英语听力文摘 English Digest 127、艾米丽迪金森（在线收听）

　　Emily Dickinson was born in 1830 and lived all of her 56 years in Amherst, Massachusetts where, during her lifetime, she was celebrated more as a gardener than a poet. Gardening in mid-Victorian times was thought to be a more appropriate activity for a woman. In her book “The Gardens of Emily Dickinson” ,Judith Farr explains how Emily’s hands-on-horticultural knowledge influenced her writing so profoundly. She frequently referred to herself and loved ones using flower names; flower images and garden themes were used to explore her emotional reality.
　　She described heaven as a “garden we have not seen” and her poems as “blossoms of the brain.” As a gardener, she understood that without the chill of winter, some perennial plants cannot produce new growth. Bleak times in human lives, like winter in a garden, however, may be a prelude to growth and new beginnings. For Emily, winter had a masculine persona and a stony aspect, but she also felt the promise of relief when she wrote these lines about her winter:
　　“Generic as a
　　Quarry
　　And hearty - as
　　A rose -
　　Invited with
　　Asperity
　　But welcome
　　When he goes”