'Twas like a Maelstrom, with a notch
Emily Dickinson 1830 (Amherst) – 1886 (Amherst)
'Twas like a Maelstrom, with a notch,
That nearer, every Day,
Kept narrowing its boiling Wheel
Until the Agony
Toyed coolly with the final inch
Of your delirious Hem—
And you dropt, lost,
When something broke—
And let you from a Dream—
As if a Goblin with a Gauge—
Kept measuring the Hours—
Until you felt your Second
Weigh, helpless, in his Paws—
And not a Sinew—stirred—could help,
And sense was setting numb—
When God—remembered—and the Fiend
Let go, then, Overcome—
As if your Sentence stood—pronounced—
And you were frozen led
From Dungeon's luxury of Doubt
To Gibbets, and the Dead—
And when the Film had stitched your eyes
A Creature gasped "Reprieve"!
Which Anguish was the utterest—then—
To perish, or to live?
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on May 03, 2023
- 37 sec read
- 160 Views
Quick analysis:
Scheme | XXXX XXXXX XXXX XAXA XBXB XXXX |
---|---|
Closest metre | Iambic trimeter |
Characters | 737 |
Words | 125 |
Stanzas | 6 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 5, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
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"'Twas like a Maelstrom, with a notch" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 29 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/12377/'twas-like-a-maelstrom,-with-a-notch>.
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