Emily Dickinson

A Death blow is a Life blow to Some

Summary


"A Death blow is a Life blow to Some" is a short poem that turns a familiar idea on its head in just four lines. Emily Dickinson imagines people who never truly came alive until the moment they died, and who might have died inwardly had they gone on living. Death and vitality swap places, leaving a quiet paradox about what it means to live. Read it online and decide what you make of its riddle.

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A Death blow is a Life blow to Some
Who till they died, did not alive become—
Who had they lived, had died but when
They died, Vitality begun.

A woman in a dim room touches a blooming flower in dawn light, illustrating Emily Dickinson's poem A Death blow is a Life blow to Some
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Credits

Emily Dickinson was a 19th-century American poet from Amherst, Massachusetts, known for her compressed lines, slant rhyme and signature dashes. Most of her nearly 1,800 poems were published only after her death, which gives this meditation on death and life an added resonance.