Wild nights! Wild nights!
Emily Dickinson
Wild nights! Wild nights! Were I with thee, Wild nights should be Our luxury! Futile the winds To a heart in port,— Done with the compass, Done with the chart. Rowing in Eden! Ah! the sea! Might I but moor To-night in thee!
Of note
John Adams's choral symphony Harmonium, premiered by the San Francisco Symphony in April 1981, ends with this poem. Adams had first planned to set poems from Wallace Stevens's collection Harmonium, but Stevens's lines didn't suit his music; only the title survived.
Poetry Tale: A Virgin Recluse, Apparently
FREE AND OPEN: Hello Doggo’s music, recordings and artwork: CC0 1.0, credit optional. The source poem has its own rights status: Poem is public domain.
TEXT PROVENANCE · First published 1891 in Poems by Emily Dickinson: Second Series · Text from Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series, Complete, a Project Gutenberg compilation of the 1890, 1891, and 1896 series.
Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series, Complete
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