After a Hundred Years
After a Hundred Years - meaning Summary
Memory's Fading and Recovery
The poem reflects on how human memory and the scenes of past suffering vanish over time. After a century, the site of agony is unrecognizable, overrun by weeds and visited by strangers who only read the remaining inscription. Yet nature preserves traces: summer winds seem to "recollect the way," and instinct recovers what deliberate memory lost. Dickinson contrasts cultural forgetting with an impersonal, tactile form of remembrance, suggesting that traces of the past persist even when human recognition has faded.
Read Complete AnalysesAfter a hundred years Nobody knows the place,– Agony, that enacted there, Motionless as peace. Weeds triumphant ranged, Strangers strolled and spelled At the lone orthography Of the elder dead. Winds of summer fields Recollect the way,– Instinct picking up the key Dropped by memory.
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