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The soul selects her own society, Then shuts [the door; On her divine majority Obtrude]2 no more. Unmoved, she notes the [chariot's]2 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.
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View text without footnotes1 Getty: "the door,/ To her divine majority/ Present"
2 Getty: "chariots"
Text Authorship:
- by Emily Dickinson (1830 - 1886), no title, appears in Poems of Emily Dickinson, first published 1890 [author's text checked 1 time against a primary source]
Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):
- by Robert F. Baksa (b. 1938), "The soul selects her own society", published 1977 [ voice, piano ], from Emily Dickinson Songs, no. 5 [sung text not yet checked]
- by Gordon Getty (b. 1933), "The soul selects her own society" [ soprano and piano ], from The White Election - A Song Cycle for soprano and piano on 32 poems of Emily Dickinson, Part 2 : So We Must Meet Apart, no. 11 [sung text checked 1 time]
- by Alistair Hinton (b. 1950), "Exclusion", op. 40 no. 4 [ high soprano and piano ], from Six Songs for high soprano and piano, no. 4 [sung text not yet checked]
- by Jitka Koželuhová (b. 1966), "The soul", 1991-92, copyright © 1997 [ soprano and piano ], from Six Songs on Poems of Emily Dickinson, no. 4 [sung text not yet checked]
- by Mari Ésabel Valverde (b. 1987), "The Soul Selects Her Own Society", published 2011 [ low voice and piano ] [sung text not yet checked]
Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):
- GER German (Deutsch) (Bertram Kottmann) , no title, copyright © 2018, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]
This text was added to the website between May 1995 and September 2003.
Line count: 12
Word count: 55
Die Seele sucht sich den aus, den sie will, schließt dann das Tor, lässt niemand mehr zum Kreise der Erlauchten vor. Sieht ungerührt, wie Kutschen halten vor ihrer Tür, sieht kühl zu, wie auf ihrer Matte ein Kaiser kniet. Ich weiß, sie wählt - aus vielen - einen allein, schließt dann die Wahrnehmungsventile - wie Stein.
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Text Authorship:
- Translation from English to German (Deutsch) copyright © 2018 by Bertram Kottmann, (re)printed on this website with kind permission. To reprint and distribute this author's work for concert programs, CD booklets, etc., you must ask the copyright-holder(s) directly for permission. If you receive no response, you must consider it a refusal.
Bertram Kottmann. Contact: BKottmann (AT) t-online.de
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Based on:
- a text in English by Emily Dickinson (1830 - 1886), no title, appears in Poems of Emily Dickinson, first published 1890
This text was added to the website: 2018-06-22
Line count: 12
Word count: 53