ON this long storm the rainbow rose,
On this late morn the sun;
The clouds, like listless elephants,
Horizons straggled down.
The birds rose smiling in their nests,
The gales indeed were done;
Alas! how heedless were the eyes
On whom the summer shone!
The quiet nonchalance of death
No daybreak can bestir;
The slow archangel’s syllables
Must awaken her.
Credits
Emily Dickinson (1830–1886) was an American poet now regarded as one of the most original voices in literary history, though she published fewer than a dozen poems during her lifetime. This poem's closing image — the "slow archangel's syllables" as the only force capable of rousing the dead — reflects her lifelong preoccupation with mortality and the uncertain boundary between earthly existence and whatever lies beyond it.
