Heaven Is What I Cannot Reach!

Heaven Is What I Cannot Reach! - context Summary

Composed 1861

Written in 1861 and published posthumously in 1890, Emily Dickinson’s "Heaven Is What I Cannot Reach!" frames paradise as an elusive, earthly impression rather than a doctrinal promise. The speaker locates heaven in distant, sensory glimpses—the apple on a tree, a colored cloud, a house beyond a hill—and treats these moments as tantalizing and unattainable. The poem reflects Dickinson’s recurring preoccupations with desire, absence, and the spiritual life, presenting paradise as both intimate and forever out of reach rather than as a secured reward.