Emily Dickinson

How Noteless Men, and Pleiads, Stand

poem 282

How Noteless Men, and Pleiads, Stand - fact Summary

Published 1891

This short lyric, first published in the 1891 collection Poems by Emily Dickinson, likens ordinary people and stars to figures who remain unnoticed until one is suddenly taken from sight. The poem frames absence as an invisible, irrevocable removal that exposes human helplessness: we watch equivalents of the celestial "Pleiads" exist beyond our grasp, then see the heavens pass by "without a syllable."

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How noteless Men, and Pleiads, stand, Until a sudden sky Reveals the fact that One is rapt Forever from the Eye Members of the Invisible, Existing, while we stare, In Leagueless Opportunity, O’ertakenless, as the Air Why didn’t we detain Them? The Heavens with a smile, Sweep by our disappointed Heads Without a syllable

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