Emily Dickinson

Called Back

Death's false alarm

She thought she was dying ('saved' = going to heaven) but got yanked back to life. The 'disappointed tide' is death itself, receding like a wave that didn't claim her.

JUST lost when I was saved!
Just felt the world go by!
Just girt me for the onset with eternity,
When breath blew back,
And on the other side
I heard recede the disappointed tide!
Therefore, as one returned, I feel,
Odd secrets of the line to tell!
Some sailor, skirting foreign shores,
Some pale reporter from the awful doors

Near-death authority

She's claiming expertise from almost dying—like a sailor who's seen foreign lands or a reporter who got past heaven's doors. The 'seal' suggests secrets officially witnessed.

Before the seal!
Next time, to stay!
Next time, the things to see

Sensory reversal

Death inverts the senses—you'll hear what was never heard, see what was never scrutinized. She's describing the afterlife's perceptual rules.

By ear unheard,
Unscrutinized by eye.
Next time, to tarry,
While the ages steal,—

Geological patience

In death, she'll watch time from outside it—centuries marching past like soldiers, cosmic cycles turning. 'Tarry' means to linger, to stay and observe.

Slow tramp the centuries,
And the cycles wheel.
Source Wikipedia Poetry Foundation

Reading Notes

The Near-Death Experience as Credential

CONTEXT Dickinson nearly died multiple times and wrote obsessively about death—over a third of her 1,800 poems. This one treats a close call as giving her insider knowledge.

The poem splits into before (stanzas 1-2) and after (stanzas 3-4). The first half describes the moment: she's 'girt' (girded, prepared) for eternity when her breath returns and death's tide recedes 'disappointed'—a stunning personification that makes death the frustrated party. She's the one who got away.

The second half is her promise to herself: 'Next time, to stay!' She's not relieved to be alive—she's planning her return trip. The three professions she claims—sailor, reporter, witness—all emphasize the same thing: she's been somewhere and has information to share. The 'seal' suggests official testimony, like a notarized document. She's treating death as investigative journalism.

Time Outside Time

The final stanza is pure longing. Notice the shift from frantic present tense ('Just lost! Just felt!') to patient future: 'to tarry, / While the ages steal.'

Dickinson imagines death as a vantage point where you watch geological time pass. 'Slow tramp the centuries' uses military language—time marches like soldiers, but slowly, because you're outside it. The 'cycles wheel' suggests cosmic rotations, astronomical time. She wants to be a spectator to eternity.

The phrase 'By ear unheard, / Unscrutinized by eye' is syntactically tricky—it means things never heard by living ears, never examined by living eyes. Death grants access to a sensory dimension the living can't reach. For a poet who spent her life in one house, rarely leaving her room, this is the ultimate escape: not travel, but transcendence of time itself.