Emancipation

Summary


Emancipation is a short poem by Emily Dickinson that asks whether a person can truly be imprisoned. In four compact stanzas, a bold voice insists that no rack, saw or scimitar can touch the soul, because a second, braver self lives behind the body. The mood is defiant yet calm, and an eagle leaving its nest becomes a striking image of escape. The closing lines turn the idea inward, suggesting the real captor may be your own mind.

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NO rack can torture me,
My soul ‘s at liberty.
Behind this mortal bone
There knits a bolder one

You cannot prick with saw,
Nor rend with scymitar.
Two bodies therefore be;
Bind one, and one will flee.

The eagle of his nest
No easier divest
And gain the sky,
Than mayest thou.

Except thyself may be
Thine enemy;
Captivity is consciousness,
So ‘s liberty.



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Credits

Emily Dickinson was a reclusive 19th-century American poet, known for her slant rhyme, dashes and strikingly original treatment of death, nature and the soul. Fittingly, this poem about inner freedom comes from a writer who lived much of her life in quiet seclusion in Amherst, Massachusetts.