As If the Sea Should Part
poem 695
As If the Sea Should Part - context Summary
Composed in 1863
Written in 1863 and published posthumously in 1914 within The Single Hound, this short Dickinson poem uses the image of one sea revealing another to suggest an ungraspable, layered conception of eternity. It reflects Dickinson’s preoccupations of the early 1860s with the unknown and with metaphysical scale, framing eternity as successive "Periods of Seas" beyond human visitation. The poem questions the presumption of fully knowing what lies beyond present bounds while implying that those unvisited margins themselves constitute eternity.
Read Complete AnalysesAs if the Sea should part And show a further Sea And that a further and the Three But a presumption be Of Periods of Seas Unvisited of Shores Themselves the Verge of Seas to be Eternity is Those
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