Address: 
280 Main St.
Amherst, MA 01002
(directions)

Hours:
MARCH
W, Sat 1-5 p.m.

MARCH 30 – MAY
W - Sat 1-5 p.m.

JUNE – AUG
W -  Sat 10 a.m.-5 p.m.
Sun 1-5 p.m.

SEPT – OCT
W -  Sat 1-5 p.m.

NOV – DEC 8
W - Sat 1-5 p.m.

Cost:
$8 Adult
$7 Senior / College Student
$6 High School Students 
$5 Children ages 6-12

Contact:
(413)542-8161

On the Web:
emilydickinsonmuseum.org

Additional Links:
bartleby.com
online-literature.com
cwru.edu
poets.org

Photos:

home

I've always loved going to an old home, like Monticello and Mount Vernon where famous people I've read about have lived. I feel like some part of them may rub off onto me, that I will be struck by the inspiration that made them great when I stand among their belongings and see the things they saw when they were alive.

I had the same experience when I visited the house of Amherst resident and poet, Emily Dickinson. I stood in the same room in which Dickinson wrote her poems. I've never been much of a fan of poetry, but even I was moved when I realized that the tiny room, sparsely furnished, was the place where Dickinson had written about the world from which she had locked herself away. How, I wondered, could someone who rarely left her little home make such astute observations about the world around her? I suddenly gained an appreciation of Dickinson’s poems, such as this one:

     The soul selects her own society, 
     Then shuts the door; 
     On her divine majority 
     Obtrude no more. 

     Unmoved, she notes the chariot’s pausing 
     At her low gate; 
     Unmoved, an emperor is kneeling 
     Upon her mat. 

     I ’ve known her from an ample nation 
     Choose one; 
     Then close the valves of her attention 
     Like stone. 

Emily Dickinson was born in 1830, in a house called the Homestead, to a Calvinist family. Dickinson’s lawyer/congressman father believed in the importance of education. Therefore, Dickinson attended Amherst Academy and Mount Holyoke Female Seminary. When she was in her early 20s, Dickinson began writing her poetry, and also started her life of solitude, rarely leaving her house, or even her room. Dickinson began to dress in white and refuse most contact even with friends.  Her life during this time remains a mystery. During Dickinson’s lifetime, only seven of her poems were published. After her death, however, her sister published the rest of her works, which soon became very popular. Now, those interested in Dickinson, come to the Emily Dickinson Museum to tour her house and learn about her life. 

The next house on the tour was The Evergreens, where Dickinson’s brother, Austin and his family, lived. After Austin and his wife’s deaths, their daughter lived in and preserved the house until her death in 1943. The next owners of the house recognized its historical significance and continued to preserve it. The furniture, décor and household items are all originals, the same ones used when Emily Dickinson was alive. This house also has a locked nursery that has been unopened since  Dickinson’s nephew, died there of typhoid at the age of eight. I peered through the keyhole into a room full of toys. I could imagine the child 

The tour guides, knowledgeable in everything Emily Dickinson, also had stories about her that you won’t find in your literature books. For example, did you know that Dickinson,  used to lower a basket of cookies and sweets to the children who would wait below her window? Or that Dickinson used to have people over to play music while she wrote, even though she refused to leave her room to greet them? It reminded me of yet another poem that Dickinson wrote:

     I’m nobody! Who are you? 
     Are you nobody, too? 
     Then there ’s a pair of us—don’t tell! 
     They ’d banish us, you know. 

     How dreary to be somebody! 
     How public, like a frog 
     To tell your name the livelong day 
     To an admiring bog! 

Although I visited the Emily Dickinson Museum in the early spring, I could see that the famous gardens, which had been laid out by Emily, her mother and her sister, would be beautiful when the flowers bloomed, since work was being done by groundskeepers to restore the gardens to how they looked when the Dickinson women planted them.  Dickinson’s many poems about nature and gardens sprang to mind as I looked at the layout that she had helped plan.

     "Whose are the little beds," I asked, 
     "Which in the valleys lie?" 
     Some shook their heads, and others smiled, 
     And no one made reply. 

     "Perhaps they did not hear," I said; 
     "I will inquire again. 
     Whose are the beds, the tiny beds 
     So thick upon the plain?" 

     "’T is daisy in the shortest; 
     A little farther on, 
     Nearest the door to wake the first, 
     Little leontodon. 
     "’T is iris, sir, and aster, 
     Anemone and bell, 
     Batschia in the blanket red, 
     And chubby daffodil." 

     Meanwhile at many cradles 
     Her busy foot she plied, 
     Humming the quaintest lullaby 
     That ever rocked a child. 

     "Hush! Epigea wakens! 
     The crocus stirs her lids, 
     Rhodora’s cheek is crimson,— 
     She’s dreaming of the woods." 

     Then, turning from them, reverent, 
     "Their bed-time ’t is," she said; 
     "The bumble-bees will wake them 
     When April woods are red."