Emily!

The nice thing about a snow day is that you're playing with house money, or free time, if you don't understand the gambling metaphor.  This poem comes courtesy of the The Writer's Almanac (the website), and Emily Dickinson (the author). Spend your free time "taking your time" to read it out loud, maybe look up a few words, then re-read it slowly and carefully so that the final two lines "stun" you with "Bolts of Melody."

I would not paint—a picture—

I'd rather be the One

Its bright impossibility

To dwell—delicious—on—

And wonder how the fingers feel

Whose rare—celestial—stir—

Evokes so sweet a Torment—

Such sumptuous—Despair—

I would not talk, like Cornets—

I'd rather be the One

Raised softly to the Ceilings—

And out, and easy on—

Through Villages of Ether—

Myself endued Balloon

By but a lip of Metal—

The pier to my Pontoon—

Nor would I be a Poet—

It's finer—Own the Ear—

Enamored—impotent—content—

The License to revere,

A privilege so awful

What would the Dower be,

Had I the Art to stun myself

With Bolts of Melody!