By Emily Dickinson
Safe in their Alabaster Chambers –
Untouched by Morning –
and untouched by noon –
Sleep the meek members of the Resurrection,
Rafter of Satin and Roof of Stone –
Grand go the Years,
In the Crescent above them –
Worlds scoop their Arcs –
and Firmaments – row –
Diadems – drop –
And Doges surrender –
Soundless as Dots,
On a Disk of Snow.
Notes:
Note to POL students: The inclusion or omission of the numeral in the title of the poem should not affect the accuracy score. It is optional during recitation.
Dickinson poems are electronically reproduced courtesy of the publishers and the Trustees of Amherst College from The Poems of Emily Dickinson: Variorum Edition, Ralph W. Franklin, ed., Cambridge, Mass: The Belknap Press of Harvard University of Press, Copyright © 1988 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. Copyright © 1951, 1955, 1979, 1983 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College.
Source: The Poems of Emily Dickinson, edited by R.W. Franklin (Harvard University Press, 1999)
Poet Bio
More By This Poet
The Poets light but Lamps — (930)
The Poets light but Lamps —
Themselves — go out —
The Wicks they stimulate
If vital Light
Inhere as do the Suns —
Each Age a Lens
Disseminating their
Circumference —
Much Madness is divinest Sense - (620)
Much Madness is divinest Sense -
To a discerning Eye -
Much Sense - the starkest Madness -
’Tis the Majority
In this, as all, prevail -
Assent - and you are sane -
Demur - you’re straightway dangerous -
And handled with a Chain -
More Poems about Living
Meanwhile
From the Sky
When I die,
bury me in the sky—
no one is fighting over it.
Children are playing soccer
with empty bomb shells
(from the sky I can see them).
A grandmother is baking
her Eid makroota and mamoul
(from the sky I can taste them).
Teens are writing love...