I've recently been reading Dickinson's poems. I confess some of them are simply mystifying, though 'simply' may be the wrong adjective / adverb.
Some are like rock climbing where you look for a foothold or two and maybe a crack where you can get a finger hold.
Some are artful riddles, or teasing enigmas, and some seem like those questions on Pointless where you have to guess the missing alternative letters to make the meaning, or when the word has the vowels removed, and the consonants are in reverse order.
Then occasionally, one of those short poems you haven't read before, distils an entire argument into four lines of luminous common sense and wisdom worthy of an entry in The Book of Proverbs – like this one on truth:
Opinion is a flitting thing,
But Truth outlasts the Sun –
If then we cannot own them both –
Possess the oldest one-
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