Ah, Teneriffe!

• Summary
• Listen to audio
• Read Online
• Download PDF
• Credits
• Related stories
• Related collections
• More languages

Summary

"Ah, Teneriffe!" is a short poem in which Emily Dickinson turns a distant mountain into a silent monarch at the close of day. Sunset reviews her sapphire regiment, and daylight drops a red farewell, yet the peak stands unmoved in its mail of ice, its thigh of granite and thew of steel. Heedless of pomp or parting, it draws only one gesture from the speaker: a quiet, lasting act of reverence. Read it in under a minute.

---

Listen to audio

---

Read Online

Ah, Teneriffe!
Retreating Mountain!
Purples of Ages—pause for you—
Sunset—reviews her Sapphire Regiment—
Day—drops you her Red Adieu!

Still—Clad in your Mail of ices—
Thigh of Granite—and thew—of Steel—
Heedless—alike—of pomp—or parting

Ah, Teneriffe!
I’m kneeling—still—

---

---

---

Credits

Emily Dickinson was a 19th-century American poet from Amherst, Massachusetts, celebrated for her compressed, dash-filled verse. She never saw Tenerife, the Canary Island whose famous peak inspired this poem, and imagined it through her reading.

---