Light laughs the breeze In her Castle above them— Babbles the Bee in a stolid Ear Pipe the Sweet Birds in gorant cadence— Ah, what sagacity perished here!
Safe in their Alabaster Chambers— Untouched by Morning And untouched by Noon— Lie the meek members of the Resurrection— Rafter of Satin—and Roof of Stone!
Grand go the Years—in the Crescent—above them— Worlds scoop their Arcs— And Firmaments—row— Diadems—drop—and Doges—surrender— Soundless as dots—on a Disc of Snow—
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The two surviving versions of one of Dickinson’s greatest death poems.
This poem first appeared in 1862 in the Springfield Daily Republican (one of only a handful of Dickinson’s poems to be published in her lifetime) and was originally titled “The Sleeping.” Susan Gilbert, Dickinson’s sister-in-law, with whom she often exchanged letters and whose opinion she valued, offered a critique of “The Sleeping.” Although this particular letter has never been found, Dickinson clearly took it seriously enough to change the entire second stanza of the poem, leaving us with the version of the poem–the second presented here–that is best known today.
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