Home > Feminism > Dickinson, Emily - Emily Dickinson (Poem Date 1862?)

1. Printable Version
2. Download PDF
3. Cite this Page

EMILY DICKINSON (POEM DATE 1862?)

SOURCE: Dickinson, Emily. "652." In The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson, edited by Thomas H. Johnson, pp. 324-25. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1960.

Literary scholars have speculated that the following poem by Dickinson was written circa 1862.

652

A Prison gets to be a friend—
Between its Ponderous face
And Ours—a Kinsmanship express—
And in its narrow Eyes—

We come to look with gratitude
For the appointed Beam
It deal us—stated as our food—
And hungered for—the same—

We learn to know the Planks—
That answer to Our feet—
So miserable a sound—at first—
Nor ever now—so sweet—

As plashing in the Pools—
When Memory was a Boy—
But a Demurer Circuit—
A Geometric Joy—

The Posture of the Key
That interrupt...

Join eNotes

The above is a free excerpt. Get total access to this content with the:

eNotes Pass

1. Introduction
2. Principal Works
3. Primary Sources
   1. Emily Dickinson (Poem Date 1861?)
   2. Emily Dickinson (Poem Date 1862?)
   3. Emily Dickinson (Poem Date 1862?)
   4. Emily Dickinson (Poem Date 1863?)
4. General Commentary
   1. Adrienne Rich (Essay Date 1976)
5. Title Commentary
   1. "A solemn thing—it was—I said" (Poem 271)
   2. "I dwell in Possibility—" (Poem 657)
   3. "Because I could not stop for Death—" (Poem 712)
6. Further Reading
7. Copyright

1. Emily Dickinson
2. Feminism