Emily Dickinson

A clock stopped—not the mantel’s

Summary


"A clock stopped—not the mantel's" is an Emily Dickinson poem that watches a life end through the image of a failing timepiece. A puppet-like figure freezes mid-bow, the numbers hunch in pain, and the pendulum turns to snow. Doctors and a pleading shopman can do nothing against a cool, unmoved "No." In four short stanzas, Dickinson sets the tiny ticking of the dial against the vast stillness of death.

Listen to audio


Read Online

A Clock stopped –
Not the Mantel’s –
Geneva’s farthest skill
Can’t put the puppet bowing –
That just now dangled still –

An awe came on the Trinket!
The Figures hunched, with pain –
Then quivered out of Decimals –
Into Degreeless Noon –

Stopped puppet clock with a snow pendulum, a shopman and doctor looking on, for Emily Dickinson's "A clock stopped".

It will not stir for Doctors –
This Pendulum of snow –
This Shopman importunes it –
While cool – concernless No –

Nods from the Gilded pointers –
Nods from the Seconds slim –
Decades of Arrogance between
The Dial life –
And Him –

Add Ririro as a Preferred Source on Google
Related tags
, , , , , , ,

Credits

Emily Dickinson was a 19th-century American poet from Amherst, Massachusetts, known for her compact, dash-filled verse on death, time and eternity. This poem draws on Geneva's famed clockmaking, with its mechanical figures, to picture a human life stopping.