Renunciation

Summary


Renunciation is a short Emily Dickinson poem about a single summer day that arrives like a revelation. Two people share a silence so complete that words feel unnecessary, even profane. The sun rises and the flowers bloom as if nothing has changed, while the hours slip away and two faces look back from ships bound for opposite shores. Religious imagery gives this farewell the weight of a sacrament. It asks what love can promise when parting is unavoidable.

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THERE came a day at summer’s full
Entirely for me;
I thought that such were for the saints,
Where revelations be.

The sun, as common, went abroad,
The flowers, accustomed, blew,
As if no soul the solstice passed
That maketh all things new.

The time was scarce profaned by speech;
The symbol of a word
Was needless, as at sacrament
The wardrobe of our Lord.

Each was to each the sealed church,
Permitted to commune this time,
Lest we too awkward show
At supper of the Lamb.

The hours slid fast, as hours will,
Clutched tight by greedy hands;
So faces on two decks look back,
Bound to opposing lands.

And so, when all the time had failed,
Without external sound,
Each bound the other’s crucifix,
We gave no other bond.

Sufficient troth that we shall rise—
Deposed, at length, the grave—
To that new marriage, justified
Through Calvaries of Love!


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Credits

Emily Dickinson was a reclusive 19th-century American poet from Amherst, Massachusetts, whose compact, dash-filled verse was largely unpublished in her lifetime. Here she uses communion and crucifix imagery to turn a private parting into something sacred.