Papa above!
Regard a mouse
O'erpowered by the Cat!
Reserve within thy kingdom
A "Mansion" for the Rat!

Snug in seraphic Cupboards
To nibble all the day,
While unsuspecting Cycles
Wheel [solemnly]1 away.

About the headline (FAQ)

View text without footnotes
Confirmed with The Poems of Emily Dickinson, ed. R.W. Franklin, Volume 1, Cambridge, MA and London, England: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1998, Poem 151 (Version B).

¹ In Version A: „ pompously“

Text Authorship:

• by Emily Dickinson (1830 - 1886), no title [author's text checked 1 time against a primary source]

Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):

• by Alison Bauld (b. 1944), "The Rat", first performed 2024 [ soprano and piano ], from I Shall Not Live in Vain, no. 3 [sung text not yet checked]
• by Julian Philips (b. 1969), "The rat", 1997/2002, published 2007 [ high voice and piano ], from An Amherst Bestiary, no. 10, Peters Edition [sung text checked 1 time]

Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):

• GER German (Deutsch) (Sharon Krebs) , "Die Ratte", copyright © 2014, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

Researcher for this page: Sharon Krebs [Senior Associate Editor]

This text was added to the website: 2014-08-28
Line count: 9
Word count: 34