After great pain | After great pain, a formal feeling comes –

After great pain, a formal feeling comes...

Language: English

Our translations: FRE GER GER

After great pain, a formal feeling comes –
The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs –
The stiff Heart questions 'was it He, that bore,'
And 'Yesterday, or Centuries before'?

The Feet, mechanical, go round –
A Wooden way
Of Ground, or Air, or Ought –
Regardless grown,
A Quartz contentment, like a stone –

This is the Hour of Lead –
Remembered, if outlived,
As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow –
First – Chill – then Stupor – then the letting go –

About the headline (FAQ)

Confirmed with THE POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON: READING EDITION, edited by Ralph W. Franklin, ed., Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Copyright © 1998, 1999 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. Copyright © 1951, 1955, 1979, 1983 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College.

Text Authorship:

by Emily Dickinson (1830 - 1886), no title, written 1862, appears in Further poems of Emily Dickinson [author's text checked 2 times 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 Gloria Coates (b. 1938), "After great pain", from 15 Songs on Poems by Emily Dickinson, no. 1 [sung text checked 1 time]
by Scott Gendel (b. 1977), "After great pain", 2005 [ voice and piano ], from Forgotten Light, no. 7 [sung text not yet checked]
by Sylvia Glickman (1932 - 2006), "After great pain" [sung text not yet checked]

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

Research team for this page: Emily Ezust [Administrator] , Bertram Kottmann

This text was added to the website between May 1995 and September 2003.
Line count: 13
Word count: 83