"It's past set down before the soul, / And lighted with a match, / Perusal to facilitate / Of its condensed despatch."
— Dickinson, Emily (1830-1886)
Author
Work Title
Place of Publication
Boston
Publisher
Robert Brothers
Date
1892
Metaphor
"It's past set down before the soul, / And lighted with a match, / Perusal to facilitate / Of its condensed despatch."
Metaphor in Context
[XLIII. REMORSE.]
Remorse is memory awake,
Her companies astir,--
A presence of departed acts
At window and at door.
It's past set down before the soul,
And lighted with a match,
Perusal to facilitate
Of its condensed despatch.
Remorse is cureless,--the disease
Not even God can heal;
For 't is his institution,--
The complement of hell.
(p. 68)
Remorse is memory awake,
Her companies astir,--
A presence of departed acts
At window and at door.
It's past set down before the soul,
And lighted with a match,
Perusal to facilitate
Of its condensed despatch.
Remorse is cureless,--the disease
Not even God can heal;
For 't is his institution,--
The complement of hell.
(p. 68)
Categories
Citation
Dickinson, Emily. Poems by Emily Dickinson: Second Series Ed. Mabel Loomis Todd and T. W. Higginson (Robert Brothers: Boston, 1892). <Link to UVA e-Text Center><Link to Google Books>
Date of Entry
12/31/2010
