Emily Dickinson

Ah, Necromancy Sweet!

Summary


In "Ah, Necromancy Sweet!", a speaker calls out to an learned wizard and begs to be taught his dark art. The request is strange and unsettling: the speaker wants to master a pain that surgeons cannot soothe and no herb on the plain can heal. In only a few lines, longing, desperation and a hint of dark magic collide, and the poem ends on a single stark word that lingers.

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Ah, Necromancy Sweet!
Ah, Wizard erudite!
Teach me the skill,

Young woman pleads with an old wizard in a candlelit study in the poem Ah, Necromancy Sweet! by Emily Dickinson

That I instil the pain
Surgeons assuage in vain,
Nor Herb of all the plain
Can Heal!

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Credits

Emily Dickinson was an American poet of the 19th century, known for her compact, dashing verse and her unconventional punctuation. This brief piece shows her fascination with the occult and with the limits of medicine, written in just two short stanzas.