The Mystery of Pain by Emily Dickinson

Pain has an element of blank;
It cannot recollect When it began, or if there were A day when it was not.
It has no future but itself,
Its infinite realms contain Its past, enlightened to perceive New periods of pain.

6 points · 2 comments · view on lemmy.world

2 Comments

sin_free_for_00_days@sopuli.xyz · 4 pts · 211d (1 reply)

Just to fix the formatting:

Pain has an element of blank;
It cannot recollect
When it began, or if there were
A day when it was not.

It has no future but itself,
Its infinite realms contain
Its past, enlightened to perceive
New periods of pain.

I first read Dickinson when I was at University. Such a great poet. I think about her sometimes, how almost all of her poetry was found after her death, and how many fine works by others were no doubt never found.

TheReturnOfPEB@reddthat.com · 2 pts · 59d

I'm grateful for the post title being formatted correctly, too. Thankfully Dickinson was prolific as a poet for sure.