The two dominant American poets of the 19th Century are Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson: Whitman with his sprawling free verse and his continental and cosmic extensions of consciousness, Dickinson largely housebound, eventually, famously, even a sort of recluse. But there is such courage and precision in her penetration of the significances of life. Her poems, rhyming and typically in rhythms borrowed from the Northfield Hymnal, continue to awaken us. It will be a joy to delve into and out of her work.