Emily Dickinson

Mine

Summary


"Mine" is a short poem by Emily Dickinson in which a speaker declares possession with escalating, almost defiant force. Each line stakes a claim through images of royal seals, white elections and scarlet prison bars, as if love were a legal charter. The mood is feverish and triumphant, and the stakes are nothing less than whether devotion can survive the grave and the slow theft of the ages. In just two stanzas, the voice grows bolder and more intoxicated.

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MINE by the right of the white election!
Mine by the royal seal!
Mine by the sign in the scarlet prison
Bars cannot conceal!

Mine, hear in vision and in veto!
Mine, by the grave’s repeal
Titled, confirmed,—delirious charter!
Mine, while the ages steal!

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Credits

Emily Dickinson was a reclusive 19th-century American poet whose compact, dash-filled verse was largely unpublished in her lifetime. "Mine" borrows the language of law and royalty, with words like "veto," "repeal," "charter" and "seal," to describe a claim that is emotional rather than legal.