Emily Dickinson

Two swimmers wrestled on the spar

Summary


"Two Swimmers Wrestled on the Spar" is a short poem by Emily Dickinson that opens on two figures locked in a desperate struggle for survival through the night. At dawn, only one turns smiling toward the shore — the fate of the other left hanging in a single, gut-punch line. The second stanza shifts to the drowned figure drifting past passing ships, eyes still raised and hands still pleading, turning survival's relief into something deeply unsettling.

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Two swimmers wrestled on the spar
Until the morning sun,
When one turned smiling to the land.
O God, the other one!

The stray ships passing spied a face
Upon the waters borne,
With eyes in death still begging raised,
And hands beseeching thrown.

Credits

Emily Dickinson (1830–1886) was an American poet now regarded as one of the most original voices in literary history, though she published very little during her lifetime. This poem's vivid image of beseeching hands and open eyes in death is characteristic of her unflinching fascination with mortality rendered in stark, compressed verse.
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