I just ran across a poem by Emily Dickinson I had not read before. It features her wry, sly humor as well as that seemingly instinctual generosity of hers.
I had no time to hate, because
The grave would hinder me,
And life was not so ample I
Could finish enmity.
Nor had I time to love; but since
Some industry must be,
The little toil of love, I thought,
Was large enough for me.
Dickinson, ever the "crafty" poet in a couple senses of the word, does not write directly against hatred; she does not appear to hate hatred. Instead, she deftly makes the issue one of practicality and limited time. "Life's too short to take on the enmity-project!" Life also seems too short to engage in love, but since one has to keep busy ("Some industry must be'), one might as well take up the "toil" of love, the poem argues. Dickinson's telling the truth again, but, in her fashion, she's "telling it slant."
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