I Never Saw a Moor

I Never Saw a Moor - context Summary

Published 1891, Reclusive Voice

Written by Emily Dickinson and first published posthumously in 1891 in Poems by Emily Dickinson, Second Series, the poem links the poet’s limited travel and private life to a confident imaginative faith. Dickinson admits she has never seen certain physical or spiritual places but insists on knowing them inwardly. The poem uses this contrast to underline how conviction and imagination can substitute for direct experience, reflecting Dickinson’s reclusive habits and her habit of equating inner perception with certainty about God and heaven.