A Dying Tiger Moaned for Drink
poem 566
A Dying Tiger Moaned for Drink - context Summary
Written 1863, Published 1914
This short lyric was written in 1863 and first published posthumously in 1914 as part of The Single Hound. No specific occasion or biographical trigger is recorded, so the poem is best read against Dickinson’s mid‑19th‑century manuscript practice: compact, imagistic pieces circulated privately and left unpublished in her lifetime. The poem’s spare narrative—an observer finding water for a dying tiger who nevertheless dies—fits her characteristic focus on mortality, responsibility, and the limits of human intervention, compressed into a few vivid, emblematic lines.
Read Complete AnalysesA Dying Tiger moaned for Drink I hunted all the Sand I caught the Dripping of a Rock And bore it in my Hand His Mighty Balls in death were thick But searching I could see A Vision on the Retina Of Water and of me ‘Twas not my blame who sped too slow ‘Twas not his blame who died While I was reaching him But ’twas the fact that He was dead
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