A Great Hope Fell
A Great Hope Fell - meaning Summary
Quiet Collapse of Hope
The poem depicts a sudden, inward collapse of hope that produces no outward sound. Dickinson focuses on the inner mechanics of grief: the mind designed to bear great weight, small wounds that are denied until they expand, and life draining into the breach. Imagery of shipwreck and carpentry conveys helplessness and a final, practical sealing of feeling. The tone is restrained and observational, portraying emotional devastation as a private, methodical process in which pain is both unacknowledged and ultimately shut away.
Read Complete AnalysesA great Hope fell You heard no noise The Ruin was within Oh cunning wreck that told no tale And let no Witness in The mind was built for mighty Freight For dread occasion planned How often foundering at Sea Ostensibly, on Land A not admitting of the wound Until it grew so wide That all my Life had entered it And there were troughs beside A closing of the simple lid That opened to the sun Until the tender Carpenter Perpetual nail it down –
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