasure first,
And then, excuse from pain;
And then, those little anodynes
That deaden suffering,

And then, to go to sleep;
And then, if it should be
The will of its Inquisitor,
The liberty to die.
-Emily Dickinson

Emily Dickinson is one of my favourite poets, mainly because I seem to relate to most of the things she writes. She is most comfortable in the subjects of death and loneliness, and pain.She write them not with a sense of depression, but with melancholy.Observe... melancholy without depression. Emily Dickinson captures this element with powerful grace and fluidity.She writes about death as if it were the genial old lady next door, in whose presence she could relax and be herself, yet whom she also holds with awe and respect.So she neither embraces suffering, not welcomes it. She is neither distant from it nor too close. She is just....comfortable that its there. During her lifetime, she lived in total physical seclusion from the world, her only contacts were letters and the occasional visitors.Ironically , many of us today are not physically secluded from other people, but we feel the same loneliness.

Currently listening to: Jane Champion's "The Piano" OST (by Michael Nyman)
Favourite song: The Heart Asks pleasure first.

To hear a sample,click this entry's title(purple) and scroll down until you see a list of songs, then click on the song.