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Description
Illustration:

Aurora

Of bronze and blaze
The north, to-night!
So adequate its forms,
So preconcerted with itself,
So distant to alarms,-
An unconcern so sovereign
To universe, or me,
It paints my simple spirit
With tints of majesty,
Till I take vaster attitudes,
And strut upon my stem,
Disdaining men and oxygen,
For arrogance of them.

My splendors are menagerie;
But their completeless show
Will entertain the centuries
When I am, long ago,
An island in dishonored grass,
Whom none but daisies know.

~Emily Dickinson

Watercolor and Acrylic

11"x15"

Part of a series

Interestingly, the version of this poem in my book differs from those I found online. The last verse puzzled me, so I wondered if there was a typo, and in fact there were some differences between the version that was published in 1896 and the presumably unedited version I came across on the internet:

***
My Splendors, are Menagerie—
But their Completeless Show
Will entertain the Centuries
When I, am long ago,
An Island in dishonored Grass—
Whom none but Beetles—know.
***

Of course, the "daisies" in the former version informed my visual interpretation of the piece, and I wonder which form Dickinson would have preferred. "Beetles" is a much darker choice of word, and I think more nuanced. Too late for my painting tho - I painted the version in my book and that's how it's gonna stay.

**EDIT** There is a typo in my book. They wrote "completeness" rather than "completeless", which made no sense. I fixed it above, but it was the reason I went looking for the unedited version online.

Description
Illustration:

Aurora

Of bronze and blaze
The north, to-night!
So adequate its forms,
So preconcerted with itself,
So distant to alarms,-
An unconcern so sovereign
To universe, or me,
It paints my simple spirit
With tints of majesty,
Till I take vaster attitudes,
And strut upon my stem,
Disdaining men and oxygen,
For arrogance of them.

My splendors are menagerie;
But their completeless show
Will entertain the centuries
When I am, long ago,
An island in dishonored grass,
Whom none but daisies know.

~Emily Dickinson

Watercolor and Acrylic

11"x15"

Part of a series

Interestingly, the version of this poem in my book differs from those I found online. The last verse puzzled me, so I wondered if there was a typo, and in fact there were some differences between the version that was published in 1896 and the presumably unedited version I came across on the internet:

***
My Splendors, are Menagerie—
But their Completeless Show
Will entertain the Centuries
When I, am long ago,
An Island in dishonored Grass—
Whom none but Beetles—know.
***

Of course, the "daisies" in the former version informed my visual interpretation of the piece, and I wonder which form Dickinson would have preferred. "Beetles" is a much darker choice of word, and I think more nuanced. Too late for my painting tho - I painted the version in my book and that's how it's gonna stay.

**EDIT** There is a typo in my book. They wrote "completeness" rather than "completeless", which made no sense. I fixed it above, but it was the reason I went looking for the unedited version online.