It was not death, for I stood up,

Emily Dickinson 1830 (Amherst) – 1886 (Amherst)



It was not death, for I stood up,
And all the dead lie down;
It was not night, for all the bells
Put out their tongues, for noon.

It was not frost, for on my flesh
I felt siroccos crawl,--
Nor fire, for just my marble feet
Could keep a chancel cool.

And yet it tasted like them all;
The figures I have seen
Set orderly, for burial,
Reminded me of mine,

As if my life were shaven
And fitted to a frame,
And could not breathe without a key;
And 't was like midnight, some,

When everything that ticked has stopped,
And space stares, all around,
Or grisly frosts, first autumn morns,
Repeal the beating ground.

But most like chaos,--stopless, cool,--
Without a chance or spar,--
Or even a report of land
To justify despair.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 14, 2023

42 sec read
132

Quick analysis:

Scheme XXAX XBXC BXXX XXXX XDAD CXXX
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 704
Words 142
Stanzas 6
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4

Emily Dickinson

Emily Elizabeth Dickinson was an American poet. more…

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