Emily Dickinson

Bereavement in Their Death to Feel

poem 645

Bereavement in Their Death to Feel - meaning Summary

Grief for Unseen Intimates

The poem considers a paradoxical grief for those we have never met, arguing that a spiritual kinship can make strangers feel like vital intimates. Dickinson explores how death can precede our awareness, leaving survivors stunned and bereft when a presence that animated thought is taken away. The loss is presented as an internal vanishing—an abrupt withdrawal that feels like the soul leaving—emphasizing emotional dislocation and the uncanny intimacy of mourning absent bodies or prior acquaintance.

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Bereavement in their death to feel Whom We have never seen A Vital Kinsmanship import Our Soul and theirs between For Stranger Strangers do not mourn There be Immortal friends Whom Death see first ’tis news of this That paralyze Ourselves Who, vital only to Our Thought Such Presence bear away In dying ’tis as if Our Souls Absconded suddenly

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