Wild Nights

[Squirls]

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 moor – Tonight –
In thee!


Now what can I say about this poem. Well I could begin with a Kenneth Williams style "ooohh maatron"

Apart from the poetry I studied at school I have no formal education in poetry and therefore feel unqualified to say whether it has poetic merit. I love the poem because of the way it conveys both a sense of wild erotic excitement along with a sense of safety and security of being moored with her lover.

However, the first couple of lines I can imagine being recitied by Edmund Blackadder in a ruse to seduce some wealthy innocent damsel in Mrs Miggins pie shoppe ".... wild nights should be our lux-ur-eee"

[Claire]

Thanks for posting this, Squirls. I love a handful of Emily Dickinson poems, but I hadn't come across this one as yet.

I love the poem because of the way it conveys both a sense of wild erotic excitement along with a sense of safety and security of being moored with her lover.


Yes - that's it exactly. I've read poems that express one or the other of those - but the combination of the two is powerful. Lovely.