Explore "It was not Death, for I Stood Up" by Emily Dickinson on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
It was not death, for I stood up, / And all the dead lie down; / It was not night, for all the bells / Put out their tongues, for noon.
It was not frost, for on my flesh / I felt siroccos crawl, -- / Nor fire, for just my marble feet / Could keep a chancel cool.
And yet it tasted like them all; / The figures I have seen / Set orderly, for burial, / Reminded me of mine,
As if my life were shaven / And fitted to a frame, / And could not breathe without a key; / And 't was like midnight, some,
When everything that ticked has stopped, / And space stares, all around, / Or grisly frosts, first autumn morns, / Repeal the beating ground.
But most like chaos, -- stopless, cool, -- / Without a chance or spar, / Or even a report of land / To justify despair.