"After great pain, a formal feeling comes -- / The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs -- / The stiff Heart questions 'was it He, that bore,' / And 'Yesterday, or Centuries before'?"
— Dickinson, Emily (1830-1886)
Author
Date
c. 1862
Metaphor
"After great pain, a formal feeling comes -- / The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs -- / The stiff Heart questions 'was it He, that bore,' / And 'Yesterday, or Centuries before'?"
Metaphor in Context
After great pain, a formal feeling comes --
The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs --
The stiff Heart questions 'was it He, that bore,'
And 'Yesterday, or Centuries before'?
The Feet, mechanical, go round --
A Wooden way
Of Ground, or Air, or Ought --
Regardless grown,
A Quartz contentment, like a stone --
This is the Hour of Lead --
Remembered, if outlived,
As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow --
First -- Chill -- then Stupor -- then the letting go --
The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs --
The stiff Heart questions 'was it He, that bore,'
And 'Yesterday, or Centuries before'?
The Feet, mechanical, go round --
A Wooden way
Of Ground, or Air, or Ought --
Regardless grown,
A Quartz contentment, like a stone --
This is the Hour of Lead --
Remembered, if outlived,
As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow --
First -- Chill -- then Stupor -- then the letting go --
Categories
Provenance
Reading
Citation
See The Poems of Emily Dickinson, Ed. R. W. Franklin (Harvard University Press, 1999). Reprinted by the Poetry Foundation.
Date of Entry
03/03/2019
