There's a certain slant of light | There's a certain slant of light

There's a certain slant of light

Language: English

Our translations: FRE GER

There's a certain slant of light,
On winter afternoons,
That oppresses, like the weight
Of cathedral tunes.

Heavenly hurt it gives us;
We can find no scar,
But internal difference
Where the meanings are.

None may teach it anything,
'T is the seal, despair, -
An imperial affliction
Sent us of the air.

When it comes, the landscape listens,
Shadows hold their breath;
When it goes, 't is like the distance
On the look of death.

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Text Authorship:

by Emily Dickinson (1830 - 1886), no title, appears in Poems of Emily Dickinson, first published 1890 [author's text not yet checked 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 Ernst Bacon (1898 - 1990), "Winter afternoons", published 1971 [ SA chorus and piano ], from Nature [sung text not yet checked]
by Robert F. Baksa (b. 1938), "There's a certain slant of light", published 1978 [ mezzo-soprano, piano ], from Emily Dickinson Songs, no. 12 [sung text not yet checked]
by Ronald A. Beckett , "Winter: There’s a certain slant of light", 2006 [ voice and piano ], from The Seasons: Four Poems of Emily Dickinson, no. 1 [sung text not yet checked]
by Sharon Davis (b. 1937), "There's a certain slant of light", published 1981 [ soprano and piano trio ], from Three Moods of Emily Dickinson [sung text not yet checked]
by Peter Dickinson (b. 1934), "There's a certain slant of light", published 1974 [ AATTBB chorus and contrabass ], from cantata Winter Afternoons [sung text not yet checked]
by Daniel Rogers Pinkham (1923 - 2006), "There's a certain slant of light", published 1974 [ medium voice and electronic tape ], from Safe in their Alabaster Chambers [sung text not yet checked]
by Richard Pearson Thomas (b. 1957), "There's a certain slant of light", from At last, to be identified, no. 5 [sung text not yet checked]

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

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

This text was added to the website between May 1995 and September 2003.
Line count: 16
Word count: 75