One dignity delays for all,
One mitred afternoon.
None can avoid this purple,
None evade this crown.
Coach it insures, and footmen,
Chamber and state and throng;
Bells, also, in the village,
As we ride grand along.
What dignified attendants,
What service when we pause!
How loyally at parting
Their hundred hats they raise!
How pomp surpassing ermine,
When simple you and I
Present our meek escutcheon,
And claim the rank to die!
Credits
Emily Dickinson was a 19th-century American poet whose unconventional style — slant rhyme, dashes, and compressed imagery — made her one of the most distinctive voices in English literature. "One Dignity Delays for All" is among the poems published posthumously, as Dickinson shared fewer than a dozen works during her lifetime, keeping the vast majority of her nearly 1,800 poems private.
