Had We Our Senses

Had We Our Senses - meaning Summary

Limits of Perception

The poem argues that human limitations of perception may be a kind of protection. Dickinson suggests that if our senses were fully present we might be too close to madness or too able to witness an overwhelming, unmoving Earth. Blindness and partial absence of faculties are framed not as loss but as a safeguard that preserves mental stability and spares us from a devastating clarity about the world.