"Wild nights - Wild nights!" is a three-stanza poem by Emily Dickinson, composed in 1861 and published in 1891 as part of the second posthumous collection of her writing. Dickinson never titled her poems, so they are commonly referred to by their first lines. She also never published any of her poems under her own name in her lifetime. Her entire body of work, close to 1800 poems total, was discovered after her death by her sister Lavinia and subsequently published four years later.
The poem reads as a deep dive into passionate love and physical magnetism. The speaker describes feelings of overwhelming attraction, describing the joy they would feel in the company of their beloved. However, at its core, the poem contains a central contradiction. It depicts the need to find solace in another while offering images of storms and rough seas. The speaker seems to express an interest in both the wildness and the comfort to be found in the love of another person. In fact, given the poem's opening lines, it seems to imply that there is a storminess inherent to love itself.
The poem features a number of Dickinson's stylistic trademarks: frequent use of unusual capitalizations and dashes. In a manner also typical of her other work, it also explores the boundary between the self and other people through the lens of the natural world. The intensity and drama of the poem's symbols reflect the speaker's heightened feelings. The poem is a declaration of affection that highlights a certain kind of romantic tension.
