Emily Dickinson

Safe in their alabaster chambers

Summary


"Safe in their alabaster chambers" is a short poem that looks into a tomb where the faithful sleep, shut away from morning and noon. Above them, the breeze plays, the bee hums and the birds sing, but none of it reaches the sleepers. Centuries pass, empires fall, doges surrender and stars wheel overhead, all soundless as snowflakes. The poem sets quiet stone against restless time, and its closing lines carry a sharp, bittersweet ache.

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SAFE in their alabaster chambers,
Untouched by morning and untouched by noon,
Sleep the meek members of the resurrection,
Rafter of satin, and roof of stone.

Light laughs the breeze in her castle of sunshine;
Babbles the bee in a stolid ear;
Pipe the sweet birds in ignorant cadence,—
Ah, what sagacity perished here!

Grand go the years in the crescent above them;
Worlds scoop their arcs, and firmaments row,
Diadems drop and Doges surrender,
Soundless as dots on a disk of snow.

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Credits

Emily Dickinson was a reclusive American poet of the 19th century, whose compact, dash-filled verses on death and eternity were mostly published after her lifetime. This poem exists in more than one version, and it first appeared in print in 1862, when it was published in the Springfield Republican.