(urth) meter of emily

[aramini1 at cox.net]

The interesting thing about a lot of these Dickinson poems to me is that they always seem to have that old hymn rhythm:

a thousand ages in thy sight
are like an evening gone 
short as the watch that ends the night
before the rising sun

Now pick an Emily Dickinson poem at random and scan around it - at least half of her poems fit that syllable scheme


Perhaps the music of the church had a larger influence on her than we can say.