Poetry Archives

A continuing selection of classic and contemporary poems.

Emily Dickinson

1497

Facts by our side are never sudden
Until they look around
And then they scare us like a spectre
Protruding from the Ground—

The height of our portentous Neighbor
We never know—
Till summoned to his recognition
By an Adieu—

Adieu for whence
The sage cannot conjecture
The bravest die
As ignorant of their resumption
As you or I—

Online text © 1998-2008 Poetry X. All rights reserved.
From The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson | Written c. 1880

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