Emily Dickinson (1830–86). Complete Poems. 1924. |
Part Three: Love
XIV
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| I ’M ceded, I ’ve stopped being theirs; | |
| The name they dropped upon my face | |
| With water, in the country church, | |
| Is finished using now, | |
| And they can put it with my dolls, | 5 |
| My childhood, and the string of spools | |
| I ’ve finished threading too. | |
| |
| Baptized before without the choice, | |
| But this time consciously, of grace | |
| Unto supremest name, | 10 |
| Called to my full, the crescent dropped, | |
| Existence’s whole arc filled up | |
| With one small diadem. | |
| |
| My second rank, too small the first, | |
| Crowned, crowing on my father’s breast, | 15 |
| A half unconscious queen; | |
| But this time, adequate, erect, | |
| With will to choose or to reject, | |
| And I choose—just a throne. | |
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