A Prison gets to be a friend

Emily Dickinson 1830 (Amherst) – 1886 (Amherst)



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 the Day
To Our Endeavor—Not so real
The Check of Liberty—

As this Phantasm Steel—
Whose features—Day and Night—
Are present to us—as Our Own—
And as escapeless—quite—

The narrow Round—the Stint—
The slow exchange of Hope—
For something passiver—Content
Too steep for lookinp up—

The Liberty we knew
Avoided—like a Dream—
Too wide for any Night but Heaven—
If That—indeed—redeem—

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 05, 2023

44 sec read
192

Quick analysis:

Scheme XXXX ABAX XCXC XDXD EXFE FGXG XXXX XBXB
Closest metre Iambic trimeter
Characters 891
Words 147
Stanzas 8
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4

Emily Dickinson

Emily Elizabeth Dickinson was an American poet. more…

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