33. “When I was small, a woman died.” Part Four: Time and Eternity. Dickinson, Emily. 1924. Complete Poems

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Emily Dickinson (1830–86). Complete Poems. 1924.

Part Four: Time and Eternity

XXXIII

WHEN I was small, a woman died.
To-day her only boy
Went up from the Potomac,
His face all victory,

To look at her; how slowly	5
The seasons must have turned
Till bullets clipt an angle,
And he passed quickly round!

If pride shall be in Paradise
I never can decide;	10
Of their imperial conduct,
No person testified.

But proud in apparition,
That woman and her boy
Pass back and forth before my brain,	15
As ever in the sky.