Ririro.com - Poetry

"Absent Place—an April Day" is a brief Emily Dickinson poem that sets blooming daffodils against the ache of those who cannot see them. In just two stanzas, spring's bright arrival stirs a homesick curiosity in souls still buried under snow. The poem is quiet but sharp, weighing the delight of April against the deeper drifts that can pile up inside a person. Its compressed images ask what it means...

"A darting fear—a pomp—a tear" is a four-line poem that compresses a whole emotional arc into a single breath. Fear flickers, ceremony passes, a tear falls, and then comes a quiet morning waking. The speaker rises to find that the thing they waited and hoped for has taken in a different dawn. Dickinson leaves the loss and the longing unnamed, so each reader supplies their own. It rewards a slow se...

"A Day! Help! Help! Another Day!" is a short poem that turns an ordinary morning into a battlefield. The speaker cries out for help, then asks a passer-by for prayers, sensing that a plain day, like a common ball, might hold the seed of a victory. The mood tightens line by line, from urgent plea to steadying self-command. In the closing lines the speaker braces her own soul, aware that great conse...

"A Death blow is a Life blow to Some" is a short poem that turns a familiar idea on its head in just four lines. Emily Dickinson imagines people who never truly came alive until the moment they died, and who might have died inwardly had they gone on living. Death and vitality swap places, leaving a quiet paradox about what it means to live. Read it online and decide what you make of its riddle. Be...

"A Deed knocks first at Thought" is a short poem that traces how an action takes shape inside the mind. Emily Dickinson pictures a deed knocking at the door of thought, then at the door of will, which she calls the "manufacturing spot." From there the deed either steps out as an act or lies entombed in silence, where only God can hear its doom. It is a compact, quietly unsettling look at intention...

"A Dew sufficed itself—" is a short poem by Emily Dickinson that follows a single dewdrop on a leaf at dawn. Content and quietly proud, the Dew feels the vastness of its destiny and the triviality of life all at once. Then the Sun goes to work and the Day goes out to play, and the drop vanishes without a trace. Dickinson treats this tiny disappearance with mock-solemn gravity, leaving readers to w...

A Diamond on the Hand is a compact Emily Dickinson poem that turns a familiar jewel into a quiet study of desire. Once a gem sits on a hand, custom dulls its wonder, yet in a seller's shrine it still stirs longing in those who gaze and sigh. Dickinson sets possession against yearning, and sketches the restless fear that someone else might buy what the watcher cannot. In just a few lines, it asks w...

"A Dimple in the Tomb" is a poem by Emily Dickinson that fits an entire meditation on death into just nine words. A single small, tender mark, a dimple, enters a cold and ferocious space and changes what it means. The poem sets the harshness of the grave against the warmth of belonging, leaving readers to wonder who that dimple belonged to and how such a small detail can turn fear into something c...

"A Door just opened on a street" is a short Emily Dickinson poem about a lost passerby who glimpses warmth, wealth and company for a single instant. A door swings open, a room full of light and belonging is revealed, and then it closes again. The speaker is left on the cold street, and the brief contrast makes her loneliness sharper. In just two stanzas, the poem turns a fleeting moment into an ac...

"A Doubt If It Be Us" is a poem by Emily Dickinson that follows the mind in the first shock of anguish. In just eight lines, a staggering speaker finds that doubt and unreality act as a "merciful Mirage," a fragile bridge across unbearable pain. The tension lies in the strange mercy of disbelief, which makes living possible while it suspends the lives it protects. Dickinson's compressed imagery re...

"Adrift! A little boat adrift!" is a short poem that follows a small vessel lost on the water as night falls. Emily Dickinson sets a cry for guidance against the words of sailors and angels, each telling a different version of what happened to the boat. Dusk brings struggle and despair, while dawn brings a surprising turn. In just three stanzas, the poem asks how much a battered little boat can en...

"A Drunkard cannot meet a Cork" is a short poem that turns a simple January fly into a spark of intoxicating memory. A speaker is sent reeling by Jamaicas of remembrance, while the moderate drinker of delight misses the true spring. With playful wit and vivid imagery, the poem sets the jug against the joy and leaves the bumble bee as the true connoisseur's guide. Read it online and savor its tipsy...

