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Lyric Poem · Nature

Flowers—Well—if anybody

by Emily Dickinson

Flowers — Well — if anybody

Can the ecstasy define —

Half a transport — half a trouble —

With which flowers humble men:

Anybody find the fountain

From which floods so contra flow —

I will give him all the Daisies

Which upon the hillside blow.

Too much pathos in their faces

For a simple breast like mine —

Butterflies from St. Domingo

Cruising round the purple line —

Have a system of aesthetics —

Far superior to mine.

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Quick facts

Poem
Flowers—Well—if anybody
Poet
Emily Dickinson
Length
14 lines
Form
Lyric Poem
Themes
Nature

Craft notes

How this poem works

Measured from the text on this page, not copied from a summary. Counts are approximate: syllables and rhymes come from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, which models General American English, so dialect, older pronunciation, and performance can all change what you hear.

Shape
14 lines · 2 stanzas of 6–8 lines
Line length
Lines run 7-8 syllables (median 8), consistent with tetrameter. No single length dominates, which is normal once elision and contraction are in play.

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Text, source & rights

A traceable edition

Full-text display is based on the committed source record and a United States term-expiry review.

Author record
Emily Dickinson1830–1886
Source record
PoetryDBFlowers—Well—if anybody by emily-dickinson, PoetryDB transcription
Display decision
Full text · United States · reviewed 2026-07-18
Publication record
Not recorded in the imported source
Text fingerprint
SHA-256 83058eaab493160c
Editorial handling
Whitespace and stanza breaks normalized for web display; no material wording change recorded.
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