Emily Dickinson

I Found the Phrase to Every Thought

I Found the Phrase to Every Thought - meaning Summary

Language Meets the Ineffable

The speaker claims to have found words for every thought except one, which resists articulation. They compare the difficulty to futile attempts to represent intense light or color with inadequate means, or to teach luminous phenomena to those raised in darkness. The poem centers on language’s limits and the stubbornness of an ineffable experience that eludes translation into ordinary phrases.

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I found the phrase to every thought I ever had, but one; And that defies me,–as a hand Did try to chalk the sun To races nurtured in the dark;– How would your own begin? Can blaze be done in cochineal, Or noon in mazarin?

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