Emily Dickinson

Following

I had no cause to be awake,

My best

Dickinson's phrase for a loved one who has died. She uses this exact construction in other poems about loss.

My best was gone to sleep,
And morn a new politeness took,

Politeness

Morning continues its routine—waking the living—but 'politely' ignores the dead. The word makes death's finality feel like a social snub.

And failed to wake them up,
But called the others clear,
And passed their curtains by.
Sweet morning, when I over-sleep,
Knock, recollect, for me!
I looked at sunrise once,
And then I looked at them,

Wishfulness in me arose

She wants what the dead person has. This is the poem's turn—from observing their peace to wanting to join them.

And wishfulness in me arose
For circumstance the same.
'T was such an ample peace,
It could not hold a sigh,—
'T was Sabbath with the bells divorced,

Sabbath with the bells divorced

The silence of death described as Sunday without church bells—eternal rest without the ritual noise.

'T was sunset all the day.
So choosing but a gown
And taking but a prayer,
The only raiment I should need,

I struggled, and was there

The poem's most debated line. Did she die? Have a vision? The verb 'struggled' suggests effort to cross over, but Dickinson leaves it ambiguous.

I struggled, and was there.
Source Wikipedia Poetry Foundation

Reading Notes

Death as Sleep Logic

Dickinson extends the sleep/death metaphor to its logical extreme. If death is sleep, then morning should wake the dead—but it doesn't. Morning becomes personified as polite, continuing to wake "the others" (the living) while passing by the curtains of the dead. The word "politeness" is doing heavy work here: it makes death's permanence feel like a deliberate social exclusion, as if morning is tactfully avoiding an awkward situation.

The speaker's request—"Sweet morning, when I over-sleep, / Knock, recollect, for me!"—reveals the poem's desire. She wants to be left sleeping (dead) like her "best" was. The verb "recollect" means both "remember" and "collect again"—she's asking morning to remember to skip her too, to add her to the group of the permanently asleep.

This sets up the central tension: she's alive but wants the condition of the dead. The rest of the poem describes that condition and her attempt to reach it.

The Physics of Dying

Stanzas 3-4 describe death with unusual precision. "Ample peace" is peace so large "It could not hold a sigh"—not that it won't hold one, but that it *cannot*. There's no room for sighs because the peace is total, complete. "Sabbath with the bells divorced" captures death's silence: the rest of Sunday without the noise of church bells, the sacredness without the ritual.

"'T was sunset all the day" is the poem's most compressed image. Sunset—the transition between day and night—stretched into permanence. Death as perpetual threshold, eternal in-between. Not darkness, but the moment before darkness, held forever.

The final stanza shifts to action. She takes "but a gown" and "but a prayer"—the word "but" (meaning "only") appears twice, emphasizing how little is needed. These are burial clothes and last rites compressed into preparation. Then: "I struggled, and was there." The struggle suggests this isn't literal death but a visionary experience, a near-death moment, or perhaps a poem written from beyond. Dickinson characteristically refuses to clarify. The comma between "struggled" and "was there" is the entire journey—effort, then arrival, with the method left blank.