"Have you got a brook in your little heart, / Where bashful flowers blow, / And blushing birds go down to drink, / And shadows tremble so?"

— Dickinson, Emily (1830-1886)


Place of Publication
Boston
Publisher
Robert Brothers
Date
1890
Metaphor
"Have you got a brook in your little heart, / Where bashful flowers blow, / And blushing birds go down to drink, / And shadows tremble so?"
Metaphor in Context
[IX. Have you got a brook in your little  heart]

Have you got a brook in your little heart,
Where bashful flowers blow,
And blushing birds go down to drink,
And shadows tremble so?


And nobody knows, so still it flows,
That any brook is there;
And yet your little draught of life
Is daily drunken there.

Then look out for the little brook in March,
When the rivers overflow,
And the snows come hurrying from the hills,
And the bridges often go.

And later, in August it may be,
When the meadows parching lie,
Beware, lest this little brook of life
Some burning noon go dry!
(p. 52)
Categories
Provenance
Reading
Citation
Dickinson, Emily. Poems by Emily Dickinson Ed. Mael Loomis Todd and T. W. Higginson (Robert Brothers: Boston, 1890). <Link to UVa e-Text Center><Link to Google Books>
Date of Entry
12/30/2010

The Mind is a Metaphor is authored by Brad Pasanek, Assistant Professor of English, University of Virginia.