The Modern PoetFor your words and others.
Release 15
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THE MODERN POET

I measure every grief I meet

By Emily Dickinson

I measure every grief I meet With analytic eyes; I wonder if it weighs like mine, Or has an easier size. I wonder if they bore it long, Or did it just begin? I could not tell the date of mine, It feels so old a pain. I wonder if it hurts to live, And if they have to try, And whether, could they choose between, They would not rather die. I wonder if when years have piled -- Some thousands -- on the cause Of early hurt, if such a lapse Could give them any pause; Or would they go on aching still Through centuries above, Enlightened to a larger pain By contrast with the love. The grieved are many, I am told; The reason deeper lies, -- Death is but one and comes but once, And only nails the eyes. There's grief of want, and grief of cold, -- A sort they call 'despair;' There's banishment from native eyes, In sight of native air. And though I may not guess the kind Correctly, yet to me A piercing comfort it affords In passing Calvary, To note the fashions of the cross, Of those that stand alone, Still fascinated to presume That some are like my own.

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Poetry data from PoetryDB, curated by The Combed Thunderclap · metadata CC BY 4.0 · Public-domain poem text (USA)

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