"Advance is Life's condition" is a short poem by Emily Dickinson that treats death as a relay rather than a final stop. In two compact stanzas, the speaker argues that the grave only seems hateful because we mistake it for a terminus. The unlit tunnel, a life hemmed in by walls, still beats not existing at all. The poem sets a stark image of darkness against stubborn forward movement and asks what...

"A Dying Tiger—moaned for Drink" is a short poem in which a speaker crosses the desert sand to find water for a dying tiger. The speaker catches a few drops from a rock and carries them back in one hand, racing against time. The mood is tense and sorrowful, and the final stanza turns to blame and guilt. Dickinson asks whether a rescue that comes too late can be anyone's fault, or whether the plain...

"A face devoid of love or grace" is a six-line poem in which Emily Dickinson sketches a portrait in stark, chilling strokes. The speaker studies a hateful, hard, successful face, one so cold that even a stone would feel at home beside it, like old acquaintances meeting for the first time. Brief and sharp, the poem sets surface triumph against inner emptiness and leaves you weighing what success co...

"A faded Boy—in sallow Clothes" is a short poem by Emily Dickinson that follows a pale, threadbare cowherd driving his lonesome cow toward the pastures of Oblivion. In just two stanzas, the boy is revealed as a statesman's embryo, a future that never arrives. The poem turns wistful as whistling boys and grateful cows vanish into a ballad's barn, leaving only a faint memory of clover and a lingerin...

A Feather from the Whippoorwill is a compact poem that turns a single bird's song into a riddle of sunrise galleries and spring operas. Emily Dickinson piles up gleaming images: an emerald nest spun by the Ages from mellow, murmuring thread, and a beryl egg that schoolboys hunt during recess, high overhead. The speaker never names the singer outright, so the reader is invited to guess, wonder, and...

"A Field of Stubble, lying sere" is a short poem that pictures a harvested New England field under a second sun, its crop already gathered and its stubble left bare. Emily Dickinson sets the labor of the farm hands beside the quiet fate of their triumphs, then lets a timid, hesitant bird approach the field for scraps. Spare and image-driven, the poem rewards slow reading and leaves you thinking ab...

"A first Mute Coming" is a compact Emily Dickinson poem that moves between silence and celebration. A stranger's house receives a quiet arrival, a fair departure follows, and bells ring out in the distance. Then comes a mysterious exchange of what has mingled, offered to faith alone. In only a few lines, the poem leaves a hush of wonder and open questions about what passes between two worlds. Beco...

"A Flower will not trouble her, it has so small a Foot" is a poem by Emily Dickinson that fits a whole world into four short lines. It looks at a delicate bloom and a tiny boot, and asks the reader to measure one against the other. The mood is playful and tender, with a quiet wink in its comparison. Who is the "her" at the centre of the verse? Read it slowly and the answer may surprise you. Become...

"After a hundred years" is a short poem about a place where agony once played out and is now forgotten. Emily Dickinson pictures a still, overgrown spot where weeds have taken over and strangers wander past, spelling out the worn names on old gravestones. Then the summer wind arrives, and instinct reaches for a key that memory has dropped. The poem is quiet and haunting, and it asks how long pain...

In "After all Birds have been investigated and laid aside," Emily Dickinson turns to the little bluebird as nature's most faithful voice. This short poem follows the bird's song as it rises above life's changes, arrives first in March to challenge the wind, and stays on after summer has slipped away. Its panting note comforts like a friend, and the closing image of loyalty lingers well after the f...

"After great pain, a formal feeling comes" is a short poem that captures the strange stillness after devastating loss. Nerves sit like tombs, the stiff heart struggles to tell whether the wound is from yesterday or centuries ago, and the feet move mechanically over ground that no longer feels real. Dickinson builds a chilling, quiet mood through the image of a freezing person slipping from chill t...

"After the Sun Comes Out" is a short Emily Dickinson poem that captures the moment morning rewrites the world. Wagons hurry about like messengers, and yesterday suddenly feels old. People meet one another as if each carried fresh news, bright as a cargo arriving from a distant port. In just a few lines, the poem turns sunrise into a quiet marvel of renewal, movement and anticipation, asking reader...

"A full fed Rose on meals of Tint" is a poem in which a rose, nourished on color and sunlight, becomes a dinner for a passing bee. In just a few lines, Emily Dickinson turns a small garden moment into a quiet meditation on fleeting beauty. The rose is adored, then surrendered, and the poem lingers on the cost of being admired. Delicate and unsettling, it asks what a bloom gives up for others' sake...