Emily Dickinson

I had no time to hate, because

Summary


In "I had no time to hate, because," Emily Dickinson weighs love against enmity in just eight lines. The speaker looks at life's brevity and the grave waiting at the end, and decides that hatred is a task there is no time to finish. Love is not an obvious alternative, yet it becomes a quiet, modest labor. The mood is wry, restrained and reflective, with a surprising turn in the second stanza.

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I HAD no time to hate, because
The grave would hinder me,
And life was not so ample I
Could finish enmity.

Nor had I time to love; but since
Some industry must be,
The little toil of love, I thought,
Was large enough for me.

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Credits

Emily Dickinson was a 19th-century American poet from Amherst, Massachusetts, known for her compact, dash-filled verse and her sharp meditations on death and love. Most of her poems were published only after her death, and this one reflects her habit of framing deep feeling through the language of work and "industry."