This is my letter to the world -- The soul selects her own society -- Pain has an element of blank -- Hope is the thing with feathers -- I'm nobody! Who are you? -- Letter to T.W. Higginson, 15 April 1862 -- I'll tell you how the sun rose -- I cautious scanned my little life -- If you were coming in the fall -- My river runs to thee -- Letter to T.W. Higginson, 25 April 1862 -- I reason, earth is short -- I never lost as much but twice -- Letter to John L. Graves, late April 1856 -- I died for beauty, but was scarce -- There came a wind like a bugle -- Safe in their alabaster chambers -- I years had been from home -- Love is anterior to life -- Letter to Otis P. Lord, 3 December 1882 -- I cannot live with you -- My life closed twice before its close -- I never saw a moor -- Letter to Dr. and Mrs. J.H. Holland, 1862 -- To fight aloud is very brave -- Because I could not stop for Death -- A toad can die of light -- Letter to Maria Whitney, summer 1883 -- I heard a fly buzz when I died -- I like to see it lap the miles -- Letter to L. and F. Norcross, July 1879 -- Before I got my eye put out -- To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee -- A narrow fellow in grass -- Letter to Sally Jenkins, late December 1880 -- A bird came down the walk -- What soft, cherubic creatures -- I taste a liquor never brewed -- Besides the autumn poets sing -- The heart asks pleasure first -- The sky is low, the clouds are mean -- There's a certain slant of light -- Letter to Susan Gilbert Dickinson, October 1883 -- I felt a funeral in my brain -- Letter to Mrs. J.G. Holland, June 1884 -- After great pain a formal feeling comes -- I dwell in possibility.