Wild Nights

Wild Nights--Wild Nights!
Were I with thee
Wild Nights should be
Our luxury!

Futile--the Winds--
To a Heart in port--
Done with the Compass--
Done with the Chart!

Rowing in Eden--
Ah, the Sea!
Might I but moor--Tonight--
In Thee!

--Emily Dickinson

This is an illuminating piece on one of the most memorable of American poems:

"Dickinson's 'Wild Nights'" by James L. Dean in Explicator

"A third possibility is that 'Thee' refers only to the sea, and it is this latter that I would like briefly to discuss.

"If we take 'Sea' to mean something like 'high seas'... and assume that at sea passionate nature unleashes itself--then we have an interesting paradox to deal with. The speaker desires something at once impossible and possible. Ships do not moor at sea, unless, of course, they are under command of an extravagant adventurer who delights in the paradox of mooring where it is impossible to do so. Such an extravagant statement is typical of Dickinson, as, for example, in the well-known line, 'I taste a liquor never brewed.'"